Florum Exhibition 2014

Below is a list of the artists who have been invited to show their artwork at the Florum exhibition which opens on Saturday after a private view next Friday night. I'm one of them!



Florum website - my drawing is top right


The aims of the exhibition are:


to create "a colourful and inspiring mix of works celebrating plant life" and 
to raise funds for the Kent Wildlife Trust's Sevenoaks

BBC Four Goes Abstract in September

This autumn there's going to be a series of programmes about abstract art on BBC4.  The programmes are:

The Rules Of Abstraction with Matthew Collings, BBC Four 
(90 minutes) Mon 8 Sep 2014 22:00 BBC Four
The programme examines the development and rise of abstract art and how it became prominent in the art world. The primary argument put forward by Collings is that abstraction is the key

My frames have arrived - I'm waxing tonight!

Sitting on my floor, in masses of bubble wrap and cling film, are seven bespoke tulip wood frames and mounts for the drawing for my upcoming exhibition. Yesterday they left Picture Frames of Shaftesbury and this morning they arrived, via ParcelForce, at my home at 11.30am.  Thanks to both companies for getting the delivery to me quickly!

Which means I'll be having a quiet wax this evening as the

Angie Lewin and the making of 'Nature Table' (video)

Angie Lewin's website

As many people know I'm besotted with the portrayal of trees, plants and flowers in art - and I'm also eclectic in my tastes as to the way in which they are portrayed.

One artist whose drawings and paintings of plants has been catching my eye on a very regular basis in the past few years is Angie Lewin. 

Her delightful graphic artwork and designs are probably familiar

POLL: Photography in Art Galleries and Museums

There's been a lot of discussion about the photography of art in art galleries of late. However today you've got an opportunity to express your views.



Tourists photographing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, in Paris

This is a POLL to identify what people think about photography in art galleries.

You can vote up to three times to express your views (but be sure to choose all three options at the

'Making A Mark' passes 6 million pageviews - and resource move begins

On Saturday, Making A Mark notched up 6 million pageviews, since Blogger started counting in 2008.

What's even more amazing to me is that the last million pageviews have been achieved in just over seven months.



six million pageviews - spotted in the middle of Saturday afternoon
the redline marks the Blogger statistics

I little realised with I started this blog at the end of 2005, prior to

How pencils are made

This is a very informative video about how pencils are made today made by Derwent Pencils. It tells the story of how pencils came to be made in the Lake District - in Cumbria - where Derwent (also known as the Cumberland Pencil Company) and the Cumberberland Pencil Museum are located.



This is a link to the history of pencil making in Cumbria on the museum website.

Note the reference to "

ING Discerning Eye 2014 - Call for Entries

The call has gone out for the 2014 ING Discerning Eye art competition. 

Unfortunately it came out in July round about the time I was rushed off to hospital followed by enforced break and the last stages of my involvement with final proofs of my book. So there hasn't been a post on this blog until now!  This post seeks to remedy this - especially given the fact the deadline for entries fast

BP Portrait Award 2015 entry goes digital

It could only be a matter of time before the BP Portrait Award switched to digital entries - and so it has come to pass. Next year, in 2015, the entry process for this very prestigious and world renowned portrait competition will be digital.



Main Entrance to the National Portrait Gallery
Banners for the BP Portrait Award either side of entrance


I applaud the move. It makes such a huge

Making A Mark on Art - and the end of Squidoo

Over the last seven years I've created some 160 websites about art (Making A Mark on Art) and artists (About Artists) on Squidoo. Yesterday I had news that Squidoo is closing down. Seth Godin has arranged for my featured sites to be merged with HubPages and the current links to them will become redirects after October.




I don't know if I'm surprised or not - I've been predicting the demise of

Who painted this? #61

"Who painted this?" returns following the break while I wrote my book!   

This week we'll start with a painting which is both seasonal and is a painting I've never seen before. However I could tell who the painter was straight away due to a particular attribute of the painting. I'm thinking a fair few will also make the connection - identify the artist - and go hunting for the title.



Who

Sophie Ploeg and The Lace Trail - BP Travel Award exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery

Sophie Ploeg's BP Travel Award exhibition 'The Lace Trail" can currently be seen at the National Portrait Gallery in London - until 21 September 2014.  It then tours to Sunderland and Edinburgh in 2014-15.



Sophie Ploeg with part of The Lace Trail
the exhibition for the BP Travel Award 2013
at the National Portrait Gallery - 26 June - 21 September 2014


The exhibition follows on from Sophie

The Secret of Drawing

In 2005, the history of drawing was explored by Andrew Graham Dixon in a four part series called The Secret of Drawing.





That series of programmes are now on YouTube.  I'm not sure how they got there - but they're certainly worth taking a look at. It's just such a pity that the website for the series does not include links to the videos within its archive of the programmes - because it should

Selected Artists - Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2014

93 works by 73 artists from across the UK have been selected for the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2014. The first prize is £10,000 and the exhibition opens at the Mall Galleries on 15th September 2014.

Below you can find a list of the names of the artists together with links to their websites where these could be found.  Any errors please let me know (see side column for how to contact

Scott Krohn wins CPSA's 22nd International Exhibition

This is an interview with American coloured pencil artist Scott Krohn who has won the top prize at the 22nd International Exhibition of the Colored Pencil Society of America. 

More details after the interview - which includes images of the work in progress - about

the awardwinners 
the artists whose work was selected for the exhibition - organised by home state within the USA or country of

Companies who can resize your website for different screen sizes

Below you will find a list of companies that Google is highlighting as approved multi-screen vendors.



By dw capital GmbH [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0
or CC-BY-SA-3.0-de], via Wikimedia Commons

That means website hosts that can handle websites which need to resize to be seen across multiple and different sized screens. In other words - these are the screens found on all the devices people now use to

Art Online: How tech savvy are you?

Do you need to be tech savvy as an artist?

I'm delivering a workshop tomorrow about how to get your art online. One of the first issues I'm addressing is how "tech savvy" people are - helped by OFCOM's new research report on how Techie teens are shaping communications

Critical issues relating to getting their art online for many artists include:


how familiar they are with technology and

Bruegel to Freud - Prints from the Courtauld Gallery

Dr Rachel Sloan, the Curator of the Bruegel to Freud - Prints from the Courtauld Gallery - the summer showcase exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery is giving a talk tonight which I'm not going to be able to attend. However here she is introducing the exhibition which spans 500 years of printmaking and including works by Mantegna, Bruegel, Canaletto, Picasso, Matisse and Freud.

I've got to put

Spectra - for seven nights in August in London

If you're in central London this week, you can see a new art installation which is on view for just seven nights.  Spectra is a column of intense white light punctuating the London sky from dusk until dawn for seven nights.

It's located in Victoria Tower Gardens, adjacent to the Palace of Westminster.  The installation has been created by Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda.



spectra by Ryoji Ikeda,

888,246 poppies - Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red is the name of the art installation in the moat at the Tower of London which will be officially unveiled tomorrow. 888,246 ceramic poppies spill out into the Moat and encircle the Tower of London.  Each poppy symbolises a British military fatality during the war.



The Tower of London's longest serving Yeoman Warder planted the first poppy
in this major

In praise of the older artist - Mary Anderson Grierson

It would appear that one of the perks of working for the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew for a long time is you get a bench outside the Palm House on your retirement or death. I came across a bench for Mary Anderson Grierson on Tuesday and looked her up when I got back home.



Hylocereus Undatus, night blooming cereus, 1985

pencil, ink and color wash

56 x 34 cm. (22 x 13.4 in.)

by the late