I have done a new portrait of Ralph Vaughan Williams for the 50th anniversary of his death tomorrow. The portrait is a photoetching from one of my pencil drawings and has a background of his better known works. The border is a monoprint and represents the 'Lark Ascending'It's amazing that he is ranked at no1 and no3 in this year's ClassicFM Hall of fame (300 classical pieces ranked according to the listeners' votes).No1 is his 'Lark Ascending' No3 is his 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis'.
I have 4 of my prints accepted in the International Miniprint exhibition in Cadaques (Spain) this summer. I'll tell you about it soon in another post.
Albeniz was born near there in Camprodon so I decided to do a portrait of him. I have also done a page about him on my new website. To see it click on the above title.
I thought he composed for the guitar as you hear so much of his music on ClassicFM played on the guitar by John Williams and others. However he was a very talented concert pianist and composed for the piano. Many of his pieces have been transcribed very successfully for the guitar.
Just listen, watch amd marvel at the master Segovia playing his "Linares"
Yesterday I published my Great Composers 2008 Calendar on Zazzle. It looks great. I was flattered to get an email last night telling me that it was selected as one of 'Today's Best on Zazzle'. I was also astonished to find that within 24 hours it was ranked on the first page of a Google search for Classical Music Calendar. That is truly impressive SEO by Zazzle. I am getting the hang of Zazzle and I will be putting more work on there soon.
On Thursday night BBC4 transmitted a documentary by Nick Danziger called "The Boy Who Never Grew Up". It was about Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894 - 1986) one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. While I was already familiar with many of his photographs, I was completely unaware that many of his best known ones were taken at the age 10 or 12 years old. He started at the age of 6 with his father's camera.
He was not really known until 1963, at the age of 69, when the Museum of Modern Art put on a retrospective exhibition of his work In 1979 he donated his meticulously archived collection of his life's photographic work to the French State. It is called the Donation Jacques Henri Lartigue A fascinating life, I must read his biography.
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Which CALENDAR printer to use? It's time to prepare and publish my 2008 calendars. Following the success of my 2007 calendar I have decided to try publishing some online. But which service to use? I have found three sites which I will certainly try out: cafepress, Zazzle and Lulu. I'll write here my experiences. Today I have just published my Great Composers calendar on cafepress.
There are 4 styles: a single page calendar print and three spiral bound 12page wall calendars.
You have the option to set your own selling price which is good.
It is a US based service so postage is likely to be expensive for international orders.
Quick and easy to implement.
Affiliate program available
They take the order, print, ship, collect the money and pay you your markup.
Henry Moore at Kew Today we went to Kew Gardens, always a great experience. An added bonus was that we were able to view several of the Henry Moore sculptures that have already been installed in readiness for the exhibition that opens on September 15th. We were also able to see some of them being transported and installed. This is an ideal location for a sculpture exhibition, there will be 28 large scale sculptures. I believe it continues through the winter until March 2008. There is no extra charge on top of the normal garden entrance price. For more info see the website: http://www.kew.org/henry-moore/index.htm
Friday, 1 June 2007
Artists' Self-Portraits from the Uffizi I've just been to the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the new exhibition of self portraits from the Uffizi. A few outstanding ones such as Lippi, Thayaht, Annigoni and Volpedo. It was a small exhibition of only 49 pictures hung in a long narrow gallery. The price I reckon was excessive (£8) for such a limited exhibition. But that is probably just the miser in me! I would really like to see the Uffizi collection - the largest and most famous collection of artists' self-portraits in the world - over 1600. But they are not open to the general public - you have to make an appointment to see them.
Posts
