Sunday, January 18, 2009

18th January 2008 - Who's made a mark this week?

Andrew Wyeth passed away on Friday. Here are some of the people who blogged about his passing:
Visitors to the Brandywine Museum website are being invited to add their comments to the Andrew Wyeth Remembrance blog.

Andrew Wyeth
receiving the National Medal of Arts in 2007
Source: Wikipedia

The New York Times has a slide show of photographs of Wyeth and his work while The Guardian also has a set of interesting photographs.

The Greenville County Museum of Art in South Carolina says it owns one of the most important public collections representing Wyeth’s career. A new installation of the entire collection will open to the public on Wednesday, March 11, 2009. There will doubtless be many others.

Plus there were numerous obituaries and reviews in various newspapers and journals - the links to which are now in my resource site Andrew Wyeth - Resources for Art Lovers. I actually enjoyed updating the site - I kept coming across really good one line quotes which I've now included. There was one I wanted to include - but it's a bit long even if it is probably one his more famous quotes.
"Oftentimes people will like a picture I paint because it’s maybe the sun hitting on the side of a window and they can enjoy it purely for itself,” Wyeth once said. “It reminds them of some afternoon. But for me, behind that picture could be a night of moonlight when I’ve been in some house in Maine, a night of some terrible tension, or I had this strange mood. Maybe it was Halloween. It’s all there, hiding behind the realistic side."
Andrew Wyeth
Art Blogs
it's rather hard to imagine what over 900 oils, 2000 watercolors, and countless sketches means. So I looked at an average Sargent month...to achieve the above during 1877-1925 Sargent produced over 18 oil paintings, 42 watercolors, and scores of sketches every month for 48 years.
Artists

I made the big mistake this week of not noting where I came across the following artists. Shout out if was you and I'll update this post!!!
Art Business and Marketing
Sue Smith (Ancient Artist) has been doing sterling work producing a business plan for the emerging artist - in 8 "Ancient Wisdom" posts
Art Economy
The majority opinion among the dealers in the main hall is that this is a grim time to be in the art business. Prices can be haggled down. A lot of stock isn't selling.........The future for those big wallpaper-substitute pictures, £10,000 worth of photograph or acrylics, looks much darker; as doomed as the loft apartments on 100% mortgages they were intended to decorate.

The mantra among dealers is that a good picture will always find a buyer. What has disappeared is "the froth" boiled up by the City bankers and brokers. It is interesting to hear them described by people who were keen enough to take their money. One dealer said: "A baying mob who hunted in packs ... but they were always useful as a way of getting rid of indifferent paintings. All they were interested in was the signature and impressing each other. I showed no mercy."
The era of the true art collector has returned
Art Education
  • On Tuesday I highlighted The Open College of the Arts. As a result I had some enthusiastic ex students comment - although I think the level of fees might be putting people off these days
Art History
Art Societies
  • On Wednesday this week CPSA announced the artists accepted for "Explore This!" - their exhibition for coloured pencil pieces which 'break the rules' which is now to be annual and digital only.
  • The UKCPS have issued their Call for Entries relating to the 7th 'World of Coloured Pencil' Exhibition 2009 on UKCPS News
  • On Friday, the American Watercolor Society (AWS) announced who are the exhibitors for the 2009/10 Exhibition. I looked at the names and recognised precisely three. The list does not include two thirds (21 of the 33) of the prizewinners listed last year. Now I don't know if this is more or less 'normal' or not but it did seem very odd to me! Awards are due to be announced on 18th February.
  • Yesterday, I had a comment on my post "Statement on AWS Gold Medal controversy from President" (22nd September 2008). The person was wondering why it's taking so long to arrive at a conclusion about the controversy. I've been wondering the exact same thing. Two weeks ago I emailed the American Watercolor Society (AWS) to ask them for an estimate of when they might be issuing a further statement on this matter. To date I've not even had the courtesy of an acknowledgement. If I was a member of AWS I'd certainly be wondering what was going on - and maybe members will have more luck than me at finding out. At this rate it looks like AWS will be announcing who's won this year's Gold Medal before they've resolved the situation in relation to the picture which 'won' last year - which, again, just seems very odd to me.
Art and Painting videos / tv
  • A name that came up repeatedly in the discussion in the comments on my posts about art instruction books was Dave the Painter Guy - who will be better known to some of you as David Darrow. This is his channel on ustream.tv dave the painting guy . I'm going to do a little homework and then write a post about 'streaming artists'!
Book Reviews

Two more blog posts from me this week:
Ecology Park Project

I had three posts on Monday - all about the Ecology Park Project. Guess which person can't tell a coot from a moorhen and has to go and redo the names on her plan of the Ecology Park pond complex!!!I know they're all virtually the same title but they all have a different focus! I've now got a photodiary going (a Flickr set The Ecology Park Pond) and am also getting besotted with birds. I've now got a complete Flickr set devoted to Coots of London. (There's a small joke in there which I'm guessing only Brits will get). The project has provided a great kickstart to the production of artwork in the New Year. Watch out for the bird drawings.............


Ecology Park Pond Series - #1-4
coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Tips and Techniques
Websites, webware and blogging
and finally......

Robert Genn posted a delightful photograph of his winter plein air painting spot - and his dog Stanley.

Every artist should have a dog who guards the palette!

Many thanks to Bob for permission to use it.

That white stuff folks is snow!

If any of you have got blog posts with good photos of you braving the white stuff to draw or paint do let me know (email or leave a comment below) and I'll take a peek! All those that make me shiver will get a feature on this blog.

Links:

5 comments:

  1. I followed the Dave the Painter Guy link, Katherine and spent HOURS enjoying the most useful video fdemonstration of oil painting I've ever found - he was painting a yellow rose.

    Then I followed the Google Reader for beginners link - great! - and then that pulled up videos on learning a foreign language on-line and my whole Sunday evaporated! Then, of course I had to peek at other interesting bits and pieces.

    All this is a Thank You for another rich post.

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  2. Thank you for that, and another sad day, Tony Hart died, I did so love him when I was a kid.

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  3. Great post!
    So much to learn from and again so many exciting new artists discovered and important art-information gained, something I always only get here!

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  4. Don't know if you heard from it, but other wise

    Musea Delprado together with Google maps

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