The greatest British art initiative we’ve seen in 2013

This summer art will be dominating roadsides, retail parks and bold signage thanks to a new scheme by Art Everywhere.

Art Everywhere involves 50 of the nation’s best loved art works which will be proudly displayed throughout the country on 15,000 poster sites – a nice way to brighten up your summer trips!

The partnership between Art Fund, Tate and the poster industry was the brainchild of fruit smoothie guru Richard Reed, who spotted some artwork on a billboard on his way into work. He said “It wasn’t titled and it didn’t have a logo and I never knew why it was there but it was a beautiful thing. I would stop for about 30 seconds – it just put some bounce into my step, it brightened my commute to work.”

It’s this sort of out the box thinking that the art industry needs to engage more people with our fabulous art pool.

Of course, this sort of initiative doesn’t come cheap, they’re asking people to become patrons of the sites through crowdfunding exercises and if you’d rather just donate money then you’ll bag yourself a free t-shirt or a bag by Roberta Smith.

Keep your eyes peeled for the longlist of works will be published on June 21, so make sure you nominate your favourite. Tweet us @monographart to tell us which artworks you want to see on a billboard.

Interested? Head on over to http://arteverywhere.org.uk/

What do Marc Quinn and the Bamford Watch Department have in common?

Last month we told you how Damien Hirst had been designing beach towels for the Conran Shop, and now it seems legendary artist Marc Quinn is turning his hand to design.

Teaming up with exclusive watch customisation firm the Bamford Watch Department, Quinn has designed a range of limited edition watches.

Famous for customising Rolex and Heuer watches, Bamford wouldn’t have been our first choice for a pairing with Quinn as is work is more off the wall than on a watch face. But, none the less, we are pretty big fans of his designs on the Rolex Deepsea Collection. Each of the tree watches features airplane hour and minute hands, and a dial depicting the iris of a human eye superimposed on a world map (classic Quinn!).

Tweet us your thoughts on the designs @monographart

Affordable Art Fair attracts some not so affordable A-Listers

It seems everyone wants to dip their toe in the art pool lately, Leonardo DiCaprio hosted an auction at Christie’s with his famous friends, and now it seems Bono, Benedict Cumberbatch and Whoopi Goldberg have picked up a pen and designed a postcard.

The postcards are part of this year’s Affordable Art Fair which are raising funds for a north London school.

It’s a bit like ‘guess who’ as you don’t know who your artist is until you part with your £45 (although some of them are glaringly obvious!). Who knows you could end up with a Whoopi on your wall!