Japanese Body Painting Artist

The portraits I've selected below are my "best of the rest". These are entries to the BP Portrait Award that didn't make it through to the final 53 of the BP portrait Award - and the exhibition (This is my my invitation to the "best of the rest" - of those not selected). However some made it past the digital stage and were one of the 439 that got in front of the judges. Of those some of the

53 artists out of 2,557 entries from 80 countries have had their portraits selected for the 2016 Annual Exhibition of the BP Portrait Award. 439 (17%) of the original entries made it through to the final judging session at Trinity Buoy Wharf.  The judges then reduced this number to 209 paintings (8%) and  the final step was the selection of the final 53 for the exhibition (representing 2% of

Three very impressive and very different paintings have been shortlisted for the £30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016. Each of them is guaranteed a prize.  They are: Girl in a Liberty Dress by Clara Drummond - a portrait of her friend and a fellow artist Hugo by Benjamin Sullivan - a portrait of the poet Hugo Williams;  Silence by Chinese artist Bo Wang - a portrait of his dying Grandmother. Both

Two notable things have happened since my last blog post (Fabriano, R K Burt and St Cuthberts Mill - and fine art watercolour paper for precision painting) about innovation and change within the world of Fine Art Hot Press paper used by watercolour painters who paint plants and flowers to botanical standards. . Systematic tests of watercolour paper The first is that yesterday Dianne Sutherland

The fourth article in my series of "Cost effective ideas for artists" is all about how you can get your art online for free. 'Display your art online - for free' is now available in the May edition of The Artist. A sample of the latest article in the May edition This article looks at: how to share your art and ways to get your art seen online for free how you can improve your

I was sent an image today by somebody who did NOT get their work selected for display in the BP Portrait Prize Exhibition 2016. (Those selected will be announced this week). Hello Katherine, Thanks for the consistently excellent reads.This year, I am one of the selected artists for the BP Portrait Prize who did not make it into the exhibition. I thought I'd send along an image of my piece, The

This is about: How to make a website domain name work for you as an artist and  One reason why your artist's website is NOT found on the first page of Google when people look for it. An artist wrote to me today to say I'd not included her website in a list of selected artists. The reason why I hadn't was linked to the nature of the domain name of her website. BELOW: I explain: why her website

The Call for Entries for The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2016 has been published.  This is the 29th year of the largest and most prestigious prize for contemporary watercolour painting in the UK.  This is the one that most watercolour painters want to be selected for as a mark of credibility on their CV. The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition aims to celebrate and reward excellence

Facebook has been messing around with the news feeds of Facebook Pages and totally disrupting workflow for those managing several Pages. I can only assume that they don't realise that people actually "like" the Facebook Pages of others so they can read them. What used to happen I used to log in to my Page from my account - and the profile pic would change from my account profile pic to the

A film about David Hockney on the BBC escaped my notice - perhaps because it was on at 3.30am in the morning! Anyway, all Hockneyphiles with access to iPlayer have until 5.30am on Monday 4th April to view Hockney. (It was shown last year at 9pm 14 Mar 2015 - but true fans always watch twice!) It's a wonderful biography full of his own photographs and videos - I dare say I shall watch it more

Last year, the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists was a pleasure to review (see Royal Society of British Artists 2015 - Annual Exhibition). It had well and truly bounced back from its nadir in 2012 (see see RBA 2012: An exhibition of Middle England?) This year's exhibition has 445 artworks in the main exhibition and 35 works in the NADFA's RBA Scholars exhibition and 20

I've been fascinated for a very long time by the different organisational forms that art societies around the world choose to take; and how they choose to organise themselves. Indeed being successful as an art society revolves very much around how the many challenges of running an art society and its various activities are managed. I've seen some laid low while others thrive - influenced very

I visited the annual exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists yesterday. This is open every day (10am - 5pm) at the Mall Galleries until the 2nd April. View of the Main Gallery in the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists 2016 The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is dedicated to promoting the highest standards of skill, concept and draughtsmanship in

Are these the top 20 Universities for Art and Design in the World? That's what the latest 2016 QS World University Subject Rankings for Art and Design indicate. The 6th annual edition of these rankings of 1,376 institutions around the world were published today and you can see the complete listing by clicking the above link.  The methodology which produces the rankings is based on academic

Artists living in and paying tax in the UK need to stay on top of changes to tax and national insurance contributions. There is good news and not so good news. Tax Good news for amateur artists - a new Tax Allowance There's a major boost for the amateur artist! Those making up to £1,000 per annum (after expenses and before tax) from creating and selling art will no longer have to pay tax

The HP surfaces of Fabriano Artistico and Fabriano 5 have changed. (The latter being the paper which is used in the RKB FatPad) . A number of botanical watercolour artists have recently reported that they have noticed changes to the robustness and performance of the surface of their Hot Press paper from Fabriano. This was also reported by Jacksons in its recent blog post Fabriano 5 Paper Texture

The National Open Art Competition opened for entries at the beginning of March. The closing date for entries is 10th July 2016. The 2015 competition attracted nearly 4000 entries and awarded around £60,000 in prizes and mentoring opportunities to 35 winning artists. Th 2016 finalists will be exhibited in NOA’s Winter Exhibition at Mercers’ Hall in October where the prize winners will be

I visited the annual exhibition of the Contemporary Watercolour Competition run by the Royal Watercolour Society on Friday.  The exhibition continues until 16th March at the Bankside Gallery (right next to Tate Modern and the River Thames on the South Bank. You can see a virtual exhibition here on the RWS website.  This has hugely improved in terms of the page of works, and each work also

This is my video, taken late Monday afternoon, of the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize Exhibition 2016. The exhibition for this prestigious prize for representational art continues to be on display until Sunday 13th March at the Mall Galleries (10am - 5pm). Admission is free. You can also read my blog posts about this art competition, prizewinners and exhibition on this blog: Lynn

This is the first of my blog posts about my interviews with 12 of the 13 botanical artists who won a Gold Medal at the 2016 RHS London Botanical Art Show at the end of last month (27-28 February 2016). Best Exhibit in RHS London Botanical Art Show (February 2016) Tillandsia by Mariko Aikawa The painting second from the left was bought by the RHS for the RHS Lindley Library. I've decided to

The £15,000 Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize for 2016 - and a Gold Medal - has been awarded to Henry Kondracki for his oil painting of The Cowgate - in the snow - by The Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers and the Lynn Foundation. This is a prestigious prize for original, two-dimensional works in any painting or drawing media. The prize has two aims: to encourage the very best creative

Do you know what questions to ask when considering what to do about your artist's website - and whether or not it needs improving? Working your way through the 30 questions in this post will give you a "to do" list for improvements you need to work on. I look at a lot of websites while writing this blog. Some of them are very good, some are shambolic and a lot could be improved in both major and

The 2016 Exhibition for the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize - celebrating some of the best in representational painting - opens at the Mall Galleries tomorrow.  It's on from Monday 7th to Sunday 13th March (10am - 5pm) and admission is free.  For those unable to get to London to visit the exhibition you can also view the exhibition online Selected artists Below are the names of the artists whose

"How to get on - online" is the title of my latest talk about websites and social media for artists.  I've been asked by Heatherley's Art School in Chelsea to do a talk on 21st March about how artists can market both themselves and their art online using websites and social media Click this link for more details How to get on – online Marketing you and your art online - using websites and

Once upon a time there was an initiative called Your Paintings. The aim was to digitise and provide a comprehensive online catalogue of all the oil paintings in public ownership in the UK. As yet it does not provide any record of the watercolours, sculpture, drawing and prints also held by public collections - more's the pity. For some reason the website for 'Your Paintings' was hosted by the

The National Original Print Exhibition is run by the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers which is the UK's premier printmaking society Call for Entries Deadline for Entries: 21 June 2016 Who can enter The competition is open to international entries - but the entrant is responsible for getting their work to (and from) designated drop off and collection venues What can you enter

The third article in my series of "Cost effective ideas for artists" - about How to afford to exhibit your art - is now published in the April edition of The Artist. This summarises where you can exhibit and ways to reduce costs plus how to avoid some nasty surprises when exhibiting with galleries or your own account. A sample of the latest article in the April edition The article covers:

This is the fourth in a series of posts about tips from RHS Gold Medal winners. The three previous posts are: Ten Top Tips for winning an RHS Gold Medal for Botanical Art (April 2013) More Top Tips for winning an RHS Gold Medal for Botanical Art (April 2014) 15 Top Tips for presenting work at an RHS Botanical Art (April 2014) You can also find a summary of the Tips and Techniques - including

Below you'll find the names of the people who won medals at the RHS London Botanical Art Show today.  You can find out more about them and their exhibits in my previous post about RHS Botanical Art 2016 - Selected Artists Well done to the RHS Organisers for having the list of medal winners available as a pdf file on their website by the time I got home! Best Botanical Painting by Julie

This year's Annual Exhibition of The Pastel Society - NOW @ The Pastel Society - opened to the public at the Mall Galleries on Tuesday. It continues until 3pm on Saturday 5th March.  The Society very kindly invited me to their pre-PV Lunch and I spent a very long time at the exhibition on Monday afternoon! Featuring works created in pastel, pencil, chalk and charcoal, the Pastel Society exhibits

Arts Council England has commissioned a new national study into how visual artists in England live and work. This is a link to the Artists’ Livelihoods survey which forms part of the study. What makes this study - and survey - serious and different is that it is being conducted within the context of a a broad coalition of partners from across the visual arts which have shaped and support

The exhibition of artwork by the 50 artists shortlisted for the Artist of the Year 2015 Prize sponsored by Artists and Illustrators Magazine opened yesterday at the Mall Galleries and is on display until the end of Saturday 27th February. The "Artist of the Year 2015" gets £1,000 in cash and gallery representation at Panter & Hall. You can see the rest of the prizes on offer on the competition

I'm busy finishing artwork and matting and framing drawings for hand-in submission to the annual exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists tomorrow. I ended up doing something completely different to what I had planned. I've done two drawings of the sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) neither of which are the conventional view of the lotus Nelumbo nucifera bud and bloom by Katherine

If you've ever fancied improving your drawing knowledge and skills at a leading art school in the UK, I recommend you take a look at the 2016 Short Courses offered out of term time by the Ruskin School of Art at Oxford University. The courses are not cheap and there's a limit of 16 places on each course however I expect some of them - particularly those taught by Sarah Simblet - will be booked

Some of you will have heard that Parliament was proposing to do away with printing laws on vellum. This raised all sorts of very understandable concerns amongst artists using vellum about whether the loss of the Parliamentary contract would cause business problems for the UK's oldest vellum supplier William Cowley - and consequently cause problems for the supply of vellum to artists in the UK

Last night I discovered that I'd missed an excellent BBC programme called Apples, Pears and Paint: How To Make a Still Life Painting which was broadcast last month. It provides a history of what has historically been the least popular genre of painting - and the depiction of fruit, flowers and domestic objects - from the still life painting in Egypt and Pompeii to Cezanne and Picasso via

Van Gogh's Bedrooms is a very unusual exhibition opens in the Regenstein Hall of The Art Institute of Chicago today. It closes 10th May 2016. While most of us won't be able to see it in person, there are quite a few resources online which allow us to appreciate some of the effort which has gone into this exhibition. At the end of this post I've also listed my very extensive list of posts on this

The artwork selected for the Columbia Threadneedle Prize exhibition at the Mall Galleries is different from previous years - and I like it a lot better. Threadneedle Prize Exhibition: A view of the Main Galleryprior to the Preview Compared to previous years, the changes I noticed are that the art - to my mind - is a lot more accessible. This is an exhibition which will be enjoyed by more

The Threadneedle Prize has a £10,000 Visitors' Choice Award which is voted for by people visiting the exhibition. Every time the Threadneedle exhibition is held I always do a post devoted to the pictures I would have chosen as my shortlist for "The Columbia Threadneedle Prize: Figurative Art Today" a.k.a. (at least by me) as 'the Threadneedle Prize".  In effect they contain the picture I'm

Is the type of art that people buy online the same as the sort of art that people like to create? This post is going to look at: the similarities and differences between the type of art that British and American people buy online how this compares to the type of art that people like to paint. It's important to realise at the outset that that neither the subjects that people search for or the

The winner of The Columbia Threadneedle Prize 2016 of £20,000 is Lewis Hazelwood-Horner. The competition is the leading open competition for figurative and representational art and the exhibitions are held annually at the Mall Galleries. The prizewinning work is called "Salt in Tea". Lewis has also won a solo exhibition for a wider body of his work at Mall Galleries later this year.  Lewis has

I'm very disappointed in North Light Books.  I used to think they were a great publishing firm for artists. I always used to look out for their new publications and was delighted when I found out my book would be published by them. The reason I'm disappointed is that North Light Books have put out a Call for Entries for urban sketchers to contribute pen and ink art for a COLOURING BOOK! the

Thirty five botanical artists have been selected by the RHS Picture Committee to exhibit at the dedicated RHS Botanical Art Show 2016 in the Lindley Hall in the City of Westminster on 26-27 February 2016. This is the largest number of botanical artists in one RHS Botanical Art show during the time I've been visiting. Below you can find A list of the artists exhibiting in 2016 organised by the

This is the second in my series of ten articles about how to be a cost-effective artist - for "The Artist" magazine. This one is about framing.  That's because framing has the potential for eating into any profit you make in a major way. However there are a number of different ways to contain costs and this article suggests some of the ones I know about. What's your best tip or favourite tactic

These are some notes I made when visiting the exhibition of artwork by Jean Etienne Liotard at the Royal Academy of Arts - after I saw the new exhibition 'Painting the Modern Garden' on Wednesday. I'd been meaning to visit this exhibition for quite some time as it includes a lot of pastel portraits and I wanted to take a close look at them from a technical perspective. If you like pastels or

This is the last week of the Nature's Bounty exhibition at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens. It closes on Sunday 31st January (10am to 3.45pm). The exhibition is about the paintings of fruit, vegetables, seeds and nuts in the collection of Dr. Shirley Sherwood.  The flowers which are included are those which include the method used for propagation associated with the flower - which is

This is a VERY overdue review of the RHS Botanical Art Show held last February. Initially I misplaced my catalogue and notes and then subsequently I was distracted (much loved cats dying etc.) and just plain forgot to write it up - so I'm now remedying the error as the RHS Botanical Art Show 2016 is almost upon us! Below are the images and information about the artists that won an RHS Hold

An approach from a major art website has prompted today's post about reasons NOT to link to a website. First the letter. Next and my response. Finally some of the reasons why it's not a good idea to link to a website ....and finally - what Google thinks about schemes to swop/trade links and why they are a bad idea. The 'request to link' email and my response I've removed the name of the

One of the things I very much like about the national art societies that exhibit at the Mall Galleries is they always have a good range of events, demonstrations and workshops. In February, the main gallery at the Mall Galleries will reopen after a major refurbishment and will be boasting a new energy-efficient heating & air conditioning system and more natural daylight. The first two

Earlier this week, the Share button disappeared from all posts on Facebook Pages for a number of people. [UPDATE 22 January 2016: Finally the 'share' button has returned to Facebook Pages - nearly two weeks after it disappeared. Seems like a long time to me for something that ought to be fairly straightforward to fix. Did it take Facebook this long to notice - despite all the feedback?] This

I have a problem with contemporary art. I always feel like I need a map to navigate what's happened in the last 100 years. There's just so many different artists and so many different art movements - and I find it very difficult to sort out who's important and who's not. This week Laurence King published a book called Art Visionaries which might well provide a resource to fill the gaps in my

The Cumberland Pencil Company announced the Call for Entries from international artists for The 3rd Derwent Art Prize on Monday.  The deadline for entry is 1st June 2016. The competition is now a biannual competition - so the next one will be in 2018. Astri Saunders, Marketing Manager at Derwent, said “We are proud to launch the Derwent Art Prize for the third year. Our aim of the

About the passing of David Bowie, his vision, visuals, paintings and my youth. David Bowie in 2002 Photo by Adam Bielawski Bowie is the man who elevated his music to what can only be described as an art form. I'm sure I'm not the only 60 something who has been remembering their youth today - following the news of the sad passing of David Bowie. (his website) He's one of the few people

Every year I write about how to enter the world's largest open submission art competition - the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. You need to know Artists wishing to enter need to know six things up front: If your entry is not one of the first 12,000 entries received you won't be exhibited. This is because, as in previous years, the RA are only accepting 12,000 entries for the

The only channel on British television which does programmes about art and artists on a regular basis - using people who are credible commentators is the BBC. In other programmes about art that are educational and informative and not just "entertainment". It's one very big reason why the BBC must remain a public broadcaster and NOT become commercial. Art documentaries on BBCiPlayer So - what

This week I came across a different approach to copyright infringement on an artist's website. The message on the website didn't look to dissimilar to those you see on many websites with respect to who to contact if you want to reproduce the art.  What was different was that the link went straight to a firm of lawyers in the USA who specialised in copyright and trademark infringement. Suddenly

I included a link to a video of Sargy Mann talking about what it's like to be a blind painter - and how to see more and see better - on my Facebook Page at the weekend. These are some of the words you would have heard from blind painter Sargy Mann in a TED Talk - if he hadn't died before he could deliver it The video has now "gone viral" - with many people appreciating listening to a man who

In 2016, The Artist magazine (in the UK) will be publishing a series of ten articles by me on the theme of 'Cost effective ideas for artists". The first one is in the February 2016 edition - published on 31 December - which is now available in the shops or online as a digital edition!  It's very easy to find - on page 66 - the last page of the magazine. The top of the first article - which

First of all I'd like to take the opportunity to wish a Happy New Year from Making A Mark here in London. May you and your art enjoy the best of times in 2016 wherever you live around the world. Next I have a celebration....... New Year fireworks in London 1st January 2016 Making A Mark was born on 13th December 2005 in terms of the first time I published a post. However I did then change