Katherine Tyrrell: Ten Artistic Tips Learnt From The Big Painting Challenge (11 years later!)

Some of those contemplating entering one of the Artist of the Year competitions might find the tips below to be useful.

This is a reproduction of an article I wrote for the WH Smith Blog eleven years ago following (a) the Final of the The Big Painting Challenge and (b) the publication of my book Sketching 365. 

I found it by accident while searching for something else and realised I had completely forgotten about it! It also seemed very timely for a repost!

So here is Katherine Tyrrell: Ten Artistic Tips Learnt From The Big Painting Challenge

________________________________

Last Sunday was the final episode of The Big Painting Challenge. The series has offered a lot to opportunities to learn over the last 6 weeks – from the amateur painters as well as from the Judges Daphne Todd and Lachlan Goudie.

I’ve been following the series on my blog Making A Mark and have been writing a series of posts – one for each episode. These comment on the challenges and highlight tips as the series has progressed.

Below I’ve summarised some important tips which I’ve derived from the programme content and the comments of both judges and the amateur artists.

TOP TEN TIPS

Check out these tips if you’re thinking of entering an art competition on television – or just improving how you paint.

TIP 1: Observation is key.

It’s really important to look carefully whether you are painting a person, a still life, a landscape – or things which move and dance about and change while you watch! You will reap the benefits if you spend as much time looking as you do drawing and painting. Find the big shapes, the verticals, horizontals and angles and don’t forget to measure and check the size and relative proportions of what you can see.

TIP 2: Good drawing underpins sound construction.

When a drawing or painting does not look quite right it’s often down to a problem with the drawing. Problems with drawing often lie either in:

• A failure to observe carefully (see Tip 1)
• A tendency to simplify so as to ignore the difficult bits
• Unfamiliarity with a range of normal drawing media and the scope for making different marks (see Tip 3)
• Difficulties in placing an object on a page – leading to bits missing which you intended to include (see Tip 6)
• Difficulties in handling and mixing colour when using dry media rather than paint (Tip 8)

Identifying the nature of the problem with your drawing is your first step to learning how to correct it. Example: My major problem is my verticals often lean if I draw without thinking. My solution is to check how a major vertical lines up with the edge of the page as I draw it.

My book "Sketching 365" published internationally in 2015

TIP 3: Practice drawing quickly using different types of dry media.

Dry media was usually used for the quick draw exercises in The Big Painting Challenge but was not limited to pencils or charcoal. There was also little time for slow careful drawings! Moving on from graphite to use different types of dry media – and colour – challenged a few of the artists! Dry media are great for drawing and sketching. Try becoming more familiar with the properties of different types of dry media and also how they can be used intelligently to produce quick drawings. Not everything is drawn using a tip – you can also use the side and cover more paper faster! Drawing quickly is something that can be learned – but it takes practice

TIP 4: Become comfortable in working from life – as part of your daily life.

The 10 Most popular posts in the first million visits (Part 1)

One of the assets of this blog - which started 20 years ago - is there is a very considerable archive of past posts - some of which have been very popular indeed. 

I've just come across a post which highlights what were the 10 most popular posts in 2011 - after the first five years of Making A Mark. 

During this period I did regular "big projects" on specific topics - and these are reflected in the most popular posts

Below are the top five posts - with the links to each blog post embedded in its title.

Tomorrow I'll list the next 5 posts in the top 10

I've extracted a short piece of text and an image from each one - so you can get an insight as to what the post is about.

CAUTION: Given the age of the posts some of the links embedded in the post will no longer work as websites have died and been wound up.

1. 10 Tips for How to Sketch People

Drawing and sketching people is an invaluable way of developing a wide range of artistic skills.

I've been drawing people for very many years - family, friends, people in cafes and restaurants, life class models - and other artists. People often tell me how much they like the sketches I make of people I come across on my travels with a sketchbook - which I find a bit odd as most rarely have faces!

Cheers Boston!
(sketching fellow travellers at Logan Airport, Boston, USA September 2006)
8" x 10", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

2. Van Gogh: Drawing media and techniques

Drawing Media:

• Pencil: He employed pencil for preliminary drawings and then combined it with ink. He often worked with a carpenter's pencil. He liked to press hard and often worked on wet paper.
• Pen and ink: Van Gogh had a remarkable gift for pen drawing and graphic technique.
• Most of Van Gogh's pen and ink and brush drawings (such as the one above) are executed first in pencil first. He then inks/bruhes over the pencil marks once he is happy with them.
• some of his pen and ink drawings are drawn without any preliminary use of pencil
• During his visit to Arles in 1888, Van Gogh discovered the reed pen (made from local hollow-barreled grass, sharpened with a penknife). It changed his drawing style. He created some extraordinary drawings of the Provençal landscape, including a series of drawings of and from Montmajour (east of Arles) , in reed pen and aniline ink on laid paper. The ink has now faded to a dull brown.
• The Van Gogh Museum is conducting research into pigments and drawing inks in use in the period 1888-1890 and comparing this to the inks Van Gogh used [UPDATE: See the Research Results REVIGO: Paintings - which also comments on inks]

Trees with ivy in the asylum garden, 1889
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, May-June 1889
pencil, reed pen and brush and ink, on paper, 61.8 cm x 47.1 cm
Credits: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

3. Composition - Principles of Design

This post forms part of an introduction to the elements and principles of composition and design and follows on from yesterday's post about the elements of design. 

It's an overview. More can be written about each and every principle - and has been!

• Good composition doesn't happen by accident. A quick reminder. The analogy which I find helpful for remembering which is which is to compare the elements and principles of art and design to the ingredients and method of a recipe. Cookery and composition have quite a lot in common!
• All the elements are ingredients - they are separate and need to be combined effectively to produce a successful outcome. Each ingredient gets to play a major or a minor role in the eventual outcome. This, in part, is dependent on the quantities employed and, in part, on the nature and intrinsic power of each ingredient (think garlic and chilis!).
• It's the particular way that they they are combined - using the principles of design - which enables a successful outcome. The same ingredients can for example be combined in a number of different ways (think of recipes for eggs!)

First Tips for using a Sketchbook

While sorting out my sketchbooks - as in finally getting round to labelling them with years and contents, I came across my very first sketchbook as an adult.

In it were some tips from Paul Millichip 1929-2018 about "using a sketchbook" which he very much advocated. In fact it's probably true to say he was the person who started me using a sketchbook properly

So I'm passing them on.....

The context is I signed up for his two week course on painting in Goa India in December 1993 - and a pre-holiday course in September at his studio in Buckinghamshire which was focused on sketching and using a sketchbook, so we'd get the most out of time on our trip to Goa.
(Note: I was very focused in being efficient in how I worked. I'd just started as a management consultant with KPMG and was very focused on performance improvement! Curious how your main job can influence how you approach your art...)

First the notes, then one of my sketches from Goa that I was rather pleased with and then some notes about a couple of books he wrote. Anybody who thinks they look interesting should be able to pick up second hand for next to nothing on the internet. Although I rather suspect, most owners are hanging on to their copies!

Using a Sketchbook

Think of a sketchbook as a tool - a means to an end

When starting to sketch, focus on what interests you - and state it straightaway e.g.

• dark against light
• dynamic
• vertical against horizontal

then

• look for the source of light
• light from the side or from behind creates interest

then

• stare at subject 
• look at blank page - see ghost of subject
• put down measuring points

Use your sketchbook to make notes:

• written notes
• colour notes - particularly relating to light
• if a sketch is going to yield useful information, it probably needs fairly careful drawing

If sketching:

• people - try to sketch a moment
• group of buildings:
• look for the line the buildings make against the sky
• look at overall shapes (the "big shapes")
• do NOT get distracted by drawing individual buildings
• focus on the big shapes first - and include negative spaces
• try a large object in the foreground
• sometimes useful to sketch on a theme

(He was a good teacher and I was unconsciously using these tips for years afterwards.)

Baga Beach, Goa (1993) by Katherine Tyrrell
An example of how thick cloud in a tropical place
completely mutes all light, colour, tone and shadows.
This is also my very first watercolour sketch of a boat, a sandy beach and a wave!

If you have no colours/paints with you:

• you need a formula e.g. use initials for paint colours
• you need to make notes

Using watercolours:

20 million pageviews!!

Making A Mark has finally achieved 20 million pageviews - as counted by Blogger!

It also recently made it to six million unique visits as well.

125k+ Visitors from all over the world in the last 6 months

I feel so silly though as I knew it was coming up - but took my eye off the ball so I don't know when it happened but it was in the last few days!

Despite me writing a lot less now (only 106 posts so far this year!) - for reasons I explained in my last post - it's still generating a lot of visits from all over the world - and most stick around and take a longer look at what else can be found on the blog.

Below are tips for how to get people to visit and to keep coming back....

Making A Mark - the story so far

Blogger hasn't quite adjusted to blogs being as old as mine. This is the chart on the stats page

The story since 2011 (when it was already 5 years old) - when it achieved 1 million visits

Previous posts on this topic include:

• Making a Mark is 17 years old. What next? (January 5th 2023) - in which I look back at how the blog has progressed and where people come from
• After 17 million pageviews!!! (May 15th 2021) - when I noted that Making A Mark was averaging over 1 million pageviews each year
• Making A Mark achieves 5 MILLION visits! (January 15th 2020)
• 10 Years of Making A Mark (January 1 2016)
• Making A Mark achieves 2.5 million visits (March 13th 2014)
• Making A Mark notches up 5 million Pageviews! (January 17th, 2014)
• Making A Mark notches up 1 million visits. (April 2011) - It took five years to get the millionth visitor in April 2011
• Exploring Web Analytics #1 - about why I use statistics to develop my blog.

I included a tip for how to get visits and visitors who want to look around once they arrive in 11 tips for how to get 1 million website visitors quickly

The 11 Tips (explained in the post) were:

1. Make your website very focused
2. Make every webpage very specific - make it a niche within a niche
3. Make every title very specific in terms of its topic
4. Provide a short summary of what each page contains at the top.
5. Make navigation very easy
6. Have a plan for how your website will develop
7. Use statistics to guide development
8. People look at images and read words - but really they scan both!
9. Write about what you know
10. Refresh and update a website regularly (use a blog)
11. Do link to relevant other websites - and encourage them to link back

Blog posts to date

The Archive tells me that the pattern looks like this - with over 4,400 published blog posts to date.

• ►  2023 (106)

• ►  2022 (151)

• ►  2021 (179)

• ►  2020 (212)

• ►  2019 (174)

• ►  2018 (205)

• ►  2017 (191)

• ►  2016 (180)

• ►  2015 (217)

• ►  2014 (221)

• ►  2013 (274)

• ►  2012 (304)

• ►  2011 (288)

• ►  2010 (307)

• ►  2009 (310)

• ►  2008 (357)

• ►  2007 (392)

• ►  2006 (348)

I started out writing virtually every day - for three years.

Then started having one day a week off. I producing around about 300 posts each year or very nearly 6 blog posts a week. This continued (apart from when I was on holiday) until I started to write my book in 2014.

My favourite subjects to draw and sketch

How do we identify the special subjects we like to sketch, draw or paint again and again?

Sometimes we don't realise for a very long time what they are until we've done enough to see a pattern.

Landscapes with extensive views

For me, it dawned on me after I first created my website for my artwork that it was landscapes with VERY BIG vistas! There were an awful lot of them....

Here's an example. This was a commission I did 11 years ago for the American wife of a cyclist who loved his time cycling up Mont Ventoux in Provence (YES! There really are people who commission paintings for their spouses!) 

Mont Ventoux from the Hotel Crillon Le Brave
12" x 16", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils on Arches HP 

The commission was triggered by a sketch on a blog post on the blog we created for a painting holiday in Provence 

Painting in Provence
This is the story of four women who were drawing, sketching and painting in Provence in June 2011.
We shared a house and held a painting party!
You are invited to share our preparations, our sketches and paintings, comings and goings and general conviviality!and the original sketch

This was the original blog post Sunday lunch and sketching at Hotel Crillon Le Brave and two of the original sketches. 

The view from the terrace of Mont Ventoux and Bedoin in the distance

Meals in restaurants

The second sketch is my lunch - also known as what I was eating while sketching! 

Also known as my second favourite subject for sketching: meals in restaurants and cafes

I've got absolutely masses from a number of different countries! I have pondered on doing some more research and maybe creating a book! ;)

I have a record of the meal on my main sketchblog The view of Mont Ventoux from Crillon Le Brave

• Soupe de Pöisson, Crouton et Aioli mediterranean fish soup, aioli and croutons;
• Thon à la Planche, Salade Fenoil, Tartibe de'Aioli tuna steak, shaved fennel salad and aioli tartine
• Floating Island in lavender

My three course lunch at the Hotel Crillon Le Brave:
mediterranean fish soup, aioli and croutons;
tuna steak, shaved fennel salad and aioli tartine and
a floating island in lavender

The sketches were all done in a large Moleskine Sketchbook using pen and ink and coloured pencils. 

I've always very much enjoyed eating out - and developed a rule while travelling of "If I'm eating in a new place I should really try to eat something I've never had before".   Very educational - travels broaden the mind - and sometimes the tum!

The big advantage of sketching food for me is that I had to be fast and eating enforced breaks from sketching - which helps a lot when trying to protect your hand from tenosynovitis / osteoarthritis through gripping pens and pencils for far too long! (See yesterday's blog post about Golden Oldie #3: Artists and Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI))

Now that I'm more mobile and steadier on my feet, I really ought to start taking a small sketchbook and a small pencil case out with me - and eat out more!

Saturday Sketch Club at the Royal Academy of Arts

The Royal Academy of Arts has been running a FREE ONLINE Saturday Sketch Club for a while. I'm not sure how many people know about this (I didn't!) because there's not a lot of visits to their videos.

Below are the LINKS to the YouTube videos of various sessions. Most last an hour or thereabouts.

(NOTE: the links do NOT work on the RA website - you need to go to the links listed below)

 
Saturday Sketch Club: still life (10 May 2021) - still life drawing with Mark Hampson, Head of Fine Art Processes at the Royal Academy Schools.

Saturday Sketch Club: collage (26th May 2021) - Grab any paper you have lying around (newspapers, magazines, leaflets or receipts), a pair of scissors and something sticky (an old glue stick or some tape will do).

Saturday Sketch Club: anatomy drawing (1 June 2021) - Artist Adele Wagstaff leads a session on the anatomy of the human form; from the deep landmarks of the skeletal system, to the musculature which is evident on the surface of the body. Observe the structure and movement of the body as you practice drawing the model in a series of short and long poses.

Saturday Sketch Club: botanical drawing (7 June 2021) a session on botanical drawing with Laxmi Hussain. Laxmi will introduce you to techniques involved in mark making, to discover drawing as an everyday activity. Laxmi explores minimalism in her work through continuous line and will demonstrate how to approach and use these techniques.

( I'm going to jump in here and say if you want to know more about drawing plants do take a look at the Scientific Botanical Illustration on my Botanical Art and Artists website - which also discusses What is Botanical Art?) 

Saturday Sketch Club: drawing as exploration (14 June 2021) - Discover repetition and transformation in this workshop with Elinor Stanley, exploring the power of your drawing through multiple versions. Inspired by Picasso’s cut-outs, this session investigates how simple shapes can be crystallised into expressions and motifs for future

Saturday Sketch Club: experimenting with the figure (21 June 2021) - oin artist Jake Garfield for this fun and informal life drawing session. Working directly from a clothed model, you will break drawing down to its essential ingredients. Expect to explore formal qualities including “line”, “mark-making” and “tone” through a series of short activities, before combining these different aspects over an extended pose. This practical drawing session is perfect for beginners and experienced artists alike.

Saturday Sketch Club: drawing into the abstract (28 June 2021) - Emyr Williams for a workshop which will explore and challenge our perceptions of ‘realistic’ drawing and abstract art. Emyr will introduce us to new ways of seeing, building confidence in our drawing. 

This is the Link to ALL THE VIDEOS

Sketching via webcam

This morning I participated in the Facebook Event that the Mall Galleries organised to sketch the Trevi Fountain Online - via webcam - between 10am and 12 noon.

This was my effort sketching using a pen and ink (Pilot G-Tec-C4) and coloured pencils (various). I'm limited as to how much sketching I can do due to tenosynovitis in my right (sketching) hand - but this took about an hour.  You can see a bigger version on my Facebook Page when I post this blog post.

The Trevi Fountain via webcam
(pen and ink and coloured pencils in A4 Moleskine Sketchbook)

You can take a look at the webcam to see what I was sketching - but best start at 10am if you want to see what I saw! This is the Skyline webcam at the Trevi Fountain in Rome https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/italia/lazio/roma/fontana-di-trevi.html

If you're stuck with social isolating inside (as I am) then webcams are a wonderful window on the world. People actually walk through the view and it's the nearest thing to sketching 'for real' outside that I know.

You can find more webcams on:

• Skyline - Live Cams in Italy
• These are their Top Live Cams
• Plus their Livecams 
• in the UK
• in the USA
• Earthcam webcams

Also great for all those who would like to sketch but might be

• not very confident about sketching outside - get used to the changing light and shadows before doing it for real
• a bit worried about people coming up to ask them questions. You only have to worry about significant others in isolation with you!

For more tips about sketching you can always read my book Sketching 365.  

Bixby Bridge, Highway 1 and Big Little Lies

We've started to watch Big Little Lies - and I love the opening sequence which includes the Bixby Bridge. I'm afraid I bounce up and down at the beginning of every episode as the Bixby Bridge comes into view, all the while exclaiming "I've been there - that's Bixby Bridge. I stopped there. I drew that!"

Maritime Inversion, - Bixby Bridge, Big Sur
8" x 12", coloured pencils on Arches
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

In July 2006 - on a trip around California, Arizona and New Mexico, my third 'big trip' involved flying to San Francisco, picking up a Chrysler PT Cruiser and then, after a short stop in Monterey, driving at a fairly leisurely pace all the down Highway 1 - the Pacific Coast Highway - from San Francisco to San Diego - all on my own! Something in excess of 550 miles.

This road is almost next to the coast and it follows the coastline - with views of the Pacific Ocean en route - almost all the way down

I'd planned to sketch the views from the Highway as I progressed - and post about my travels in my sketchbook blog "Travels with my Sketchbook".

What I hadn't planned on was the marine inversion due to the heatwave which was taking place inland. Having experienced the 100 degree heat while crossing deserts earlier in the trip, I'd looked forward to it being cooler - but would have preferred cooler with more sun!

Which explains why my sketch (below) and then the more developed drawing above both feature the low-lying cloud of a marine inversion - where the cold sea meets the very hot land.

Bixby Bridge, Pacific Coast Highway
8" x 10", Pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook
4.50pm on 28 July 2006

You can see what the weather was like in the layby where I parked just north of the bridge - grey, grey and more grey!

This is the Bixby Bridge - as seen in the opening credits of Big Little Lies

Below is the rest of my third "big trip"

Road Trip #3 - Pacific Coast Highway Trip from San Francisco to San Diego

San Francisco to San Diego along the Pacific Coast Highway (26th July - 30th July 2006)
(link goes to a Google Map)

On this trip I found out that the marine inversions on the coast tend to accompany very high temperatures inland!

• Tuesday 25th July - "a rest day" ie unpacking / washing / drying / repacking plus last minute bookings for Road Trip #2 - the Pacific Coast Highway Trip from San Francisco to San Diego!
• Wednesday 26th July - "Driving Highway 1 - the Pacific Coast Highway" Road Trip #2 from San Francisco to San Diego involves flying from San Diego to San Francisco; then oicking up a car and driving down to Monterey armed with Ed Terpening's guide to plein air painting spots ("The best spots painting tour") and dinner in Pacific Grove (3 sketches)
• Thursday 27th July - "Carmel by the Sea - and a marine inversion" (4 sketches) with a description of what it feels like when it's more than 50 degrees cooler than the weather experienced on Monday!
• Friday 28th July - "The greatest meeting of land and water in the world" Point Lobos State Reserve (sketch and photos)
• Friday 28th July - "Driving down big Sur - at last" the drive along the Pacific Coast Highway down Big Sur (1 sketches plus photo)
• Saturday 29th July - "The best breakfast of the trip - at the Big Sky cafe!" San Luis Obispo to Ventura (2 sketches plus photos)
• Sunday 30th July - "The end of my drive down Highway 1 and the start of concretefreewayville" - Back to Louise in Santee via Brunch in Malibu and crossing LA by freeway (2 sketches)
• Tuesday 1st August - "Flying home and some reflections" on artwork produced and travelling in the USA - after trying to work out on Monday what went home and what went on to New England.

As well as sketching details, my posts also include details of

• routes I travelled
• places I stayed and/or visited
• descriptions of places where I ate meals (which often became the subjects for sketches)
• PLUS places to buy art supplies .

What's been the best road trip + sketching that you've done? Answers to my Facebook Page

Call for entries: £10,000 Evening Standard Art Prize 2018

This is an overview of the Call for Entries for the second year of the £10,000 Evening Standard Art Prize in association with Hiscox.

The theme of The Evening Standard Art Prize is ‘progress’ and aims to inspire artists around the UK to create original works.

Below is my overview of the Call for Entries.
Everything in italics is my comment on aspects of the call for entry

The winner of the First Evening Standard Art Prize in 2017 was painter Helen A Pritchard (below) and or her abstract painting ‘To Make a Sculpture’.  She is a graduate of both the University of East London and the Royal College of Art.

Helen A Pritchard with her winning entry in 2017
Photo by Nigel Howard

The overview below is interspersed with images of some of the works which made it though to the Shortlist last year - as in these were the ones I liked!

The Prize and the Judges

The Prize

There is one prize which comprises three elements - all of which on their own are worth having!

• £10,000 in cash, 
• a lifetime National Arts Pass and 
• Hiscox Fine Art Insurance up to a maximum premium of £2,500 for one year (subject to eligibility; and the artist must reside within the UK).

The winning entry will be the favourite entry selected by the judging panel from all valid entries received.

(Note: Emphasis on the word 'valid' - as in compliant with every single aspect of the terms and conditions. Get any of them wrong and you cannot win the prize)

The Judges

There are 6 judges:

• Matthew Collings - a British art critic, writer, broadcaster, and artist.  Write for the Evening Standard
• NEW Chantal Joffe RA - an English artist based in London
• NEW Olivia Laing - a British writer, novelist and cultural critic.
• William Moore - author and Evening Standard Arts Editor 
• Robert Read - Head of Art and Private Clients at Hiscox
• Jessie Thompson. - Digital Arts Editor Evening Standard

The judges have two criteria: 

• first, has the artist successfully reflected the brief? 

• Second, have they followed the rules – which are very simple? 

Paintings, drawings and sketches are all accepted, so long as they’re no larger than size A0 (841 x 1189 mm) … and that’s pretty much it.

According to Thompson, the judges were determined to make the Art Prize as open as possible. ‘There are a lot of art competitions catered to established artists, like the Turner Prize,’ she says. ‘But breaking into the art world can be quite difficult.’ The solution was to make the competition completely free to enter, so that way it was accessible to everyone – no commission, no fee, no hassle. Why everyone should enter the Evening Standard Art Prize | Hiscox

Who can enter?

Only artists aged 18 years or over and resident in the UK can enter.
(Note: That's going to be resident as in "legitimate resident")

What can you enter?

You can only submit one piece of artwork. - it can be a painting, drawing or sketch no bigger than A0.

Photography submissions are not valid entries

The artwork MUST be:

• an original piece (as in wholly original / no copying! The definition of "original" in art means you must be capable of asserting legal copyright ownership)
• no larger than 841 x 1189 mm (33.1 x 46.8 inches) ( It's unclear but in most competitions the size normally means "including the frame")
• capable of being displayed on a wall or on an easel (the size is equivalent to size A0 i.e. the largest size which can safely sit on an easel. )
• reflect the the brief of ‘progress’

How to enter

The deadline for entries is 23:59 on Sunday 30 September 2018.
To enter, send the following via email to [email protected]

• your full name, 
• your contact number, 
• your postcode, 
• the title of the artwork, 
• the dimensions of the artwork and 
• three images of the work from different angles (not to exceed 14 MB) . 

There are NO ENTRY FEES!

Note that by entering, your submission automatically becomes content which may be used by The Evening Standard or Hiscox in future marketing.  (i.e. you are licensing the use of the work to these two entities for marketing purposes)

The Evening Standard also has a standard set of rules relating to their competitions / promotions - and you need to comply with these.

For further information, please write to Customer Care, Evening Standard Limited, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London, W8.

You can follow this art competition on social media using the hashtag #ESArtPrize

Longlist to shortlist

Details of "what happens next" will be sent to those artists whose digital entries are long listed.

I'm guessing you will hear within a few days of the deadline for entries - which means if it needs to be framed you need to plan ahead - before you hear the result!

Long listed entries:

• must  be sent/brought in to a London address for judging by 15 October 2018
• artists will be required to sign a waiver before their work can be displayed for final judging. Hiscox is solely responsible for the Fine Art Insurance prize.

More about Art Competitions

You can read more art competitions (past and present) in my Page dedicated to Major Art Competitions in the UK.

SUBSCRIBE and receive every post from Making A Mark via email. 

Your subscription is only activated after you verify the link in the email you will receive

Most have a minimum of £10,000 as a prize.

My dedicated blog page provides

• Overview of the basics for each competition - listed by year below (I've been running this page since 2010 and it gets updated on a rolling basis - but sometimes I forget. Use the labels in the side column to find the latest post if I have! THE ARCHIVE is at the bottom of the page)
• Prizes: List divided into major and minor art competitions on basis of main cash prize
• Calls for entries - for UK (and international artists for some competitions)
• Deadlines - look out for the red dates highlighted
• Selected Artists - with websites embedded in names
• Exhibition reviews - with images
• PLUS 
• links to tips about entering art competitions 
• notes about VAT for international artists entering UK art competitions
• AN ARCHIVE of posts relating to exhibitions in previous years (Going back to 2010 if you want to look at what sort of art got selected in the past)

VIDEO: Wildlife Field Study sketches by the SWLA

This is my video (below) of the sketches and artwork produced by members of the Society of Wildlife Artists during Wildlife Study Projects in the field at:

1. Kingcombe Meadows Nature Reserve, Dorset Wildlife Reserve - during a Residency by SWLA in May 2017 
2. RSPB/SWLA Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project 

For more about each of these places/projects click the links above.

The sketches are being displayed in the North Galleries of the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists at the Mall Galleries - which runs until 1pm on Sunday 29th October.

Given my personal preference for botanical subject matter it's unsurprising that I was particularly taken by Carry Akroyd's sketches of the Kingscombe Meadows.

Amazing sketches pf Kingscombe Meadows by Carry Akroyd SWLA

Sketches and a woodblock print by Matt Underwood

Some of the sketches from the John Busby Seabird Drawing Bursaries can be seen right at the end of the video

My review of the exhibition - which is taking a bit longer than anticipated - follows tomorrow.

See also my blog post Awards - Society of Wildlife Artists Annual Exhibition 2017

Adebanji Alade - an Addictive Sketcher

I've written before about the need to put in the hours if you want to get good at anything - see

• Outstanding performance - a talent or 10,000 hours of practice? and 
• The "stickability' factor. 

The first comment on my 10,000 hours post is from a friend who put in the hours and became (in chronological order) a very successful pipe band player, then an artist and now a very successful author of amongst other things a #1 New York Times Bestselling series optioned for television!

She made the very important point that it's also essential to know how to learn and when putting in the time to make efficient use of it. It includes the following sentence

The long time is acquiring proficiency -- everything after that, if you're still learning, is acquiring brilliance. 

So here's my theory: talented people are those who know how to learn. They know how to practice, to find patterns, and most importantly, to not reinvent the wheel. They shave years off their 10,000 hours by being able to look at other people in their field who have succeeded and define and incorporate why they are successful.

I've known Adebanji Alade for a long time - and all the time I've known him he's been sketching - and moving his career as an artist onward and upward.

Mostly he sketches people. Mostly he does it while travelling on public transport - meaning that he never loses a moment to sketch. Mostly he does it because he always has his sketchbook with him.

What prompted this blog post is his video of his sketchbook used during 2016-2017 - from beginning to end - and it takes 9 minutes to get through it!



He's now started a new sketchbook



As a result of his constant looking and sketching of people and places from observation it has helped him hone his artistic practice.

Some of the things he has achieved as a result of what he has learned about making art and becoming a successful artist are:

Afro XXI by Adebanji Alade
(in the section on Charcoal
in my book Sketching 365)

• membership of various art societies
• elected full member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 2015 (he was elected an Associate in 2012)
• Elected to the council of the Chelsea Art Society and the Guild of Fine Art in Nigeria in 2014
• exhibited in numerous exhibitions and art competitions
• won various awards and prizes
• developed a teaching blog for those who want to sketch called Inspired to Sketch with Adebanji Alade
• become on a "one to one" coach in sketching
• written articles about sketching in art magazines
• contributed to various books about sketching - including mine. I'm only surprised nobody has yet asked him to do his own book!
• commissioned to do a regular slot with The One Show on BBC1 doing live sketching from observation; painting various celebrities (eg Jeremy Paxman and Leslie Ash) and accepting challenges eg The Banksy Challenge - as a result of which his following took off on his Facebook Page

which contains lots of great advice



He's been making videos for a long time - having spotted the opportunity they give to raise your profile amongst lots of people doing the same thing as you.

This is The Life of the Artist made in 2012 - which was the year he got my Travels with a Sketchbook Trophy. This is an artist who packs a lot into every second of every day!



This is Adebanji back in 2010 when I photographed him with his work in the ROI Exhibition 2010.

Adebanji Alade - with his painting "Summer Crowds, Pavilion Theatre, Cromer" £1,650

Sketches from The Battle of The Somme

Today is the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme in which over a million people from 50 countries died in five months during the First World War.

On the First Day of the Somme:

• the British Fourth Army had 57,470 casualties, of whom 19,240 men were killed. 
• The French had 1,590 casualties and 
• the German 2nd Army lost 10,000–12,000 men.

This is about the way the battle was recorded at the time by those who drew - officially and otherwise - and the conditions that they found while they were there.

With the French and British armies calling upon troops from the colonies and the French Foreign Legion, units from 25 nations and 50 countries were involved in the Battle of the Somme. In five months of combat, the total number of men killed, wounded and missing reached over one million and entire nations were sent into mourning. Casualties amounted to 420,000 for the British, 190,000 for the French and 420,000 for the Germans. The landscape of the north-east of the Somme was completely devastated; villages were razed to the ground and fields were turned into lunar-landscapes by shelling. http://www.somme-battlefields.com/

Drawings of the Somme Battle and its aftermath

Those who drew varied. Some were or became famous. Others are little known. I'm guessing there are probably a fair few sketchbooks which never made it into official archives.

Those drawing the Somme include:

• Muirhead Bone (1876-1953)- the first official war artist. He became an active member of the War Artists' Advisory Committee in the Second World War. Bone was a draughtsman and etcher who had studied art in the evenings at the Glasgow School of Art and was a member of the New English Art Club.
• E H Shepard (1879-1976) - who subsequently provided illustrations for Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows
• George Hoffman Spencer - an architect and artist whose estate bequeathed his sketchbook to the Imperial War Museum. It contains some 150 drawings. 
• Captain Robert Mauchlen (1885-1972) drew a series of sketches during the war, including several during the Battle of the Somme.
• J.B Morrall - A sketchbook of Morrall's drawings was sent in by Mrs Morrall (unclear whether this is the artist's wife or mother), and the Imperial War Museum purchased five of them

The war artist Lieutenant Muirhead Bone crossing a muddy road, Maricourt, September 1916
Imperial War Museum Collections |© IWM (Q 1464)

Commissioned as an honorary second lieutenant, Bone served as a war artist with the Allied forces on the Western Front and also with the Royal Navy for a time. He arrived in France on 16 August 1916, during the Battle of the Somme and produced 150 drawings of the war before returning to England in October 1916. Wikipedia

George Spencer Hoffman drew the soldiers who were exhausted or wounded and killed in the battle.

Vignettes of soldiers on the Somme July 2016
First World War Sketchbook Volume 1 - Salvage, Somme, July 1916
George Spencer Hoffman (1875-1950)
Imperial War Museum Archive

EH Shepherd MC OBE (1879-1976) sketched his dugout in watercolour and the combat area around where he served.

Though in his mid-thirties when World War I broke out in 1914, Shepard received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, an arm of the Royal Artillery. By 1916, Shepard started working for the Intelligence Department sketching the combat area within the view of his battery position. On 16 February 1917, he was made an acting captain whilst second-in-command of a siege battery, and briefly served as an acting major in late April and early May of that year, when he reverted to the acting rank of captain. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 July 1917. Whilst acting as Captain, he was awarded the Military Cross for his service at the Battle of Passchendaele. Wikipedia

Our BC post copse B, near Maricourt Somme August 1916 E H Shepard Lieut.
pencil and watercolour wash, 257mm c 180mm
Imperial War Museum | Gift of Mrs E H Shepard, 1976

You can see more of EH Shepard's watercolour sketches from the First World War on the Imperial War Museum's website.

“Shepard went out to the Somme in June or July, and his brother, who he was close to, followed a couple of days later,” says curator Olivia Ahmad. “But he was killed almost instantly. When Shepard found out, he went to find his grave. He took a map with him and drew a tiny cross marking the co-ordinates where his brother was buried. All of the other maps he had were working documents, so they’re a bit tatty, but this one is pristine, with just this one tiny notation,” she adds.E.H. Shepard: An Illustrator’s War | Creative Review

Some were adept at sketching soldiers in  action. This is a very impressive sketch by Captain Robert Mauchlen MC (1885-1972)

Sketch of the attack on the Butte de Warlencourt on 5 November 1916
by Captain Robert Mauchlen MC (1885-1972)
Sketchbook in the Battle of the Somme archives of Durham County Record Office

The Butte de Warlencourt is an ancient burial mound off the Albert–Bapaume road, north-east of Le Sars in the Somme département of northern France. .....The Germans constructed deep dugouts throughout the Butte and surrounded it by several belts of barbed wire, making it a formidable defensive position in advance of Gallwitz Riegel (the Gird Trenches). After the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (15–22 September) the view from the Butte dominated the new British front line and was used by the Germans for artillery observation. During the Battle of Le Transloy (1–20 October), part of the Battle of the Somme, the Butte de Warlencourt was the subject of several attacks by the British Fourth Army, which were costly failures; attacks in November also failed. Wikipedia

The artillery shelling reduced everything to nothing. This is an article about How War Artist Muirhead Bone Recorded The Battle of The Somme

An Artillery Barrage on the Somme Battlefield:
Mametz Wood, Contalmaison Château, Fricourt Wood and Delville Wood in the distance.
Drawn from King's Hill, Fricourt, September, 1916
Muirhead Bone
pencil and wash 330mm x 501mm
Imperial War Museum Collection | Art.IWM ART 2098

Villages, trees and people were all obliterated - and the artists continued to sketch and record.

Contalmaison was a village which was a target on the very first day - on 1st July 2016

Contalmaison can be found about three miles north-east of Albert and around half a mile south of Pozieres, on the southern side of the main D929 road. The village was an objective for the 34th Division on the 1st of July 1916, but it took many more days of hard fighting before the 8th and 9th Green Howards of the 23rd Division were able to take it at 4.30 p.m. on the 10th of July.
World War One Battlefields

Contalmaison in 1916 : the remains of the village
J. B. Morrall

watercolour on paper, 203 mm  x 304mm
Imperial War Museum Collection | © IWM (Art.IWM ART 205)

a view across the devastated village of Contalmaison, which has been reduced to piles of rubble and tree stumps, with only a single recognisable building visible.
(IWM)

'The abomination of desolation'

Mametz Wood: after the autumn advance, 1916. 

J. B. Morrall

watercolour on paper, 228 mm  x 286 mm

Imperial War Museum Collection | © IWM (Art.IWM ART 202)

a view across the devastated Mametz Wood, with splintered tree stumps and flooded shell holes. The body of a dead German infantryman lies in the foreground, the legs visible but the torso and head hidden by the water of a flooded shell hole. 
(IWM)

Then the wounded were brought home - first embarking on the ships. This is a lithograph by Muirhead Bone of the embarkation of the wounded which would have been based on sketchbook studies at the time. Muirhead Bone created a portfolio of 60 prints at the end of the war based on studies made while working as a war artist.

War Drawings By Muirhead Bone: Taking the Wounded
lithograph on paper; 505mm x 378mm

Then they return home via London.

This is the view I have of Charing Cross Station every time I return home from a visit to the National Gallery or National Portrait Gallery. It's therefore especially poignant to realise the function the station also played in bringing home the wounded from the Battle of the Somme. (The painting below was painted the year after the war finished.)

A view of the exterior of Charing Cross railway station. The Strand is lined with crowds of civilians watching Red Cross ambulances leaving the station.

Outside Charing Cross Station, July 1916.
Casualties from the Battle of the Somme arriving in London
J Hobson Lobley 1919
oil on vanvas, 2057mm x 3073mm
Imperial War Museum Collection
© IWM (Art.IWM ART 2759)

There's something very special about recording an event which you witnessed.

There's also something very special about maintaining an archive - and then sharing it and allowing others to share so that others can see what went before....

See also

• my earlier blog post about the 2013 exhibition 'Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War' at Somerset House
• the British Library article Why paint war? British and Belgian artists in World War One -Article by: Paul Gough