Many members have been looking for inspiration.

Here are some suggested books and DVDs to help you with your painting study at home.

Art on the Green

‘Meet On the Green’

A Participatory Public Art Project

Exhibition Event Sunday 3rd April 2011 from 5-7pm

The Green, Aberdeen

‘Meet on the Green’ is a participatory public art project supported by Aberdeen City Council’s Arts Development team. The project focuses on the impact art in all its many forms can have for a community and the city as whole, breaking down barriers for long term engagement, participation and retention of creativity within the city.

Artist Amy Marletta has been working in and around the Green for the last few months attempting to gather stories and meet people who have a connection to the place. The aim has been to create an artwork that is a response to the environment and community, working with local people to build up a picture of the area, both past and present.

By allowing chance encounters to lead the way, the project has been shaped by those who have contributed. The outcome takes the form of a series of portraits and as song lyrics woven together from stories told and overheard.

Sixteen local artists have taken part in the project by creating portraits of local people, who live, work or socialise in the area. The portraits will be exhibited throughout venues on the Green in April, with the opening event taking place on Sunday 3rd April, 5-7pm at Café 52. The exhibition will continue on that evening at other venues in the area including the Carmelite Hotel and E.A.R.L.

These portraits have also been reproduced as a set of postcards that will be distributed around various venues on the Green and can be collected for free. The song, which has been recorded by local singers, will also be available to listen to and will be produced as a CD.

In addition to this, artist Chris Biddlecombe will also launch a limited edition beermat art work on the night, that links items lost and found on The Green over a period of 500 years.

(Details of all participating venues will be provided on the night!)

For more information please email – art.eastgreen@gmail.com

http//:artonthegreen.blogspot.com

There are two art programmes on the BBC tonight.

Firstly, at 5.10pm on BBC1  there is Painted With Words a drama based on Van Gogh’s letters to his are dealer brother Theo.  “Every word spoken by the actors in this film is sourced from the letters that Van Gogh sent to his younger brother Theo, and of those around him. What emerges is a complex portrait of a sophisticated, civilised and yet tormented man.”

Secondly, at 9pm on BBC2 Scotland, there is Bellany – Fire In The Blood a documentary about one of the UK’s greates living artists made by his son Paul, who “takes us on a journey through the hurt and pain of a decimated family at the point of implosion, and unearths many unseen masterpieces along the way.”

Essential viewing, both of them!

Friday is the last day to register your views on the disastrous proposal from Ian Wood to level UTG and essentially concrete over it, ripping out all the trees.

If you don’t act now what will you tell the next generation?  They won’t see the trees for the Wood.

Here are some things you can do today.

It’s VITAL that everybody who wants to save Union Terrace Gardens for future generations to enjoy takes part!

You can fill in the survey here: http://www.thecitysquareproject.com/consultation/

Or freephone: 0800 111 4881

Text: Send your thoughts by texting 60777 followed by the word ‘square’

Email: consultation@thecitysquareproject.com

or write to: The City Square Project,

Weber Shandwick PR,

58 Queens Road, Aberdeen,

AB15 4YE

More information on both projects: www.comparethesquare.com

Other ways to get involved:

Please keep signing the petition! This petition WILL be included in the consultation results. We will hand this in at the end of the consultation period on 5th March – please do forward the link to everyone you think would be interested:
http://gopetition.com/petitions/save-the-new-contemporary-art-centre-in-union-terrace-gardens.html

If you have family or friends who aren’t online they may be missing the opportunity to express their views – please do think if you know of anybody who hasn’t yet taken the opportunity to participate and pass on the phone number and the postal address. Much of this consultation is being run online which may exclude many of Aberdeen’s senior citizens.

Recent news:Annie Lennox has added her voice to the growing campaign to save UTG and the contemporary arts centre – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/8504483.stm

Jim Milne, leading Aberdonian businessman and Chariman of The Balmoral Group, speaks out against the “desecration” of UTG – http://news.stv.tv/scotland/north/156374-leading-businessman-hits-out-at-aberdeen-garden-plans/

Professor Stuart MacDonald, one of Scotland’s leading authorities on architecture and former head of Gray’s School of Art, urges Aberdeen to scrap the City Square Project and adopt the Peacock Visual Arts scheme so it can benefit from the “Bilbao effect” – http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1593417

Peter Ross, in Scotland on Sunday, claims the debate is about more than the “heart” or “lungs” of Aberdeen – it’s about the soul of the city -http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/comment/Peter-Ross-Fight-for-the.6070675.jp

Thank you!

I ♥ UTG ♥ YOU

As the Herald announced today:

“It will be Scotland’s biggest display of the works of its most important painters – but the search goes on to find the lost Glasgow Boys.

“Curators of one of the most important art exhibitions ever staged in Glasgow have confirmed there will be 140 paintings at this year’s landmark exhibition of the group of artists who transformed Scottish art in the late 19th century and laid the ground for the more famous Colourists.

“However, the search to find lost works by the Glasgow Boys has, so far, failed to find most of the missing masterpieces that could have featured in the exhibition, held in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum from April 9 until September 27.”

For more info see:-  http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/boys-are-back-in-town-but-hunt-goes-on-for-lost-masters-1.1002525

Also the Kelvingrove’s website: http://www.glasgowmuseums.com/venue/showExhibition.cfm?venueid=4&itemid=270

Peacock Printmakers plans for a new arts centre in Union Terrace Gardens were approved by planning committee and had secured funding.

Now Sir Iain Wood’s grandiose scheme to ‘transform’ the Gardens have stalled, and may even scupper those plans.

A new site has been set up allowing Aberdeen residents to compare the two proposals:  www.comparethesquare.com

Have a look at the different proposals then contact your concillor to let them know your views. Either visit the city council website or use the Write To Them site.

My suggestion is that if Sir Iain wishes to develop a city square then he should develop the site of St Nicholas House, opening up the square in front of the council’s new HQ,  Marischal College, and the area around the marvellous Provost Skene’s house which is hidden from view right now.

RU Books (who used to be a book club but now sell openly) have started their Christmas sale of art books. Some are substantially discounted.

There are 34 titles in the sale all at least 50% off the normal price. There are some materials and equipment too. For example grab yourself a rucksack/chair (normally £29.99) for £4.99!

You can find the sale here.

Lidl are selling more inexpensive art materials from Thursday 10th December.

Amongst the items are cheap canvases and a small table-top easel.

See the Lidl website for more details.

The Forecourt Art Group and Tornadee are very happy to present the first Open Exhibition at The Tornadee Community. The group has been displaying work for the pleasure of the residents and their families for a year in the main nursing home.

The Exhibition is open to all and refreshments will be provided. A percentage of all sales is donated to the Tornadee Comfort Fund.

Tornadee Nursing Home
Thursday 3rd December 2009
7-9pm

Map:-

View Tornadee in a larger map

After a week of diverse art programmes on BBC4, More 4 and Channel 4, we see a new type of art programme start tomorrow (Monday 23rd November).

BBC2 broadcasts at 9pm Saatchi’s School of Art – “the BBC and Charles Saatchi launch a nationwide search to discover the next generation of artistic talent.”

According to the BBC’s press office, http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/01_january/25/saatchi.shtml, “Following a selection process, just six people will be selected to attend an Art School established uniquely for them where they will develop their work under the tutelage of some of the most innovative names in the art world today.”

This reality TV show for the cultured set will be a four-part series and “is part of The Modern Beauty Season, a range of programmes coming to BBC Two and BBC Four which look at the concept of beauty in modern art.”