Sunday, August 28, 2011

28th August 2011 - Who's made a mark this week?

This week I got to see what goes in to setting up an exhibition of Miniature Artwork when I visited the Mall Galleries on Tuesday to see Bite: Artists Making Prints - the new Printmaking Exhibition.

The North Gallery had been taken over by The Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers who were preparing selected miniatures for their Annual Exhibition - which opens in October.

RSMGS - Annual Miniature Art Exhibition - in preparation
I learned about the process which goes something like this:
  • Saturday - artwork delivered for consideration
  • Sunday - panel selects artwork for the Exhibition
  • Monday - artwork placed in cases
  • Tuesday - artwork numbered, pinned (to secure it in place and stop it moving around when the cases are moved), cleaned and photographed for the catalogue and website
  • Wednesday - judging for prizes - prior to cases being moved to secure storage prior to exhibition
I also learned about a very special loan exhibition concerning Royal Portrait Miniatures which I'll be writing about next week.

Update on the glasses: As reported on Monday I started this week with no intermediate glasses for viewing my computer screen - which made trying to post a bit weird.  I collected my new titanium glasses on Wednesday and these are now in front of my eyes and I can now see fine again!  Of course the old computer glasses which had completely disappeared turned up on Thursday!  The only consolation was that they had been through about three lens changes, had been losing their fitness for purpose due to wear and tear and really needed replacing....

Artists and Art Blogs


Drawing and Sketching
Sketching the visitors to the BP Portrait Exhibition 2011 (1)
11" x 16", pen and sepia ink in double page spread of A4 size Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell
Painting
Portraiture
  • This weeek I've included some blogs by artists who got selected for the BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2011 
Printmaking

After seeing the new contemporary printmaking exhibition on Tuesday I started looking around for printmaking sites
Book art

Book artists do seem to have their own very particular set of interests relating to their form of art - types of paper, book-binding, calligraphy and printing. Here are some blogs by book artists
Sculpture
  • Giant paint brush now part of Philadelphia's outdoor art scene (thanks to new Twitter follower Jason Nelson @StoneSculptorJN for that one)
  • SculptSite.com sets out to be the "Sculpture Portal for News, Exhibitions & Happenings from and about the World of Sculpture" both on and off the Internet. SculptSite.com is dedicated to highlighting anything and everything about Sculpture.  It's based in Scottsdale, Arizona but appears to be international in its focus.  To be honest I didn't find it the easiest site to navigate as the top menu isn't a menu no matter how many times you click it - which means no categorisation of sculpture news, exhibitions and happenings. Duh!
  • The Guardian had an interesting story about The Watts Towers - a public artwork sculpture built in Watts by a semi-literate Italian immigrant named Simon Rodia, who built them using hand tools only between 921 and 1954.  
A taciturn man, the nearest Rodia ever came to explaining his masterpiece was to say, "I had in mind to do something big and I did it."
Art Business and Marketing
Art Economy and Art Collectors
  • I took a look at a number of articles in the Financial Times relevant to art collectors.
    • The tips to collectors are interesting in terms of what makes for a collectable item.  For example see Simon de Burton's article about The market: Scottish colourists
    • Ever wondered about the role of the art adviser? Read Hidden persuaders - Georgina Adam's article which examines the very private world of the top art advisers, an occupation which has seen explosive growth in the last decade.  These are the people who can influence how wealthy collectors bid at auction and buy from galleries
They don’t figure in the lists of top collectors, yet they spend millions every year at auction and at dealers. They get first dibs on the most sought-after works of art at the top fairs, yet outside the art world their names are unknown – and they like to keep it that way.
Art Competitions / Open Exhibitions
Art Society deadlines
The 48th annual exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists is a showcase for the very best of art inspired by the natural world.
Art Exhibitions

The new post summer exhibition season is getting underway in London and I highlighted - and have now updated - some of them in this post Art Exhibitions in London & Art Trails - September 2011.

Art Competitions
Art Societies

Cover of the Catalogue for the Inaugural Exhibition of the Plein Air Brotherhood
    Art Education

    Tips and techniques - how to produce fine art prints
    Originally formulated for intaglio printmaking, this ink can also be applied with a brayer for relief printmaking, monotype, and collagraphs; and it will print from any plastic, wood, linoleum or metal plate. They contain no driers, offering a long working time for monotype or wiping the plate.

    • Bridget Farmer is a Northern Irish artist/printmaker with a bit of an obsession about birds - which you can see in her blog Bridget Farmer eg Pleasant Pheasant Printing in which she demonstrates how she produces a dry point etching.  It's exceptionally well illustrated

    Workshops
    Creativity
    • This week Robert Genn wrote about creativity and referenced the work by Teresa M. Amabile who is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration and Director of Research at Harvard Business School  which resulted in The Six Myths of Creativity.  I went looking for a detailed summary of the work and found
    • This was an inspiring speech to listen to - Steve Jobs addressing a Stanford University commencement ceremony filmed in June 2005 - How to live before you die
    Opinion Poll
    and finally......

    The National Gallery brings us a film of The Making of the ‘Living Wall’.  Using over 8,000 plants, GE (General Electric) has brought to life Van Gogh's 'A Wheatfield, with Cypresses' in a ‘living wall’ outside the front of the National Gallery.  It now has an app which means you can submit you own photo of it to make a digital "living wall" mosaic of the original masterpiece!

    As it happens I took a photo just this week!  Add your photograph

    3 comments:

    1. Just wanted to say I love your drawing from the exhibition. It gives a wonderful feeling of the people and the movement around the show!

      And I'm entering the Discerning Eye for the first time ever, thanks to your previous reminders. Wish me luck. :)

      ReplyDelete
    2. My job is done!

      Nope forgot - all I need to do now is get around to entering some work myself before the deadline!

      ReplyDelete
    3. Thanks for including www.nzprintmakers.com in your list of sites with interesting printmaking, much apprciated! I'm very glad that you enjoyed reading it :)

      ReplyDelete

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