I've been covering the ever popular and unusual ING Discerning Eye 2024 exhibition for years.  In 2024, the exhibition will be  at the Mall Galleries from Friday 15 to Sunday 24 November 2024 and  unsold work will remain online until the 1 January 2024 - making it available for all those looking for small artwork presents for Christmas! ING Discerning Eye 2023 small 2D artworks on the wall and small 3D artworks on the plinths About the ING Discerning Eye Like most decent art competitions, it has  a reputable backer  The Discerning Eye ..read more

You might think the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Marine Artists is just for artists who paint boats - and hence a very niche marketplace - but you'd be wrong.  Indeed, in my opinion, it's well worthwhile checking out what sort of artwork is acceptable in this exhibition - which attracts a lot of collectors. The Call for Entries for the next annual exhibition closes at 12 noon on Friday 26 July - so plenty of time to check out whether any of your artwork fits with their criteria and get an online submission completed! You can check out my review of the last annual exhibi ..read more

The New Royal Family Order - created for King Charles III The new Royal Family Order, which features a miniature portrait of the Monarch, was unveiled recently and this post is about how it came about. I interviewed the Artist who created the miniature portrait the day after it became public knowledge! This post covers: What is a Royal Family Order? What does the Order comprise - and who did what The Miniature Portrait painted by Elizabeth Meek. The new King Charles III Royal Family Order was worn for the first time at a reception and State Banquet for the Japanese Emperor and h ..read more

Winner of Wildlife Artist of the Year 2024: Jara by Sarah Lake This post is about the internationally renowned David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation's Wildlife Artist of the Year 2024 Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, which opened to the public today - and continues daily at the Mall Galleries (10am - 5pm) until 6th July. It provides: announcement of  the artwork winning the top prize the runner up plus all the category and other award winners comments on the Exhibition my photos of the exhibition - plus links to more images of the artwork - including all the Cat ..read more

The Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers (RMS) is back at what now seems to be its NEW home at the Bankside Gallery on the South Bank of the Thames - next to Tate Modern.  Its "Art in Miniature" Annual Exhibition 2024 opened last week and continues until Saturday 6th July. As we return to the Bankside Gallery with its extra space and friendly staff, I hope our artists and visitors will also be able embrace the summer weather and popular location again. I highly RECOMMEND it to anybody who is interested in miniature art - whether these are paintings, drawings ..read more

The 163rd Annual Exhibition of the Society of Women Artists opened at the Mall Galleries on Wednesday. The Red Wall in the West Gallery [UPDATE: This blog post has been updated since first published as the online exhibition is now online - see below for links.] It's listed as the "163rd Annual Open Exhibition" because the Society started as the Society of Female Artists in 1855 started holding Annual Exhibitions in London since 1857 became the Society of Lady Artists in 1869 became the Society of Women Artists in 1899 Their annual exhibition is an International Open Exhibition ..read more

There's just a few artists who are highlighted in my calendar - to remember the anniversary of their death. Karin Jurick is one such. Karin Jurick died three years ago on the 16th June 2021 age 60.  It was a very big shock - we'd known each other for about 14 years and I still miss her. While we were not close friends - she lived in Georgia in the US and I live in London - she was very much a blogging chum. She and I started blogging more or less at the same time. I followed her and she followed me and we built our followings together. We were both fans of each other's blogs and we conver ..read more

Anybody who is  EITHER aspiring to either become a contemporary portrait painter  OR wanting to commission a contemporary portrait from one of the leading portrait painters in the UK  would do well to visit the latest exhibition of the artist collective known as the Contemporary British Portrait Painters. Most of the artists in the CBPP 2024 exhibition Their biennial exhibition is currently being held - until 15th June 2024 - downstairs at The Department Store, 248 Ferndale Road, Brixton SW9 8FR.   The 2024 Exhibition by Contemporary British Portrait ..read more

Would you like to get an email to your inbox every time a post is published on Making A Mark? Earlier this year, I wrote about how the changes in the rules by Google regarding bulk emails sent by gmail were going to have a major impact on my blogging. I speculated at the time about giving up blogging altogether - as I originally built my audience entirely via the RSS feed. See ALERT ALL SUBSCRIBERS: Blogging Service may be interrupted OR subscription mailing service changed To cut a long story short since I only use gmail and have done for the last two decades, I wasn't about to give up o ..read more

The Portrait Award 2024 at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG)in London received 1,647 entries from 62 countries.   This is the latest 'edition' of this very prestigious art competition's history at the NPG which dates back to 1980. During that time it has had over 40,000 entries from more than 100 countries and the exhibition has been seen by over 6 million people. That said, having looked back at some of my previous posts (a number of which have focused on the numbers) there have been fewer entries this year. However, I think that's hardly surprising for an art com ..read more