January 29, 2010
Filed under: Art Books — admin @ 6:08 pm
Boston-based artist, Cat Bennett, has written a new book to help adults unlock their creativity through drawing.
In her new book, The Confident Creative: Drawing to Free the Hand and Mind Cat offers simple techniques to develop drawing skills and shows how to work with the mind to dissolve creative blocks, open up to inspiration and grow creative confidence. It’s a book for both experienced and budding artists. But it’s also for every person, artist or not, who wants to bring creativity into their life and work. She believes everyone can unlock their creativity through drawing. She also believes everyone can draw.
Cat’s easy-to-apply techniques were developed through teaching her Saturday morning drawing class. She notes how some habitual thought patterns limit what we do in life, and shows how we can easily become aware of these while drawing, or even doodling, and let them go. Many techniques are drawn from yoga, including the one-point focus where we learn to observe our minds, change our energy to the positive and open up to inspiration. It’s here we find creative connection and expressive confidence – and we can bring this into the whole of our lives.
Complete with over 100 illustrations, The Confident Creative offers a wealth of visual inspiration including examples of art from professional artists who have pushed the boundaries of drawing into creative expressions. It shows how to draw in 3 different ways – Making Marks (to explore free and symbolic expression); Drawing What We See; and Drawing From Imagination. And it offers ways to change our minds to be expansive and confident.
Says Cat: “It doesn’t matter how much art experience we have, not at all. We might think we have no talent and that, too, doesn’t matter. We can all draw, as children do. If we dream of doing something wondrous and don’t know how; the wondrous will come to meet our desire if we honour it and keep working with an open mind.”
January 28, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 5:39 am
Apparently, all it takes is one second to ruin the worth of a classic painting as a clumsy lady learned at the New York Metropolitan Museum.
The woman tripped against a Picasso painting that was formally worth around £80m and brought down its value to around £40m after causing a six inch tear.
Experts stated that while they can fix the painting, which by the way is Picasso’s The Actor, it will never again be worth what it was unharmed.
Professional appraiser Gerard van Weyenbergh stated that reducing the painting by only half of its value is being generous because at an auction one of the first things that people are concerned about is the condition of the painting and if any restoration work has been done of the piece.
The Picasso piece features a male in a pink costume and dates back to 1905. At the time of the incident was on display at the Met’s second floor gallery of Picasso works. Museum officials refused to name the woman who tripped, but did generously state that she was not injured in the incident.
Since then, the painting has been taken off display and moved to the conversation studio to be assessed and repaired. Luckily enough, due to the fact that the tear occurred in the lower corner of the painting, the repair should not drastically alter the appearance of the painting.
It was originally donated to the Met in 1952 by the daughter of Chrysler’s founder, Thelma Chrysler Foy.
January 27, 2010
Filed under: Art News, Exhibitions — admin @ 7:21 pm
UK street artist, Sickboy presents Logopop Bristol, a solo exhibition of new limited edition work and a site-specific installation in Bristol this February. It will be Sickboy’s second Logopop show in the UK, and hs is returning to Bristol where he established himself as a graffiti artist. The month-long exhibition is taking place at the Friend & Co gallery.
According to the PR:
“Sickboy recreates the lysergic symbolism that underpins much of his work, presenting a new collection which unravels the relationship between the artist’s complex and imaginatively-detailed artworks and his signature simple, bold and raw urban interventions. In addition to original artworks, the artist presents his Logopops series – artworks available in various sizes which can be interconnected to create bespoke, one-off compositions of Sickboy art.”
For further information, please visit: http://friend-and-co.com
Friend & Co: 24 Park Row, Bristol, BS1 5LJ, UK
Open to public: February 6-27, 2010.
Opening times: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00
Sickboy’s website: http://www.thesickboy.com/
Filed under: Art News, Exhibitions, Photography — admin @ 9:15 am
A Manchester-based photographer and digital artist has found growing interest in his work from the Far East. Andrew Brooks, whose work has been exhibited at URBIS and CUBE Gallery, has been creating quite a stir in Japan, Taiwan and China.
Brooks was unaware of this popularity until he saw a magazine article published in the Popular Photography magazine praising his talent and futuristic style. After that it wasn’t long before huge numbers of visitors nearly crashed his website all of them coming from Japan, Taiwan and China. This was followed quickly by features on gigazine.net and fengniao.com as word of his work began to spread.
“It seems like it was one of those things that happened just through people seeing my photographs on my website as I’d never really targeted it as a potential market for my work,” says Brooks – who last year had his Hidden Manchester show named as one of the URBIS gallery in Manchester’s most popular exhibitions. “The coverage clearly sparked a lot of interest in my work and it’s been incredible to see all these visitors and offers of work coming in from the East. I know that there’s another eight-page feature in a Taiwanese magazine coming up, so I’m just getting ready to deal with the surge of interest that could create!” says Brooks.
At the end of 2009 late last year Brooks was invited to the prestigious China Pingyao International Photography Festival in the province of Shaanxi and a meeting with the one of China’s leading exhibition curators Teng Haolong who discussed the potential for a British photographer to become big in the East. Brooks as he was able to spend some time capturing cityscape images of some of China’s supercities as well as landscapes of the countryside and temples out East, before returning home to Manchester.
As he says, “I’m thrilled that there’s so much interest in my work from the East and fortunately there’s still a huge demand for my work in the UK, so with any luck it looks like I’ll be kept busy this year!”
Website: http://www.andrewbrooksphotography.com
January 26, 2010
Filed under: Art Software — admin @ 9:40 am
Serif (Europe) Ltd, has released a new version of its digital scrapbooking title, Digital Scrapbook Artist 2. It is full of advanced digital scrapbooking techniques in a fun and easy-to-use program, making it a great creative arts available to a wide range of PC users.
The latest version of the software now offers more crafting tools and more advanced scrapbooking techniques like professional-quality blending, which has never been seen before in dedicated scrapbooking software. A huge range of natural brush strokes and photo-realistic materials, embellishments, scissors, stitches and more make beautifully crafted scrapbooks more realistic than ever, and now with a built-in PhotoLab, users can make sure their photos are picture perfect without needing to buy any other software.
Serif MD, Gary Bates said “Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 offers a fun, affordable way to become a digital scrapbooker regardless of experience or artistic ability, and with a huge range of crafting tools and techniques, Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 makes digital scrapbooking even more realistic!”
Some of the key features of Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 are:
• Scissors and Punches – users can choose from heaps of different decorative scissors blades, just like in a craft store, and punch out designs from any material or embellishment.
• Image Cutout Studio – removing distracting or unwanted backgrounds, to give subjects total focus with just a few quick brushstrokes, is easy using this handy imaging tool.
• Blending – a wonderful new feature for seamlessly blending an object or photo with textures and materials. In just a simple click photos will take on the appearance of any material!
• Stencils – a lovely range of brand new stencils will enhance scrapbook designs or alternatively users can easily create their own using objects and embellishments.
• Realistic brush strokes – brush on photo-realistic paint, glitter, beads, stitches and more to create authentic, natural-looking scrapbook pages.
• PhotoLab – Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 now comes with its own powerful built-in photo editor for fixing and enhancing digital photos from within the software.
• Help when needed – with instant access to video tutorials, on-screen prompts and a comprehensive User Guide, help is always available whenever it’s required.
• One click sharing – scrapbooks can be uploaded to DaisyTrail.com with just a click of the mouse, sent as an attachment via email, exported to PDF for professional printing and as any popular picture file type including JPG, PNG, GIF, and more.
• Scrapbooks and more – users can be more creative than ever using Digital Scrapbook Artist 2, which offers the flexibility to create not just digital scrapbooks, but greetings cards, wedding invitations and much more!
Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 is compatible with Windows 7 and will retail at around £29.99.
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 5:51 am
Over 100 fake works valued at a few million pounds will go on public display all the items come from police-seized t forged art.
The works range from Barbara Hepworth sculptures to Lowry paintings and will make up an exhibition premiering at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The collection, which includes fakes of works by Banksy and Thomas Moran would be valued at around four million according to experts, if they were real.
The display is set up to look like the garden shed of Shaun Greenhalgh, who was captured in 2007 by police and jailed for a little over four years after police discovered his wide array of forged works outside in his Bolton cottage garden.
Among the fakes that Greenhalgh created was Roman silver tableware, Lowry pastels, Egyptian statues, and a supposedly ‘lost’ duck sculpture by Barbara Hepworth.
Forged work by Robert Thwaites and John Myatt will also be part of the exhibit.
The head of the Met’s art and antiques unit, Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley, stated that art crime affects more than just the famous and rich, due to the fact most forgers focus on works that are less than £10,000, as they are not likely to be checked as thoroughly, and do not receive as much attention.
Rapley also stated that art fakery still remains a popular underground business. He continued to say that the display will help show that art crime is not just a historical problem, because it will show that the crime occurs often and will help the public learn what to look out
January 19, 2010
Filed under: Exhibitions — Alan @ 7:24 am
The Real Van Gogh: the Artists and his Letters, is the new exhibit at the Royal Academy and its attempt to combat the common myth that Van Gogh was a madman blessed with genius, as it instead chooses to portray him as a professional artist.
The attempt starts with a stroll through the first gallery in which viewers see that Van Gogh wrote in order to voice his needs and thoughts in a clear fashion. What is interesting is that the voice that is portrayed in the letters discusses how to actually paint and draw by informing friends and his brother about how he is learning to create art with new brushes or pencils. A significant fact to notice is that the letters are not outcries of suffering or depression.
Although it may seem as if this would make for a boring gallery, the actual effect is anything but, with the 30 drawings and 65 paintings that surround the exhibit which is a remarkable collection complied from loans and displayed in their full glory.
Some may enjoy the fact that the letters give significance to the painted works, while others may simply see the letters as art on their own as Van Gogh’s delicate instructions are an inspiration for any aspiring artist.
The most intrinsic aspect of the exhibit however is that by reading the letters Van Gogh wrote about his paintings before studying them the viewer gets the rare opportunity to see each painting through the actual artist’s eyes, which is the real charm of the entire show.
January 18, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 8:34 am
The art charity run by Andrew Lloyd Webber is under fire for letting Webber use one of the paintings from the collection valued at £6m to promote a Webber show playing in the West End.
The charity trustees gave permission for the JW Waterhouse painting of St. Cecilia to be placed outside of the Palace Theatre in London to promote the musical production of Woman in White.
However, the board was criticized by the Charity Commission for making it appear that its founder was able to benefit from the charity’s works. The Commission felt that the placement of the St. Cecilia was meant to benefit the founder of the charity monetarily which was not acceptable.
In its report the Commission stated that trustees need to manage the perceptions that certain decisions may leave the public with so that the public does not lose confidence and trust in not only the Webber charity, but any other charity group in general.
The Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation purchased the St. Cecilia in 2000 for £6.7m with money that was donated from Webber.
A portion of the cost was also fronted by the gift aid scheme that allows charities to get out of paying the tax on a donation.
According to charity law, the painting should have been made available to the public for viewing but not in a way that would benefit Webber. Outside of this mistake, the Commission did report that most of the charity’s works were focused for the public benefit.
January 14, 2010
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 5:49 am
Pop artist Jason Eric Kay, attempted to profit from Tiger Woods sullied image, but only succeeded in getting charged with product tampering by the American Justice Department on Wednesday.
Kay was charged for taking the labels off of Gatorade, which he replaced with labels he created that show Woods and wife Elin Woods on one side of the bottle with the word ‘unfaithful’ plastered on the other. The criminal complaint states that he was able to distribute 67 bottles to Denver stores.
The Justice Department took Kay into custody on Wednesday and charged him with altering food labels to cause damage to the person featured as well as misbranding. He faces a sentence that carries fines up to $450,000 and five years in prison.
Before he was taken into custody Kay wrote to PepsiCo, the owner of Gatorade, and proposed that they send him on a multi-city tour that would involve Kay dressing up in Gatorade apparel and handing out the tampered bottles to consumers. After PepsiCo received several complaints from the public about the tampered bottles they contacted the FDA.
Daniel Burke, a Special Agent of the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, said that when he questioned Kay he commented that he knew his scheme was illegal but that he did not think that anyone would make a big deal about it.
Woods numerous affairs appeared in the news back in December after which Gatorade announced that it would not continue to manufacture its Tiger Woods branded drink. Despite the timing, Gatorade spokesmen said the endorsement deal was not dropped because of recent events.
January 6, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 8:05 am
People have wondered about what Mona Lisa is gleaming about in her captivating gaze for many years, but until now it has never been contemplated that she may have had a medical problem.
However, a medical expert from Italy, Vito Franco the Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Palermo, claims that the gleam in her eye may in fact be because she had high cholesterol which result in fatty acids that surrounded her eye socket.
Franco claims that Mona Lisa’s eyes clearly show that she is afflicted with a plethora of diseases that could include everything from kidney stones to bone malformations.
His findings were presented in Florence at a European congress on human pathology.
Franco stated that he takes a different look at art than a normal expert in the same way that a mathematician will look at music differently than a music critic. He also mentioned that he had already analyzed over 100 works of art in the past but focused mostly on the La Stampa which belongs in the category of Old Masters.
According to Franco there are signs in the old paintings that show signs of illness in mythical heroes, angles, and Madonnas or at least in the people that sat for the painting sessions.
One other illness that he reports is of the Portrait of a Young Man which hangs in Washington at the National Gallery. The man portrayed has ‘spider fingers’ which is a clear sign of Marfan syndrome that is also seen in the painting Madonna which hangs in Florence.
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