Life is the art of drawing without an eraser

...which is why you really need to practice drawing in pen and ink!

10 reasons to draw in pen and ink

When you draw in pen and ink you'll learn...

1. How to observe

When you can't erase, you'll find you learn to become much more observant and practice looking more carefully on a routine basis when you're drawing.

Drawing with a pen and without an eraser means you slow down at first and pay more attention to how and where you make marks

2. How to become develop motor control and become confident in your drawing

After you learned how to observe and practised and trained both your eye and your hand, you also become much more confident when drawing.

I now frequently draw using a pen without looking at the page - it's the drawing equivalent of touch typing!

This is a video of me drawing trees at Chartwell with a pen - it's not speeded up.

3. How to hatch

.....because that's how you create tone when drawing with a line

A head with absolutely no contour lines
drawn entirely from observation
using hatching lines
pen and ink
Katherine Tyrrell

4. How to make marks in different ways

.....because it's fun and effective to draw in ways which don't involve lines.

Plus you also need to learn ways to resolve those mistakes you made....

This drawing of a garden with flowers by Vincent van Gogh
uses all sort of different marks - lines, hatching, dots, circles, - to create the overall effect

5. How many implements can be used to draw with when using ink

I've got a number of favourite and very different pens - and I've also very much enjoyed trying new ways of drawing with ink.

Examples of Artists' Statements

Have you ever wondered what the artist statement of famous artists look like?

Jeff Koons, Artist, New York City,
Studio Portrait by Chris Fanning

I've been developing a page devoted to Examples of Artists Statements on Art Business Info for Artists. Or should that be "Artist Statements by Artists"?

Anyway, I think it's a great idea to see examples of what famous and successful artists have to say about their art - it can be very instructive.  It's also very interesting how websites and what artists have to say about their work changes as their careers progress and they become more and more successful.

So I sat down and did an exercise of looking and looking at the websites of various artists. It was fascinating and had some unexpected results.

Famous Artists

These include artists in the USA and UK and one from Germany.

• Jeff Koons
• Cindy Sherman
• David Hockney
• Anish Kapoor



Gerhard Richter
Fotograf: Hans Peter Schaefe

• Peter Doig
• Richard Long
• Damien Hirst
• Banksy
• Tracy Emin
• Gerhard Richter

Professional Artists

I then started to take a look at the artist statements of various well known and successful professional artists including:

• Duane Keiser 
• David Leffel 
• Kevin McPherson
• Albert Handell 
• Ken Howard
• June Berry 
• David Curtis

I intend to keep developing these lists - not least because how artists write about their intentions and their work is absolutely fascinating!

To that end I'm now looking for

• any recommendations of artist statements on the websites of famous and/or successful professional artists you like - and 
• great artist statements for artists outside the USA and UK

If you've got one that you'd like to recommend please highlight it in a comment below

READ MORE about artist statements on my website: HOW TO WRITE AN ARTIST'S STATEMENT

• What is an artist statement?
• Why you need an artist's statement
• How to write an artist statement (TIPS)
• The language of an Artist's Statement - serious and humorous
• What you need to include - and what you need to leave out
• Visual matters: how and where to present your Artist Statement

Urban Sketchers: Gabi Campanario steps down

A major announcement by Gabi Campanario today - he's stepping down from the Board of Urban Sketchers.

Dear fellow urban sketchers,

Since setting up the Urban Sketchers nonprofit in 2009, I've been quite involved with most operational aspects of the organization, from filing government forms and dealing with bank accounts to setting up blogs, organizing events and recruiting volunteers.

As Urban Sketchers has grown and thrived, many others have contributed their time and efforts, and we've built a solid and sustainable nonprofit. That level of shared commitment and belief in our mission is why I feel comfortable that we've reached the point in our natural evolution for the founder to take the back seat. After my term expires in December, I'll no longer be part of the Executive Board.

But I'm not wandering off too far. I have offered to serve on the Advisory Board and plan to continue contributing as a blog editor and correspondent.

I'm very proud of the work we do as a nonprofit, organizing an exhilarating international Symposium every year, promoting workshops and publishing blogs.

It makes a difference in the way people see the world and connect with each other.

I hear it all the time: "Urban Sketchers has changed my life!" people tell me. And I reply the same way: "It has changed mine, too!"

Gratefully and respectfully yours,

gabi

Gabi Campanario has given so very much in terms of time and effort to Urban Sketchers that it seems remiss not to try and mark this change in some way.

Below I've got a timeline - and a few images and links - which those of you who came to Urban Sketchers late in the day may well find interesting, while the rest of us reflect on just how long it has been since Gabi had a very good idea!

Urban Sketchers Timeline - a Gabi perspective

• 2007: Gabi begins the Urban Sketchers story - and creates a Flickr group for those interested in urban sketching.  This is the original group.

In 2007, a global community of urban sketchers began to form when Seattle-based journalist and illustrator Gabriel Campanario created an online forum “for all sketchers out there who love to draw the cities where they live and visit, from the window of their homes, from a cafe, at a park, standing by a street corner... always on location, not from photos or memory.”  Our history

•  2008: The Urban Sketchers blog was set up by Gabi - who invited others to join. I feel very privileged to say I was one of the original 100 who joined Urban Sketchers in the very early days. Here's a link to Gabi's introduction as a correspondent - Meet the correspondents: SEATTLE > Gabi Campanario - dated 29th October 2008. (The following day I was introducing myself!)

I've been really busy!

I've had one of those weeks with lots of different things going on - all of which have contrived to keep me from writing a 'normal' blog post on Making A Mark

However I've learned a few lessons on the way and you can find them below under headings which loosely describe what they are about.

Art Societies in the UK

The new website/blog for Art Societies in the UK
http://www.artsocietiesuk.com

I've published a new blog - called Art Societies in the UK

A comprehensive compendium of art societies in the UK - including information and advice about art society exhibitions, blogs and other activities

but I need to work out why, as yet, it won't produce a feed for Facebook or Feedburner!

It's the first time I've used a "proper" domain name (did you know you can do that in Blogger) as opposed to just having a blogspot one.  I think I've got to go and check all the CNAME settings to make sure I've done them properly!

Anyway - this site resurrects one I originally set up in 2009. However, by putting it on a blog it means I can:

• profile individual art societies
• announce exhibitions around the country
• advice specifically for art societies

You can read what I'm trying to do in Introducing Art Societies in the UK. Esssentially the Pages will hold the static data and the blog posts will communicate new events and information.

I'll be adding in information about the art societies with a geograpical bias outside London as soon as I get a minute.

Do tell me what you think about the NEW way I've presented information about the art societies in Greater London.

Marketing - What do you say about you and your art on your website?

I've started - but not yet finished a blog post about the ING Discerning Eye selected artists. I'm about two thirds way through finding the website links to the artists selected for the ING Discerning Eye - but there's only so much of that task I can do without going cross-eyed! Hence it needs to be done in concentrated bursts!

What I did learn is that there are an amazing number of artists who can't or won't say what they do in one sentence or a couple of lines.

This is a BIG marketing lesson for those who write loads of words but don't provide a succinct summary.

In effect imagine you get in a lift and are getting off at the next floor - that's the amount of time you have for your "elevator pitch" - short and snappy, attractive and accurate - and all about what you do or what your art is or whichever way you want to get people interested in your art.

I ended up writing against one artist's name

lots of words on her website but lacks a succinct summary

So go to your website and imagine you are me and ask your self this question.....

Can you quickly find a neat summary of who you are and what your art is about?

Art Group Exhibitions

I've been fairly preoccupied this week with the preparations for the upcoming exhibition by London Urban Sketchers at the newest branch of the awardwinning Timberyard company - between 2nd November 2015 - 30th April 2016.  See:

• London Urban Sketchers 2015 Exhibition + sketchcrawl
• Call for Entries: Urban Sketchers Exhibition 2015

The biggest challenge has been working out how many pictures you can get on a wall of a specified size - and hence what needs to be the upper limited on the dimensions of framed artwork!

Today I've been drafting the Entry Form and Terms and Conditions which has been 'fun' (!) and trying to strike the right balance between making it short and accessible and at the same time protecting the interests of all parties.

It's been a few years since I last drafted an entry form and terms and conditions page (and interetingly I look each year and it's still in use!). This time I decided to model it on the Mall Galleries Terms and Conditions - which are very informative as to the things to watch out for. Bear in mind every disaster known to art exhibitions will at one time or another have happened  to them - or been headed off by their T&C.

I know I spotted a few new things which are worth having a think about.

I'll be writing a longer post about this on the new art societies blog in due course!

A new way of blogging

I guess the big change I've made in 2015 is I now tending towards having more dedicated blogs. Which is a bit of a risk as it can become easy to neglect them.

I've just posted to Making A Mark Reviews after months of no posts (while I sorted lots of other sites out) - but this was an important one - see Winsor & Newton change watercolour paint tubes - again!

However I'm not finding it all difficult to come up with a post every week to 10 days on Botanical Art and Artists - and this was the quickie I posted this morning Mally Francis is "Remembering Heligan".

There's a lot to be said for quick and informational posts which take no more than 15 minutes to put together.

The Big Draw - October 2015

This is the 16th year of The Big Draw - which takes place throughout October in various countries across the world as well as across the UK

Last year 414,000 people attended over 1800 events by more than 1000 organisers across 26 countries! Now that's BIG!

The theme is announced via drawing

Key facts for anybody interested in drawing 

....or knows children, young people, adults or older people who like to draw

Big Draw Map of  Events across the UK

• There are events all over the UK throughout October. They include a drawing event, exhibition or workshop. You can: 
• Find out where these are on the Big Draw map (much better this year!)
• You can even locate International Drawing Events which have registered with the Big Draw
• Sign up to our newsletter to receive alerts whenever a Big Draw event arrives near you.
• This year's theme is Every Drawing Tells a Story
• There's a BIG Draw Competition - inviting you to design a logo
• The Big Draw’s first Architecture Drawing Day will be launched in partnership with the RIBA (10 October, London). This includes a series of workshops to encourage different approaches to drawing buildings and places, including  RIBA Explore and Draw, Drawing through a lens and more.
• On 11 October there is Drawing the World Sunday 11 October, 11 – 4 pm at Granary Square, King’s Cross. There will be activities all day - including a lot particularly suitable for children. More details here on the blog.
• There are also  lots of resources for encouraging Drawing in Schools
• These are the nice people who provide the facilities and funding which makes this all happen.

Plus allied to the Big Draw is the Ruskin Prize art competition - which I've written about previously. See The John Ruskin Prize 2015: Call for Entries - Making a Mark (29 Jun 2015) Overview of the Call for Entries for the John Ruskin Prize 2015 - on a theme of 'Recording Britain Now: Society'. Deadline: 23 November 2015