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

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

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

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

28 July 2014 - Who's made a mark?

I've had three weeks off from blogging.


The first week was because I had a bit of a shock health wise, ended up in hospital facing a battery of tests and decided to take it easy for a few days.
Followed by finishing up the final layouts for the book - which was rather more difficult than I'd been expecting.
Then I decided I needed a week off. I fitted in some long walks plus some drawing and

BP Portrait Award 2014 Exhibition - review and video

Read about my review of the BP Portrait Award 2014 Exhibition in which I highlight the portraits I particularly liked  and focus on key themes and points to note for those aspiring to enter.
View my latest walkabout film of the exhibition in the gallery. 





A walk around the BP Portrait Award 2014 Exhibition

Followers of my previous videos of the BP Portrait Award exhibitions (see a list of

Video - What the Artist saw

This is another of the films which the National Portrait Gallery have commissioned Lonelyleap.com to make about the competition process relating to the BP Portrait Award 2014. This film - BP Portrait Award 2014: What the Artist saw - The Judging - is about the judging process and features two artists

Alan Coulson - a past prizewinner. He won the the third prize in 2012 for this portrait of

Richard Twose and David Jon Kassan - video interviews with BP Portrait Award prizewinners 2014

Here are my next two video interviews with artists winning prizes at the the BP Portrait Award 2014 Ceremony,  held this week in the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Video interviews below are with:

2nd prizewinner - Richard Twose (UK)
3rd prizewinner - David Jon Kasssan (USA)

All three of the prizewinners have something to teach us about the process of being selected for

A video interview with Thomas Ganter, Winner of the BP Portrait Award 2014

Thomas Ganter, winner of the BP Portrait Award 2014
with his winning portrait "Man with a Plaid Blanket"
oil on vanvas 1600mm x 600mm

Thomas Ganter kindly gave me a video interview about winning the BP Portrait Award 2014, the morning after the Awards Ceremony at the National Portrait Gallery

I'm very grateful to Thomas for giving me an interview when English is not his first language - and

BP Portrait Award 2014 - Video of presentation to prizewinners

Thomas Kanter, winner of the BP Portrait Award 2014with (left to right) Bob Dudley, Sandy Nairne and Nigel Havers

Last night Thomas Ganter won the £30,000 BP Portrait Award 2014 at the National Portrait Gallery in London - and below is a film of the awards ceremony.

I filmed the presentation ceremony with Mini iPad in one hand and my camera in the other taking photographs - hence there's an

The Mac after the Fire - an Archive, an Appeal and guess WHO!

News about "what happened next" following the fire at the Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA)



The Macintosh Appeal
New Trustees are Peter Capaldi and Brad Pitt
Graduation and Degree Show 2014




The Macintosh Appeal

Last week The Glasgow School of Art formerly launched The Mackintosh Appeal. The aim is to raise something like £20m to allow the GSA to commission the work

Cochineal and Carmine

One of the really interesting parts of the Making Colour Exhibition at the National Gallery is a wall of clear boxes which contain the raw resources for the Lake colours used in painting.

If you've ever wondered what the raw materials look like this is very definitely an exhibition worth visiting!

Which brings me to Cochineal. This is an insect that produces a brilliant crimson red dye and was

An exhibition in aid of The Art Room

Facetime - a fundraising exhibition of artwork by major UK and international contemporary artists in aid of The Art Room - can currently be seen at The Threadneedle Space at the Mall Galleries until Saturday. It's all for a good cause......


With the patronage of HRH The Duchess of Cambridge, The Art Room provides art as therapy to 5-16 year old children who are experiencing emotional and

Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014 - online deadline is 5pm today

Just a reminder that today is the deadline for registration for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014. The deadline for online registration: 16 June 2014, 5pm.

You can read more about it in my blog post Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014 - Call for Entries.


Jerwood Drawing Prize - Winners and Selected Artists 2010-2013



Winner of the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2013Apocalypse (My Boyfriend Doesn’t Care)Ink on