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