A GREAT Question

One of my favorite blogs is Making A Mark by artist and writer Katherine Tyrrell.

Katherine asks GREAT questions and sets up polls on her blog. Today's question which caught my eye is "How long do you spend looking at a painting you like?"

When I see a painting that I like, I will immediately walk up close and study it. I look at colors, lines, shapes, forms, light, shadow, how the artist applied the medium, and I also think about my art work. After close scrutiny, I step back again to enjoy the whole piece. This might take five minutes or more. Sometimes I even return to the painting or piece before leaving the gallery or show.

How about you?

How long do you spend looking at a painting you like?

How long do people spend looking at art these days?

According to Katherine's poll (lower right hand side of her blog post) at this time, 1-2 minutes is in the lead........

Favorite Watercolor Painters Past & Present

Fumee d'Ambre Gris (Smoke of Ambergris)
John Singer Sargent
watercolor
1880

Today I received an e-mail from artist blogger, Katherine Tyrrell of Making A Mark, who queried about one's favorite watercolor artists.

I enjoy reading her blogs on a daily basis, but this one caught my eye because I had never seen paintings by the favorite British contemporary watercolor painter, Trevor Chamberlain. As Katherine indicates, Trevor Chamberlain says so much with minimal effort. My favorite painting is Sunbeds and Parasols.

Of course, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent made the list of favorite watercolor artists of the past.

What a treat to visit the various websites and view watercolor paintings of all the artist Katherine listed as people's favorites.

Also the watercolor paintings of Kiff Holland caught my eye.

RGB Vs CMYK

I just learned something about the printing of colors. Have you ever wondered why your images onscreen do not come out looking the same when printed?

My watercolor painting, "Garden Art," has been a challenge to print because with some printers it will print blue instead of purple.

I think I now have the answer!


RGB Vs KMYK:

When we create an image with a camera or a scanner, we create one using technology which uses the RGB color model (an additive model - where light is added to create the colour). If you want an image printed the printer needs a CMYK color model (a subtractive model - light is subtracted to achieve the colour before it meets our eyes). This is one of the reasons why what we look at on the screen does not print out quite as we expect. Colors can look off or lose their intensity.

Another reason is that the RGB model actually has a higher number of hues than the CMYK model.

You can convert a RGB model to a CMYK model without loosing any color quality, however the inverse does not work.

For a great explanation read Katherine Tyrrel's blog, Making A Mark.

Here is an online website where it is possible to convert your photos.

Another Great Idea

A new blog to follow.....

Sketchers from around the world will be sharing their art on postcards.

The project has grown out of the Sketchercise group which was founded by Katherine Tyrrell.
Sketchercise is a group of people who enjoy sketching from life, have already developed the sketching habit, and have found ways of exercising with a sketchbook.

The idea of A Postcard From My Walk is that once a month an artist will mail a sketch done on one of their outings to one of the group of Sketchercise members who are participating in the project. That way they get to see the real sketch rather than just the image on the Internet.

The blog will record a monthly postal exchange of sketches on postcards between the 14 members of Sketchercise over the course of one year.

What a fun idea. Since I love to travel, I look forward to seeing the sketches from around the world.

Here is one of my sketches when I was traveling in Greece.

Kastraki Joanne Osband
watercolor & ink
September 2010

Giving

On her blog, Making a Mark, Katherine Tyrrell each year posts art awards which showcase outstanding artists. Although she chooses from the artists who have been nominated for various categories, she invites us to vote for the Making A Mark Award for the best artwork on a blog in 2010.

Tonight while reading her blog, I came across a fabulous artist, Deborah Secor, who embodies the giving spirit by sharing her book and expertise with the world. Her book, Landscape Painting In Pastels can be read and studied in full on the internet. She says, "The blog format allows me to give it away freely to all." WOW! Thank you, Deborah.

I am enthralled by her pastel paintings and cannot take my eyes off of them. I immediately fixated on chapter sixteen - water and reflections. I fell in love with Granite Tranquility and you will see why. After I finish writing this blog, I am going back for more!

I feel as if Katherine has introduced me to some incredible artists to help jump start the new year with loads of inspiration.
Thank you, Katherine.

Thoughts on Watercolors

Recently, I read fellow blogger's, Katherine Tyrrell, post about the best art books.

I am notorious for looking in our public library collection to find the book to read before deciding on whether to make the purchase, or not. The book that came highly recommended is The Watercolorist's Essential Notebook Lnadscapes by Gordon MacKenzie. I think I might buy this one!

His paintings reflect his emotional bond with the natural world. "An artist's work is a reflection of their personal aesthetics; the ordinary things that have extraordinary and hidden beauty, meaning and significance just for them. These perceptions are set at an early age."

I love his definition of watercolor: "a process of applying colored water to a piece of paper so that you can watch, spellbound, while it evaporates; a quest to experience all the subtleties and nuances of diluting paint."

Watch him as he paints.

Autumn Breezes
Gordon MacKenzie

Art Magazines

Do you have a favorite art magazine?

Last month Katherine Tyrrell created a poll on her blog where artists submitted their favorite art magazines. According to her poll the most popular mazagine for artists is International Artist although a significant number of artists prefer online content to art magazines.

The top USA based magazine in the poll is The Artist's Magazine. Since I have not subscribed to an art magazine in eons, I thought I would look this one up online. What really intrigued me was the All Media Online Competition and seeing the winning entries. WOW! Check them out.

I might have to indulge myself in a subscription.....

Where Do You Start When Making Art Poll Results

The February Making A Mark Poll created by Katherine Tyrrell looked at Where do you start when making art?

The results show that:

57% are influenced by life and what they see around them

43% work from their own ideas and concepts

38% are stimulated by their own reference photos - rather than those taken by other people

nobody seems to want to take account of current trends or whatever seems to sell!!!

134 respondents had an average of 2.42 options which influenced where they started when making art.

To read Katherine's commentary on the poll results, visit her blog post Making a Mark, Saturday, February 27, 2010.

Landscape Art

Did you know in the last 50+ years, landscape art does not seem to be produced by contemporary artists who get into major galleries or have exhibitions in the important museums or sell for big sums in the auction houses?

It seems to be a lost art form. It is interesting to note that the painting of landscapes such an enduring form of art across cultures, continents and centuries does not continue to get much notice in the 20th century.

Katherine Tyrell, an artist and author, ponders the question of why landscape art has been downgraded in contemporary art circles in her blog Making a Mark. She poses some valid thoughts on the subject. She will be having this discussion on her new blog when she builds its audience(after 12 days it is now up to 73 subscribers!).

You might think about joining in.

Monet's Gardens in Giverny

Have you been captivated by Monet's paintings of water lilies as I have? Someday I will visit his gardens in Giverny, France.

There are two parts in Monet's garden: a flower garden called Clos Normand in front of the house and a Japanese inspired water garden on the other side of the road. The two parts of Monet's garden contrast and complement one another.

The Clos Normand

The land is divided into flowerbeds where flower clumps of different heights create volume. Fruit trees or ornamental trees dominate the climbing roses, the long -stemmed hollyhocks and the coloured banks of annuals. Monet mixed the simplest flowers (daisies and poppies) with the most rare varieties.

The central alley is covered over by iron arches on which climbing roses grow. Other rose trees cover the balustrade along the house. At the end of the summer nasturtiums invade the soil in the central alley.

Claude Monet did not like organized nor constrained gardens. He married flowers according to their colours and left them to grow rather freely.

With the passing years he developed a passion for botany, exchanging plants with his friends Clemenceau and Caillebotte. Always on the look-out for rare varieties, he bought young plants at great expense. "All my money goes into my garden," he said. But also: "I am in raptures."

The Water Garden

The water garden is full of asymmetries and curves. It is inspired by the Japanese gardens that Monet knew from the prints he collected avidly.

In this water garden you will find the famous Japanese bridge covered with wisterias, other smaller bridges, weeping willows, a bamboo wood and above all the famous nympheas which bloom all summer long. The pond and the surrounding vegetation form an enclosure separated from the surrounding countryside.

Never before had a painter so shaped his subjects in nature before painting them. And so he created his works twice. Monet would find his inspiration in this water garden for more than twenty years. After the Japanese bridge series, he would devote himself to the giant decorations of the Orangerie.

Always looking for mist and transparencies, Monet would dedicate himself less to flowers than to reflections in water, a kind of inverted world transfigured by the liquid element.



Nympheas
Claude Monet

In Katherine Tyrrell's blog you can watch a slide show from the photos she took on her recent visit to the gardens.

To Sign or Not to Sign?

I read an interesting post by Katherine Tyrrell about signing a work of art. Instead of a signature she uses small initials in a box on the front of the piece; very small and as unobtrusive as possible. Her preference would be for no signature at all - and she believe that's the way all the pieces that are "keepers" are 'signed'. She prints and signs her name on the reverse of the work and dates it. This means that it can always be identified as hers and overcomes the reservations about the use of initials.

She gives a checklist of things to think about before signing:

1. Make sure you sign your art - that makes it your art and not art that somebody else can claim as their own. If copyright is important to you, you really need to sign your work
2. Have a legible signature - if you want to be known by your name and not as "that artist with the funny scrawl".
3. Keep your signature consistent - that way people know it's you and not somebody trying to be you!
4. Don't overpower your art with your signature - artists with enormous egos seem to have enormous signatures but do remember that the purchaser is buying the art and not your ego.
5. Do you want a multi-purpose signature? - seriously, in these days of identity theft, think about whether you really want to use the same signature as the one you use to sign contracts, bank cheques and hotel chits?
6. Think twice if you sign with your initials - on the basis of how many other people share the same initials as you! Do your initials actually indicate that you and you alone are the artist?
7. Use a monogram or create an icon which means it's your work - in the past a number of artists signed using a monogram or icon. This means that anybody who knows you use a particular symbol knows it's your work. To anybody else it's completely meaningless!

What are your thoughts about signing art?

Resources for Artisit

I stumbled upon this great resource for artists when I was looking at an article about how artists price their art.

Katherine Tyrrell, an artist and author who enjoys sharing information about art, has several polls on topics from "How Do You Price Your Art?" to "Selling Art Online," with a lot of good information between.

Check out this site if you are looking for resources for artists.
You will be glad you did!