Sunday, November 17, 2013

17th November 2013 - Who's made a mark this week?

Today I'm starting with a couple of artist who recently won prizes.

Angus McEwan has received the bronze award in the Shenzhen Watercolour Biennial 2013-2014. He is the only British finalist and prizewinner from an exhibition shortlist of 237 paintings and 2825 entries.  The Biennial has an international panel of jurors which included Andy Wood, the Honorary Secretary of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and Thomas Plunkett, President of the Royal Watercolour Society.

Slipping into the Shadows by Angus McEwan.
Copyright: Angus McEwan

What I find interesting is that a number of UK watercolour painters have been beating a path to the art competitions in China for a while now. However I don't see other art societies for other types of media or subject matter doing this and wonder why this is.

Fraser Scarfe won the 2013 David Gluck Memorial Drawing Bursary - which is offered as a prize by the ING Discerning Eye Competition.  His winning entry was “Tree Study: Kensington Gardens”.

′Tree Study: Kensington Gardens′ (£1,495) by Fraser Scarfe
pen on paper - 18 sketchbook sheets 
This work and the drawings of the five other artists also short-listed for this year's bursary award - Richard Cross, Jill Evans, Tom Flint, Steven MacIver, Fraser Scarfe, and David Watkins are on display at the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition. You can also see them in the bursary section of the website.

Artists and Art Blogs


Botanical

Drawing and sketching 

Pastels and pencils

Who painted this?


Art books



Art Business & Marketing


Copyright

The Second Circuit’s decision has been criticised by many lawyers who assert that it does not provide them with clear guidance in copyright questions.

Strategic planning

  • This is a guide to strategic planning for arts organisations - Think Big! - available on Issuu.

Marketing via Digital and Social Media

This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know to get your organisation tweeting – from the basics, through to topics such as tone of voice and the best time to tweet. It also covers a range of tools for managing an institutional Twitter account, as well as scheduling tweets and more.
  • Clean sweep is an excellent article about the need to collect data and keep it clean for marketing purposes

Selling art in unusual venues


Art Collectors and Art Economy


Art Crime

  • You know art has achieved real status in society when the value of art thefts total more than £300m a year and are second only to the proceeds of crime from drug dealing.

Art after Death

  • An Arts Council report published on Friday - Acceptance in Lieu 2013 - has announced that 30 cases of donations of artworks valued at £49.4 million to public ownership has settled tax bills of some £30 million.  It has also resulted in a number of galleries being allocated their very first acceptance in lieu artwork
The Hepworth Wakefield, which opened in May 2011, has been allocated its first AIL object – appropriately, a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth carved 50 years ago in 1963

art auctions

Art Fairs

  • The 26th London Art Fair will feature modern British and contemporary works by over 1,000 artists. It takes place at the Business Design Centre in London between 15 and 19 January 2014.
  • Parallax Art Fair - indulges in spamming artists and hasn't got a clue how to write a sentence that makes sense. This is the owner writing on his blog about why fee based exhibitions are a good thing 
Parallax Art Fair is a direct art-to-consumer experience with an open admission policy and makes a uniquely refreshing conceptual statement about subjectivity and the commoditization of taste. Facebook Page

Art Competitions

Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery introduces
the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Competition

at the Press View on Wednesday morning

Spencer Murphy with his portrait of Katie Walsh.
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Competition (National Portrait Gallery)


The ING Discerning Eye Competition
  • The Exhibition for the ING Discerning Eye 2013 for small artworks is now on at the Mall Galleries - see my post about the prizewinners - Jeremy Gardiner wins ING Discerning Eye Prize 2013. There seems to have been a marked change in the type of art that was selected for a prize this year. Plus one judge scooped 50% of the prizes for artists she selected or invited!!!

CPSA ArtSpectations


  • The Coloured Pencil Society of America has a new viewable online competition open to all current CPSA members. Artwork submitted must be predominantly colored pencil. This was the Call for Entries. This post ArtSpectations Fall 2013 - Award Winners is about the prizewinners. The judge - Jeff George - has provided comments with the image of the artwork which was selected which is a novel development in art society competitions.
  • Note: Submissions closed yesterday for the CPSA Explorations competitions.

    Art Exhibitions


    Exhibitions in London

    Exhibitions in the rest of the UK

      Self-portrait c.1756 by Allan Ramsay, 
      Chalk on paper

    Exhibitions in the USA


    Art Education


    Art History


    Art Societies


    • I couldn't quite work out where to put this - and then realised that it was actually a comment on the behaviour of an art society - the Royal Academy of Arts. A damning portrait of Britain’s artistic elite is an uncompromising critique of the RA's approach to celebrating the Queen's Jubilee - through a gift of 100 works.

    Art Supplies and Art Studio



    Techies

    Website design

    • While looking at photographers' websites for a blog post this week I noticed an interesting fact. Professional photographer's websites are now typically minimalistic with a stark white background - and load fast. 
      • So that's one group who know how to get their websites 'liked' by Google! 
      • Is this 'the way to go' for artists' websites?
    • If at first you don't succeed with your web design you can always try again! How the Internet's biggest sites looked at launch

    Google

    • The Google Terms of Service was updated on 11 November 2013 - it relates to shared endorsements, using mobile devices safely and password protection.  
    Anyone you give your login details to could use them to access your Google Account and the stuff you store with Google. So if you’re asked for your password, think twice and consider whether there might be safer and more secure ways to share the information.
    • Can I add my tip which is to also have a mobile specific gmail account and an account you use for relating to other apps and software and not to expose your main account to going mobile or being busted.  I run my online life in complete reverse of what Google want us to do.  I'm super fragmented with a big password book - but it means I don't have to worry about losing the whole shebang anytime soon.

    Twitter


    and finally......


    I'm into good architecture - and Sir Norman Foster is fantastic at combining functionality with aesthetics - see All hail the mothership: Norman Foster's $5bn Apple HQ revealed

    4 comments:

    1. Hi Katherine,

      Crops are done to avoid breaking text in the blog up to much, I appreciate this might not be to everyone's liking but to date you're the first to comment on it.

      I think most of your other comments reflect our different attitudes about the purpose of a review. For me it's to discuss the pros and cons of specific work and the place of that work in a wider photographic context. Judging by your review of the exhibition you have a different aim in mind.

      Best wishes,

      Lewis (Disphotic)

      ReplyDelete
    2. Lewis - it's not your image, you don't have permission to crop and it's not a decision you can take! Period.

      You weren't discussing the pros and cons of a piece of work. You were using your review to take pot shots at the selectors and to generally indicate your disagreement with the choices they had made.

      I have news for you.

      Virtually any exhibition where a selection has been made from an open entry will have works which people do/don't like and which will attract both positive and negative comments. That doesn't mean that the positive or negative comments are right - since they're just opinions.

      I don't bother indicating the works that I don't like on the basis that I EXPECT there will be works I don't like. Why give space to works I don't like - what's the point?

      I think it's far more constructive to indicate works that I do like and to present information that's helpful to visitors and to those who might like to enter in the future.

      In other words a piece has to be very bad in my opinion before I comment on it.

      Such as somebody who thinks they have the right to infringe on copyright and edit somebody else's image without their permission. That's akin to blasphemy in my book!

      ReplyDelete
    3. I think you've either not bothered to read my review properly or are just taking issue with it for the sake of it. I discuss the things I like about every photograph I mention, as well as the things I don't.

      Also if you look at reviews on other sites you'll find it's the norm to crop photographs for the purpose of layout. e.g: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/12/portrait-jockey-katie-walsh-wins-taylor-wessing-photography-prize

      That said I think I'll leave this discussion here. Thanks.

      ReplyDelete
    4. I have an equally low opinion of newspapers who crop pictures.

      It also breaches the terms of the provision of the images which are:

      "Terms and Conditions
      By logging in to the National Portrait Gallery Press Office you are agreeing to the following terms and conditions:
      - Images can only be used to directly promote the National Portrait Gallery's relevant exhibitions, displays or news.
      - Images are supplied for one time use only and must not be stored on a data-base.
      - Images MUST be captioned and credited as outlined by the National Portrait Gallery.
      - Images must not be cropped or over-laid with text, or used for front/back covers, full page reproductions, or on any homepage without prior written permission from the National Portrait Gallery, London.
      - Images must NOT be used on social networking sites (eg Facebook) "


      Are you suggesting you asked for and got written permission from the NPG?

      Or did you source your photos by copying them from another place?

      ReplyDelete

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