Image copyright of the artist

Ahead of the comprehensive Peter Doig exhibition at Tate Britain  (5 February - 27 April 2008), yesterday's Observer carried a great interview by Tim Adams with the artist.

When his 'White Canoe' sold for £5.7m last year it became the most expensive work ever sold by a European living artist, but his first big break was winning our John Moores prize in 1993 with 'Blotter'.

Doig discusses 'Blotter' in Saturday's interview, including an interesting explanation of the painting's title. The deadline to register for this September's John Moores 25 is 15 February 2008.

'Observance', our video installation by Bill Viola, is back on display in the Walker Art Gallery. It was last seen in April 2005 shortly after it was purchased with assistance from the National Art Collections Fund in 2004.

'Observance' in Room One of the Walker Art Gallery

Rather than taking its place amongst contemporary items from the collection, curators have placed the work in Room One alongside works such as Ercole de' Roberti's 'Pietà' and 'The Lamentation over the Dead Christ'. These are the sort of works that inspired by Viola to make his series 'The Passions'.

The painting is in a private collection and is currently on a long term loan to the Lady Lever Art Gallery. In her talk Sandra looks at Holman Hunt's early years, the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, his time in Italy and his aptitude for painting portraits of children.

Chinese New Year by Lizinha

Some Sundays, even living within ten minutes of your intended destination doesn't get you there for midday, especially if there's going to be loads of firecrackers and banging drums. Yesterday I wanted to photograph the Chinese New Year celebrations on Berry Street but didn't quite make it in time. Thanks to Lizinha, Pete Carr, Peter, Indigo Goat, Spectral Shift and ijob, I don't feel that I missed out.

Tim Brunsden at Liverpool Stories produced an excellent video of the events, while Art in Liverpool blogged about them.

We spent last Friday trying to kick some life into our 'Figures of 08' project. We put the project live in December but didn't have the time to give it a proper publicity push. Marc wrote about 'Figures of 08' previously, it's a capital of culture themed project that asks you to send us photographs of unintentional '08's that you come across. There's a slideshow and a google map of the photographs submitted so far.

Discussing how to kickstart our project, Marc showed me a trailer for the new Jim Carrey film 'The Number 23' on Friday. The film seems to be about a man who sees negative patterns in his life that always point to the number 23. I spent a pretty fruitless afternoon on Saturday looking for new '08's, it was annoying to walk out of the Maritime Museum and be confronted with what I now presume to be our nemesis number adorning the side of the pilot boat docked alongside.

The exhibition looking at art and climate change finishes this Sunday, 28 January 2007.

'The Enchanted Garden', John William Waterhouse

At the second attempt, I managed to record Sandra Penketh's picture of the month talk yesterday at the Lady Lever Art Gallery on John William Waterhouse's 'The Decameron' and 'The Enchanted Garden' (mp3/transcript/links).

The paintings are companion pieces, 'The Enchanted Garden' depicting a scene from Boccaccio's Decameron. Sandra's talk looks at the contemporary influences on Waterhouse, the story of the Enchanted Garden and Lord Lever's unusual approach to buying from Waterhouse's widow.

Fans of Cute Overload! shouldn't miss this photo buried in the podcast's suggested links (although whether 'mouse about to be savaged by cat' counts as cute is debatable).

The object of the month talk at 1pm in the Walker tomorrow (Thursday 25 January 2007) is on a Vivienne Westwood outfit from her Buffalo Girls collection.

Commutation Row, Philip G Mayer

Philip G Mayer's flickr photostream contains some great early 1980s photographs of Liverpool, including this one of Wellington column outside the Walker with the row of buildings that were demolished to make way for Commutation Plaza.

Philip has also set up the Old Liverpool pool, inviting anyone with a Flickr account to post their photos to it. The pool includes this great set of postcards that he dates to around 1906 -  I love the Prince's Avenue and Bold Street ones. The postcards are all based on original photographs. There's also a very stylish artist's impression of the interior of the Mersey Tunnel and a set of photos of the last night of Woolton Cinema.

Patrick Caulfield's 'Still Life: Autumn Fashion' is one of the most popular pieces in the Walker's 20th century collection and is currently on display in Room 13 at the gallery.

The excellent Patrick Caulfield collection display at Tate Liverpool (not one of our venues) finishes early next month (4 February 2007), images of all fifty two works are available on the Tate website.

To mark the end of the display, Marco Livingstone will be giving a talk in the display space next Wednesday (full details). In 1981 Marco Livingstone selected works for the Walker Art Gallery's Patrick Caulfield retrospective.

We take it for granted sometimes that everyone understands which venues we represent at National Museums Liverpool, but personal experience suggests it can be confusing. It's even more confusing when we occasionally highlight events and exhibitions at other Liverpool museums and galleries on this blog.

I'm creating this post so that when I mention a Merseyside gallery or museum, I can include a link to this explanation.

We are - Walker Art Gallery, World Museum Liverpool, Museum of Liverpool, Merseyside Maritime Museum, International Slavery Museum, Sudley House, Lady Lever Art Gallery, HM Customs & Excise National Museum and National Conservation Centre.

We're not (but we like) - Tate Liverpool, FACT, the Beatles Story, Open Eye Gallery, University of Liverpool Art Gallery, Greenland Street, View Two Gallery, Almiro Gallery, 52 Roscoe Street, Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead Priory, Wirral Museum, Renew Rooms, Alima Centre gallery, National Wildflower Centre, 59 Rodney Street, British Lawnmower Museum, Western Approaches, Spaceport, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Atkinson Art Gallery, Blue Planet Aquarium, South Bohemia Art Gallery, Ellesmere Port Boat Museum, World of Glass, EggSpace, Mendips, The Artfinder's Gallery, Arena, Dot-art Gallery, Cornerstone Gallery, Cube Noir, Museum Man, Liverpool Academy of Arts, The Royal Standard, Williamson Tunnels.

Hope I've not left too many off the list (and we'll look at Prescot Museum another day..).

What is the parent comet of the Lyrids? Are the Andromadids extinct yet? What's the hourly rate of the Delta Aquarids? Do the Taurids end before the Leonids begin? If any of these questions have been troubling you the answers are now at hand with our new annual meteor shower chart from the staff at the Planetarium.

Leonid meteor shower, 2001, RG Photo

Liverpool's best art blog Art in Liverpool just got better with the creation of the Liverpool Arts and Culture forum. Register to join the discussions, post event announcements, classifieds, job vacancies and courses.

I spent yesterday afternoon at the Alima Centre with artist Alison Jones. Alison was taking us round the 'On the Edge' exhibition in the second floor gallery.

The exhibition is part of Dadafest (Disability and Deaf Arts Festival), 'exploring the physical and emotional issues of being forced to the
edge…of the city, the art scene, society, people’s consciousness and
view'.

Alison has produced an excellent sound piece for the exhibition 'Art, Lies and Audio Tapes' in which visitors to the Walker Art Gallery have been asked to provide a description of our popular painting 'And When Did You Last See Your Father?'. This audio is then played in the exhibition in front of an imprecise line drawing of the painting.

'Art, Lies and Audio Tapes' is a work in progress and one possibility is to produce a version of it for the Walker Art Gallery website in the new year. In the mean time, 'On the edge' continues at the Alima Centre until 15 December 2006.

Casablanca Cabinet

Curator of Fine Art, Ann Bukantas (mp3/transcript/links) takes an extended look at Helen Chadwick's 'Viral Landscapes', a recent addition to the Walker Art Gallery's permanent collection.

Head of Decorative Arts, Robin Emmerson, found time last month to deliver object of the month talks at both the Walker and the Lady Lever Art Gallery.

At the Walker, Robin spoke about Ettore Sotsass' 'Casablanca Cabinet'  (mp3/transcript/links). The cabinet is displayed in the gallery's cafe, outside the entrance to the Craft and Design gallery, and there is a lot of background noise on the recording from the lunchtime crowds.

The next day Robin was at the Lady Lever to deliver his talk on the 'Moor Park mantelpiece' (mp3/transcript/links). Robin begins his talk by admitting that he knew little about the object when he was asked to deliver the talk.

The display includes work by André Courrèges, Jean Muir, Bill Gibb, Yves St Laurent, Vivienne Westwood (Buffalo Girls and Anglomania), Tommy Hilfiger, Stella McCartney, Juicy Couture, Hardy Blechman.

Sam's already blogged about the arrival of the mannequins, a visit from Ian Silverberg and a hole in  the Vivienne Westwood dress; there's also a flickr set showing the mannequins in the textile conservation studio.

Airside, whose installation Insyde continues at the Walker Art Gallery, have opened a Christmas shop in Covent Garden.

Liverpool Biennial finishes this Sunday, 26 November 2006, which might explain why the Walker Art Gallery was so busy when I was in this lunchtime.

This weekend is your last chance to see John Moores 24 and the Walker's Cape Farewell exhibits (not forgetting an offline opportunity to see Digital Show).

'Red Reflection', Graham Crowley, John Moores 24

A couple of our Biennial exhibitions have been extended though, Insyde is at the Walker until 25 February 2007 and Cape Farewell is at the Conservation Centre until 28 January 2007.

Last week Ann Bukantas gave a gallery talk at the Walker Art Gallery looking at her experience of the judging process for John Moores 24. Ann was one of five jurors for the competition, alongside artists Sir Peter Blake, Jason Brooks and Tracey Emin and Director of Visual Arts at the British Council Andrea Rose.

Our recording of the talk is now available online (mp3/transcript/links).

The talk provided interesting answers to many questions including 'What do the jurors do if they recognise a particular artist's work?' and 'How is the final decision on the first prizewinner reached?'.

Also at the Walker Art Gallery for the announcement of the John Moores 24 Visitors' Choice award were Ian and Minako from Art in Liverpool.

They were taking the opportunity to view a slideshow of images from their Digital Show online exhibition which are available to view in the Walker until the end of the Liverpool Biennial (26 November 2006).

Artist Nicholas Middleton was at the Walker Art Gallery this lunchtime to collect a £1000 cheque from Fine Art Curator Ann Bukantas as the winner of the Visitors' Choice award for John Moores 24 for his painting 'Scene From a Contemporary Novel'.

The monochrome photorealist painting was a runaway winner of the award, receiving 709 votes out of 5063 cast by visitors to the exhibition. Runners-up were Graham Crowley for 'Red Reflection' and Gary 'Dollman' Sollars for 'When I Grow Up I Want To Go In There'.

Comments on the voting cards included 'Simply the best!', 'It has been very cleverly painted', 'LOVE IT!', 'Who needs colour to bring things to life?', 'All that is good about photo-realist painting', 'The girl in the picture could well be myself … Very evocative'.

Nicholas Middleton came to the gallery last month to give a talk on his painting, an audio recording and transcript is available online.

We've already brought you Paul O'Keeffe's artwork of the month talk on John Moores 24 first prizewinner 'Before Vermeer's Clouds'. Last week, the artist himself, Martin Greenland, visited the exhibition to give a talk on the painting (mp3/transcript/links).

Over 45 minutes Martin discusses recurring themes in his John Moores entries, the decision to show his work without a frame, visions of Heaven, the Lake District, Exeter and the colourful Islamic architecture of Samarkand.

Cape Farewell, due to finish at National Conservation Centre on 26 November 2006, will now continue until 28 January 2007.

Related Cape Farewell displays at the Walker Art Gallery will still close on 26 November 2006.

A couple of online features from other museum groups have caught our attention this week. The Science Museum in London is hosting the touring exhibition Game On, featuring a history of computer games from the 1960s to the present day. The web team at the museum have documented the creation of their online feature on their blog, including commissioning a contemporary version of the classic game Pong set in a car park. Frankie Roberto has also blogged about online media coverage of the exhibition.

We've already seen how Brooklyn Museum are pioneering the use of Flickr online through their Brooklyn graffiti project, the latest set of photos on their Flickr account shows the installation of a new exhibition of works by Ron Mueck.

Finally, the Tate Modern website suggests visitors should arrive before midday if they want to go on Carsten Höller's Test Site, currently drawing huge crowds in the Turbine Hall. The Tate website has videos online showing a ride on each of the five slides (Realplayer only).

On Tuesday we recorded Paul O'Keeffe's latest Lady Lever Art Gallery sculpture of the month talk on John Gibson's 'Pandora' (mp3/transcript/links).

Paul discusses the controversy that the sculpture caused when it was first exhibited (alongside a version of the Walker Art Gallery's 'Tinted Venus') in the 1862 Great Exhibition. His talk also looks at the complicated commissioning process for the sculpture and the Greek legend of Pandora.

Google Custom Search Engine allows any user to create their own customised google search engine. It's very easy to use and in minutes you can produce your own version of Google that returns results according to your own preferences.

To test the service I've quickly created an unoffical UK National Museums and Galleries version of Google. As its name suggests this search engine only returns results from the websites of national museums and galleries in the UK.

Try searching for 'current exhibitions' or 'job vacancies' and you'll see how useful these customised search engines can be.

There is loads of potential with these. Art in Liverpool could have their own search engine that only indexed results from art organisations, artists, museums, funding bodies and galleries in Merseyside. The Chamber of Commerce could customise to only index results from their members' websites.

Google custom search engines can be added to your own site, modified to fit your site's design and you can make money from them by carrying adsense adverts with the results.

The Little Artists, who worked with the Walker Art Gallery to produce the lego Art Craziest Nation display and helped develop interpretation for the children's gallery Big Art for Little Artists, have launched their redesigned website.

The new site lets you 'find out about the artists Cake and Neave, their ideas, exhibitions and capers, and also see their Art for sale. There are also activities, an interactive gallery and an opportunity to send in your own artwork'.

The Walker Art Gallery artwork of the month for October is the first prizewinner from John Moores 24, Martin Greenland's 'Before Vermeer's Clouds'. Dr Paul O'Keeffe gave a gallery talk last Wednesday on the painting, now available online (mp3/transcript/links).

Paul discusses Greenland's previous four entries in John Moores exhibitions and his development through these paintings. The talk also covers Vermeer's 'View of Delft', the effect of frames on pictures, cloud formations and Greenland's red corduroy suit.

Nipped down to St Nick's on Chapel Street in my lunch hour today to have a look at local artist Julie Jones' latest work, part of a Dying Frog independent show for the Biennial. The exhibition is great and Julie has documented her work on the frescoes online, an interesting look at her process and the life of a busy church.

Artist Nicholas Middleton came into the Walker last week to give a talk on his painting 'Scene from a Contemporary Novel'. The painting is one of the entries in the John Moores 24 exhibition of contemporary painting, running at the Walker until 26 November 2006.

The photorealistic painting is a biennial highlight on feeling listless, whilst code and effect has a report on the talk itself.

In his talk Nicholas discussed inspirations such as Patrick Keiller's 'The City of the Future' exhibition at FACT and Jeff Wall, the photography and digital techniques used in creating the painting and the location near Brick Lane.

[mp3/transcript/links]

Our new exhibition, LoveSport, opens at World Museum Liverpool, tomorrow. The free exhibition runs from 7 October 2006 - 29 April 2007.

Pictured here from this morning's press call is St Bernard, the mascot of the St Helen's rugby league team.

Big Draw is the national drawing campaign that runs throughout October annually. Our first event for is at World Museum Liverpool tomorrow, 7 October, an art workshop with artist Karl Eversley. Further events take place next weekend at World Museum Liverpool, the Walker Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery, National Conservation Centre and Merseyside Maritime Museum.

• Big Draw events at National Museums Liverpool
• Big Draw events nationally

At The River's Mouth, a Merseyside blog looking at local history and contemporary culture, last week wrote about  Stewart Bale Ltd and our Stewart Bale 2.0 project.

'Anne Wortley, Later Lady Morton' (the portrait behind the rope above) is a new loan to the Walker Art Gallery from Tate Britain. It is a temporary replacement for our portrait of 'Henry VIII' loaned to the Tate’s Holbein in England exhibition, 28 September 2006 – 7 January 2007. It has been hung in Room One of the Walker alongside Jean Clouet's 'Princess Marguerite of Angouleme' and 'Queen Elizabeth I - The Pelican Portrait', attributed to Nicholas Hilliard.

The panel text that accompanies the painting states:

It portrays Anne Wortley, daughter of Sir Richard Wortley of Yorkshire, in formal dress as worn at the court of James I. It is a typical Jacobean portrait. It aims not to create a convincing idea of space, which is rather awkwardly reproduced in this portrait, but to focus in almost hypnotic detail on the elaborate costume, ruff, head-dress, jewellery and other accessories. For this reason such portraits are sometimes referred to nowadays as ‘curtains & carpets’ paintings. The different qualities of the brushwork on this portrait suggest that it was perhaps painted by several artists from one workshop, each specialising in a different area, and some trained in the Netherlands.

View an enlarged image of the painting on the Tate Collection's website.

Sunday's Observer included a feature on 'The best-kept arts secrets in Britain'.

DJ Rob Da Bank nominated 'Another Place' ('amazing to look at and you don't pay to get in'), whilst 'the second most intelligent man in Britain', Stephen Bayley, chose the Walker Art Gallery's 'Christ Discovered in the Temple' by Simone Martini.

'Not exactly a secret, but certainly a surprise, is Simone Martini's Christ Discovered in the Temple in Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. I knew this exquisite little picture as a child, long before I ever visited Siena. Martini was one of that magnificent city's greatest painters, working at the fascinating moment when Gothic simplicity became Renaissance sophistication. There's the effulgence of tooled gold, the lapis, the vermilion, but there's also subtle psychology: a superb object and a brilliant image.

Marvellous how this gorgeous southern picture found its way, through proud merchants and shippers, to the gloom of 19th-century Merseyside. It hangs now in Lancashire as a strange and haunting refugee from faraway Tuscany, a sudden jolt of Renaissance beauty enjoyed to the distant noise of buses.'

The exhibition is spread across several venues. Of our venues, the Walker and the Conservation Centre are participating, displaying works by Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey, Alex Hartley, David Buckland, Gautier Deblonde, Gary Hume and Nick Edwards.

Other works are in the Anglican Cathedral, Albert Dock and the Liverpool School of Art and Design, Hope Street (map).

Pulling together major exhibitions like John Moores 24 can be an eventful experience for those responsible. Here are Curator of Fine Art at the Walker Ann Bukantas' last-minute comments on the exhibition which opens this weekend.
 
'Since 1957. 24th exhibition. 2,300 paintings. Liverpool. Dark room. Five jurors. Four days. Five personalities. Five viewpoints. 3,450 slides. Practice session. Criteria, democratic decisions. Confidentiality. Anonymity maintained. Personal taste. Discussion. Professional knowledge. Careers, reputations, merit. Titled, untitled. Details. White sheets, artists’ gardens. Cats, cosmic, taupe. Yes. No. Maybe. Coffee, biscuits, late nights, alcohol. Slide dreams. Press calls. Bonding. Gallows humour. 268 shortlisted. Liverpool. Warehouse. Re-aquainted. Three days. Big sofa. Handlers. Painting parade. Issues arise, resolve. Is it knowing? Yes. No. Maybe. 52 selected. Favourites listed. Votes cast. Re-cast. Prizewinners. £25,000. Roof party. Napkin hats. Catalogue. Exhibition. Results announced. Visit the show. See our winner. Debate. Vote for yours.'

First a preview image, then a construction shot, now Airside have sent us a movie clip of their Insyde installation which opens at the Walker Art Gallery this Saturday 16 September 2006 as part of the Liverpool Biennial.

The movie clip (with sound) is available to view here.

We recorded Frank Milner's artwork of the month talk at the Lady Lever Art Gallery on Wednesday (mp3/transcript/links).

George Morland was arguably the most popular painter of the late 18th century but only two attendees out of a packed standing room only audience had previously heard of him.

Frank Milner discusses Morland's reputation as an alcoholic, debtor, womaniser and painter of 'exquisite technique'.

Mirroring the construction work happening throughout the city centre, a week away from the start of the Biennial and most of the city's galleries look like building sites. Construction of the Insyde installation was well under way on the first floor landing of the Walker Art Gallery this afternoon.

The European Union Individual Chess Championships started at World Museum Liverpool yesterday. You can follow the games live online between 12.30 and 7pm for the next nine days.

Image courtesy of Mark Tranchant

The Claw Club is the new monthly family session at World Museum Liverpool's Bug House and Clore Natural History Centre.

It is run by Paul Finnegan, Team Leader of the Bug House, Jenny Dobson, Bug House Demonstrator and Allice Stokke. Sessions so far have included included 'Encouraging wildlife to your garden' and 'Brilliant bones and amazing owl pellets'.

A joining form and details on upcoming sessions are available from the Claw Club webpages.

'eye for Colour' closed last Sunday, 3 September. This means that our favourite colour feature on the website is also finished. We asked what your favourite colour is and why? We received over 2600 votes and you can see the results and the reasons here.

We've got entries from all ages, from Maizie, age 2, - 'My favourite colour is yellow because it's like the sun', to Nita, age 72, 'Growing up in Liverpool I always said I wanted two boys and two girls and I'd dress the girls in yellow and purple!'.

This isn't just Liverpool's favourite colour either, we received entries from Tbilisi, Norway, Sydney, Pakistan, British Columbia, California, Seattle, St Petersburg, Singapore, Texas, Armenia, Latvia, New York, Hyderabad, Malaysia, Barbados, Maryland, Switzerland, Sweden, Romania, South Africa, Florida, Pennsylvania, Seville, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Italy, The Netherlands, Ontario, Boston, Botswana, Vancouver, Pittsburgh, Brazil, Northern Ireland, Alaska, Grand Rapids, Beijing, Malta, New Jersey, Brisbane, Ohio, Vietnam, Bangalore, France, Samoa, Melbourne, Chicago, Japan, Cairo, Belgrade, North Carolina, Cyprus, Valencia, Madrid, Finland, Chile, Denmark and the Isle of Mann!

Karen previously mentioned a talk on the redisplay of the modern and contemporary collections at the Walker Art Gallery by Curator of Fine Art Ann Bukantas.

Last Thursday Ann gave the talk again and we recorded it and now make it available for audio download (mp3/transcript).

• National Museums Liverpool audio downloads and podcast

With less than two weeks to go until Liverpool Biennial begins, a reminder that Ian Jackson of the Art in Liverpool blog has a separate Liverpool Biennial 2006 Blog.

The Art in Liverpool blog grew out of Ian's popular Liverpool Biennial 2004 blog which remains an excellent online archive of the events.

The hanging of the John Moores 24 exhibition began this morning, the exhibition opens to the public on 16 September 2006. Judges Tracey Emin and Andrea Rose returned to the Walker Art Gallery to help Curator of Fine Art Ann Bukantas in deciding on the final placement of the paintings.

We've already announced the list of exhibitors, but I can't show you any of the paintings until after the announcement of the winner on 14 September.

This is the clearest view yet of the distant planet Pluto and its moon, Charon, as revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The image was taken by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on February 21, 1994 when the planet was 4.4 billion km from Earth.

John Moran, Planetarium operator at World Museum Liverpool, sent this summary of the recent controversy surrounding Pluto:

'In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union held a meeting in Prague. The purpose of this meeting was to decide the fate of the ninth planet in our solar system, Pluto.
 
In light of recent discoveries in the Kuiper belt; a huge expanse of space bodies beyond Pluto, it has been decided to de-classify Pluto to the status of "Dwarf planet", therefore eliminating it from our nine planet system.
 
The definition of a planet is that it must move around the Sun in a continuous non interrupted orbit. It must have enough mass for its gravity to squash it into a spherical shape. And the plain of its orbit must lay in an almost straight line, similar to the other planets. The problem with Pluto, is that its orbit crosses that of Neptune and its plain is much steeper, so therefore very different to the other planets.
 
It has long been known that Pluto was probably a Kuiper belt object. But with the recent discoveries of Sedna and Zena, scientists were left with a dilemma. Do we keep adding more and more KBO's to the overall number of planets in our solar system? Or do we take the unprecedented step of demoting Pluto? They decided on the latter.
 
This may be a controversial step, and one that will upset many people. But as one scientist put it, "we must look at the solar system as it is, not as we would like it to be".'

This week's ingredients list for the livestock in the Bug House in World Museum Liverpool:

Dung beetles feeding on dung

• 1 huge bucket full of Bramble
• 7 pots of fresh food plant
• 7 bags full of fresh grass
• 5 bags full of petals
• 5 dishes full of donkey dung
• 10 handfuls of fish flake
• 1/2 handful of honey nut loops
• 1/2 handful of rabbit pellets
• 1 handful of bran
• 2 handfuls of special Bug House recipe insect mix
• 3 handfuls of special Bug House recipe hermit crab food
• 1/2 cup of ambrosia bee food
• 6 oranges
• 6 apples
• 6 bananas
• 1 lettuce
• 2 boxes of crickets
• 1 box of flies
• 1/2 box of mealworms

'Street Life: Liverpool in Fashion', featuring photography by Mark McNulty and Victoria Spofforth, ends at the National Conservation Centre this Sunday, 20 August, 2006.

Image copyright Mark McNulty

• Exhibition review at Art in Liverpool
• Exhibition review from Nerve Magazine
• Mark McNulty interview in Liverpool Echo
• Mark McNulty and Victoria Spofforth interviews in Liverpool Daily Post
• Mark McNulty website

Staff at World Museum Liverpool's Clore Natural History Centre have been experimenting with their new macro lens and have sent over this image.

According to Mike Graham, Curatorial Manager of the Bug House, Planetarium, Aquarium and Clore Natural History Centre, 'We are looking at the reproductive organs of a Meadow Cranesbill, a wild flower which is a member of the Geranium family. The red stalk like rod in the centre is the carpel which consists of the stigma which receives the pollen and the style and ovary which contains the ovules. This is the female part and the black anthers on the stamens surrounding the stigma are where the pollen is produced. If you look closely you can see the pollen grains on the anthers. Bees cross pollinate the flowers when they are collecting nectar.'

• BBC Gardening Plantfinder - Meadow Cranesbill
• Natural History Museum Meadow Cranesbill seedpot greeting card
• Slideshow of photos tagged 'meadowcranesbill' on Flickr
• University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research's Botany photo of the day blog

Image copyright Ken Stein

The Brooklyn Museum of Art, have used innovative online services to promote and enhance their current exhibition 'Graffiti'. A series of podcasts are available, allowing visitors to transfer the audio files to their mp3 player and bring them on an exhibition visit. The museum also has its own Flickr account, which it has used to invite the public to upload their own photos of graffiti in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn graffiti flickr group currently has over 1200 photos submitted.

Our own online exhibition Stewart Bale 2.0 features classic photographs from our archives 'recreated' by Liverpool-based flickr photographers.

Congratulations to Stuart Ian Burns, ex-employee of the Walker Art Gallery, on five years of feeling listless.

Object of the month at the Walker Art Gallery is recent acquisition 'Loophonium', by the late Fritz Spiegl. The loophonium, a euphonium crossed with a toilet, was created by Spiegl for an April Fools' Day concert in 1960. Free gallery talks will be held on Tuesday 1 and Thursday 24 August, 1-1.30pm.

August's Nightwatch feature for World Museum Liverpool higlights sightings of Jupiter, Venus, the constellation of Pegasus, M51 (The Whirlpool Galaxy) and the Perseid meteor shower.

For those wanting to know what the night sky was like in the recent past, our Nightwatch archives date back to the beginning of 2004.

First image from the interactive installation that Airside have created to be shown during the Liverpool Biennial (18 September 2006 - 26 November 2006).

The Walker Art Gallery has commissioned the immersive artwork which will consist of physical objects, wall projections and music composed by Fred Deakin of Lemon Jelly.

Full press release here.

"I was completely blown away.

Entering the two small rooms which housed the display, I counted 25 of his photographs. A small display perhaps, but each and every one of them was absolutely beautiful.

The way in which Parkinson used the landscape to bring out the beauty of the subject is astonishing. But Parkinson doesn’t restrict himself to conventionally beautiful landscapes; the Grand Canyon or a Scottish mansion provide as dramatic a backdrop as the New York skyline or a rainswept Parisian street."

Read the SewStylish review in full here.

Norman Parkinson: Portraits in Fashion continues at the Lady Lever Art Gallery until 24 September 2006.

The Bug House at World Museum Liverpool's latest outreach project gives schools the opportunity to run a series of experiments with stick insects. All of these experiments fit into the key stage 3 curriculums for Science, Maths and English.

Schools are given all the equipment to care for their stick insects and run the experiments.

The species of stick insect used is Carausius morosus - the Indian or laboratory stick insect. It is an easy to keep, hardy species that will feed on a wide variety of food plants. The lifecycle is completed fairly quickly enabling the schools to witness every stage in the insect’s development.

A Bug House demonstrator visits the schools and helps set up the stick insects vivarium and run through all the experiments. The schools are also given a detailed pack explaining how to care for the stick insects as well step by step instructions on how to run the experiments. This includes student and teacher handouts and answer sheets.

Interested schools should contact Jenny Dobson, Bug House demonstrator.

Meadow is an installation at World Museum Liverpool highlighting litter and recycling issues. Children have been working with artists to create flowers out of plastic materials that would usually be sent for landfill.

The partnership project is led by the National Wildflower Centre in Knowsley and is free to view at World Museum Liverpool until Thursday 24 August.

The meadow is still growing and there are events at the Prince's Park Carnival (5 August 2006) and Knowsley Flower Show (6 August 2006) allowing children to create new flowers for the meadow.

More information (including a teachers resource pack) is available from the National Wildflower Centre on 0151 738 1913.

Pete Carr's photo of the Pier Head from the Mersey Ferry

The latest in our series of online-only virtual exhibitions looks at the growing phenomenon of the online photo management and sharing service Flickr.

For Stewart Bale 2.0 - documenting Liverpool, we contacted Liverpool-based photographers who had come to our attention on Flickr and asked them to recreate classic photos from our archive of photos from Liverpool photographic company Stewart Bale Ltd.

An audio recording of the talk is available to download online now (mp3/transcript/links).

Our Learning department are looking for volunteers to help at Big Art for Little Artists during this summer's school holidays. There will be an open morning on 7 July, 10am at the Walker Art Gallery for those interested, please contact first to confirm your attendance. [Edit:21/06/2006 - there are no more places on this open day]

We run a large volunteering scheme at National Museums Liverpool, including work experience for schoolchildren and work placements for students.

We've now received over 1000 entries in our 'favourite colour' online poll, accompanying the 'eye for Colour' exhibition at World Museum Liverpool. Most entries  are short and sweet, unlike no.1051 - Rebekkah O'Gorman from Birkenhead:

'MY FAVOURITE COLOUR IS YELLOW BECAUSE I LIKE PLAYING ON THE BEACH AND I LIKE FUDGE AND I LIKE COLLECTING LIMESTONE THAT IS YELLOW AND I LIKE THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD ON WIZARD OF OZ ALSO I LIKE YELLOW TOPS AND A BONNET THAT IS YELLOW AND I LIKE YELLOW CHICKS AND VANILLA ICECREAM ALSO I LIKE MAKING A BONNET WITH YELLOW CHICKS AND YELLOW STRING AND YELLOW PAINT ALSO I LIKE THE STONES OF TUTANKHARMEN AND I LIKE YELLOW MARBLES AND I LIKE YELLOW CHIPS AND I LIKE YELLOW PAINT AND I LIKE YELLOW SLIDES AND MY OTHER COLOUR IS SKY BLUE BECAUSE I LIKE THE SKY AND I LIKE BLUE SWEETS AND I LIKE BLUE PAINT AND STRING AND I LIKE BLUEPUPPETS AND MY OTHER COLOUR IS GOLD BECAUSE I LIKE GOLD AND MY OTHER COLOUR IS GREEN BECAUSE I LIKE MONEY TO SPEND ON LOTS OF TOYS, NECKLACES, AND SPECIALLY THE BOOK CALLED GREEN EGGS AND HAM'

All entries received through the website are projected live into the gallery exhibition space. Let us know your favourite colour.

Margaret Houlston (pictured right) was in the Walker Art Gallery on Saturday to collect her first prize in the Bunny Run image competition. The prize was to have her picture professionally framed.

Winners and runners-up images can now be seen online at the Dubble chocolate website.

Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of the birth of the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. To mark the anniversary we've produced a trail leaflet showing relevant items from our collections on display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Items include an oil painting of SS Great Britain and an exhibition model of PS Great Western.

Press call at Lady Lever Art Gallery this morning to promote our Bunny Run easter activity.

This week has seen the completion of the first stage of the judging process for this year's John Moores exhibition of contemporary painting. The judges are Ann Bukantas, Curator of Fine Art at the Walker Art Gallery and the artists Tracey Emin, Sir Peter Blake and former John Moores prizewinner Jason Brooks.

This week's judging process involved going through the 2300 entries received, each entry viewed on a slide projector. From these the judges have been selecting up to 500 works which will be called in for judging in June 2006.

Modernism: Designing a New World 1914 - 1939, the new blockbuster exhibition at the V & A in London, opens today. The exhibition microsite gives a great taste of what visitors can expect.

Best of all, you can design your own poster to promote the exhibition, here's my effort on the left.

Loyd Grossman was at the Walker Art Gallery last Friday to welcome the first visitors into 'Big Art for Little Artists', our new children's gallery.

The gallery has been specifically designed for children up to the age of eight, introducing them to art and the Walker's collections through a series of fun informal learning activities and games.

We've created a series of online features to support these aims:

• A Parent's Guide answers Frequently Asked Questions
• a jigsaw interactive, introducing famous paintings from the collection
• a colouring in interactive, using the iconic Little Artist characters
• a virtual tour, follow the Little Artists on a trip around the Walker
• a fridge gallery, showing children's drawings
• a hide and seek game, in which the Little Artists are hiding in paintings from the collection
• desktop wallpapers

The Jodi Awards 'recognise museum, gallery, library,archive or heritage websites that demonstrate commitment to meeting web accessibility standards'. Nominated sites are assessed by an experienced panel of judges, supported by formal testing by disability experts and disabled users.

The 2006 shortlist has been announced:

• Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
• Portable Antiquities Scheme
  
• i-Map: The Everyday Transformed
  
• Their Reading Futures
  
• The History of Wolverhampton
  
• Speaking Volumes

National Museums Liverpool's web accessibility guidelines.

It's always frustrating when work never sees the light of day. We're creating a children's interactive for Big Art which involves placing the Little Artist characters into paintings from the Walker collection. We've had a lot of fun with it, but had to cut some of the images out to keep the numbers down.

Henry didn't make the cut.

We are continually adding new and improved scans of our paintings to the website. This morning I added 9 larger images of paintings to the collections pages. The enlarged images can be seen at:

'Dutch Merchant Ships in a Storm', Ludolf Bakhuizen (previously black and white)
'The Magdelan', Paulus Bor
'Mirage', Michael Raedecker
'The Nymph of the Fountain', Lucas Cranach the Elder
'Vespers', John Singer Sargent
'Ulysses shooting through the rings', Francesco Primaticcio
'Well's Cathedral', JMW Turner
'Virgin and Child in Glory', Bartolome Esteban Murillo
'Pieta', Ercole de' Roberti

Congratulations to Andrew Flintoff and the England cricket team for their 212 run victory over India this morning, the cricket match pictured is a detail from Turner's 'Well's Cathedral', circa 1795, in the Walker Art Gallery.

It pays to always have a camera with you when you visit one of our venues. I was at the Walker Art Gallery this afternoon to see the new entrance but ended up bumping into Betty, a Royal Python, with her handler from the North Wales Raptor and Reptile Sanctuary.

They were part of a hands-on demonstration for National Science Week. The sanctuary is a respite centre for sick and injured birds of prey and reptiles, both wild and captive bred. Betty was brought into the sanctuary on Christmas Eve and is around 8 years old. Royal Pythons are becoming a popular pet, despite a potential lifespan in captivity of up to 40 years.

The website features a 'rogues gallery' of sanctuary residents (some of whom are up for adoption), Everton fans should look out for 'Sheedy' the tortoise.

Betty can be seen here in front of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's 'Dante's Dream'.