Review: Semi Finals of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) - Ouse Valley Viaduct

This is a formal Review of the Semi Finals of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026 (Series 11) which took place and was filmed at the Ouse Valley Viaduct in July 2024.

It starts with a preamble about past semi finals and their locations - and some tips which artists might like to bear in mind if they are participating.

Which artists reached the final of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026?

Location and Weather 

The very weird semi-finals locations to date

I will repeat what I said last year

All that the semi final location choices do is

• (typically) provide big structures - which won't be present in the commission locations
• provoke difficulty
• generate disappointing paintings
• guarantee that a talented artist(s) will mess up - and not make the final

In this instance, it also bears no relation whatsoever to the Commission and likely locations that the winning artist will visit

If you think "this can't be right", you can check it out below.

LAOTY Semi Final Locations

I started my reviews in Series 4 and the links in the list below are to my reviews of each semi-final - where you can see pics of all the structures.

YET AGAIN we got a BIG STRUCTURE for the Semi Final

• 2015 - Potters Fields Park in central London - painting Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and the City of London
• 2016 - Margate Harbour - painting views of the harbour
• 2017 - Castle Farm in Kent (the exception which proves the rule - given what happened the next year) - painting enormous fields of lavender
• 2018 - Felixstowe Docks - a container port with very big cranes and ships and stacks of containers - complete with an ocean going container ship turning up halfway through. (The eventual winner of the series knew it was coming as given a vague idea of where the semi finals were she'd had the foresight to look up both tide tables and arrivals and departures!)
• 2019 - Oil Rigs in the Cromarty Firth - extremely peculiar vertical structures sat in the middle of the Firth?
• 2020 - change of timing of broadcast (the year of two PAOTYs)
• 2021 - the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at Stratford in East London (filmed under Covid constraints in 2020 and broadcast changed to Jan-March slot in 2021) - looking south down the River Lee - towards the Olympic Stadium and the ArcelorMittal Orbit in the distance.
• 2022 - Forth Bridge - a VERY meccano set over the Firth of Forth
• 2023 - Thames Barrier- next to the River Thames!
• 2024 - Bucklers Hard - in Hampshire
• 2025 - Portsmouth Historic Dockyard - with a view of the 19th century warship HMS Warrior

I think the theory might be, if you can make an attractive artwork from what are very typically unappealing big structures, you're probably going to be capable of portraying the commission subject. 

Except they will keep choosing natural landscape for the latter! e.g. Croagh Patrick - a very large holy mountain in Ireland - for this current series 11.

I absolutely disagree with my postulated theory. I can't think of a worse test. 

Natural landscape painters do not tend to respond well to big structures. In general, they're trying to get back to nature and away from big structures. I'm not quite sure why this thought has never occurred to whoever procures the locations.

TIPS For LAOTY Semi Finalists (and Pod artists)

Again I can do no better than repeat my previous advice for semi-finalists

• Expect a big structure at some point 
• polish your perspective chops
• A panoramic format might be a very useful option for your support
• Take suitable tools for drawing/painting structures e.g. take a ruler (for measuring)
• large pieces of stiff card (for very fast delivery of sharp edges)
• flexi curve or french curve for bends
• Binoculars - because sometimes the structure is a VERY long way away!
• Make sure you know how to paint effective water quickly and easily

Finally do NOT enter this programme unless you are prepared for the programme makers trying to humiliate you and the Judges laughing at you in the semi-final.

The 2026 Semi Final Location

The location for the Semi Final is the Ouse Valley Viaduct on the Balcombe Estate in in the High Weald AONB of West Sussex. The viaduct opened in 1841 and is used by the trains which travel between London and Brighton. It has:

• got 37 arches and was built using 11 million bricks
• been described as the most elegant viaduct in Britain. 
• has an iconic infinity view when seen from inside the arches.

I can't help feeling the pods were the wrong side of the viaduct for capturing the shadows of the viaduct on the land. There again that would have meant looking into the sun.

The artists initially seemed to spend some time pondering what the sun might do - along with working out a composition and either drawing or blocking in.

Then it was down to the serious business of interpreting how to set about (what the Judges called) a "monolith".

View of the pods side on to the Viaduct.

The Weather

In a series of endless sunny days and hot weather, this was a semi-final on "an incredibly baking hot day on location" with absolutely no shadow.

I keep wondering how the pod artists cope in terms of being baked alive! I know I absolutely couldn't do it - I'd go all woozy and pass out! I "think" (as in "I'm not sure") that they had some sort of cover for the pods which maybe deflected the rays.

The Artists in the Semi Final

The artists after they finished painting - in a nice shady spot

We had two surprises not one!  There were eight artists in the Pods and they were:

• all the Heat Winners - as summarised in Tuesday's blog post LAOTY Semi Final 2026 - The Heat Winners
• PLUS the chosen wildcard from the Wildcard Winners in each heat. They chose Deborah Frank from Episode 3 at Dover Ferry Port (See Review and her Instagram post). She was rone who did the very impressive close cropped pic in oul paint of just one part of the harbour walls. 

Deborah Frank is a practicing artist living in West Essex, England. Currently completing a BA in contemporary portraiture, at The Art Academy London (her website)

• PLUS the best of the rest - in terms of pod artists - which actually makes some sense, because some heats definitely had more good artists than others.. The selected "best of the rest" was Tom Winter from Episode 5 on the Thames (see Review: Episode 5 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) - HMS Wellington & the South Bank). He's the chap who is a whiz at buildings and perspective.

NOTE: from the comments on my Facebook Page there seem to be quite a lot of people who think there is an episode which is the showdown between the wildcard artists to select the best for the Semi Final. This is NOT the case. The Judges choose a Wildcard at their own discretion - on the basis of their wildcard painting on the day. I'm assuming they've probably got access to the digital version of their submission as well.

The Semi Final Paintings

Here they all are at the end of the day. As you can see there are:

• 3 x panoramic
• 3 x portrait
• 2 x landscape

The only two people who "went big" were "the wildcard" and "the best of the rest". Those who get a lucky break do tend to come out fighting to justify that decision!

At the end of the semi-final, they had eight similar paintings of the same subject, which were all different. I think the good ones stood out.

LAOTY Semi Final 2026 - The Heat Winners

This is about all the Heat Winners who will be participating in the Semi Finals of Series 11 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026 - to be broadcast on Wednesday.

Which basically cuts down on what I need to write in the review of the Semi Finals - plus gives you a bit of a challenge to try and work out who might be the Finalists!

The focus for the semi-finals is The Ouse Valley Viaduct, West Sussex - see below. So reminiscent of a mountain in Ireland! 

The Ouse Valley Viaduct

Who's Who in the LAOTY Semi Finals 2026

Below is a reminder of the pod artists in the Semi Finals

• all the heat winners + their profiles
• all their submissions + heat paintings

Who do you think will be in the Final of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026?

See if you can work out in advance who might advance to the Finals.

Heat 1: Derwent Water, Lake District

Kim Day was the winner. I think she's got to be one of the favourites for the Final - but it all essentially depends on how good she is at making something out a boring large brick viaduct!

Kim Day with her submission

My profile of her was as follows

Kim Day (Instagram) - She lives on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset and works as a freelance concept artist for the film and television industry. She has a BA Hons Fine Arts painting degree and a Masters from the NFTS | Royal College of Art in Design for Film. She works on Saunders Waterford 638gsm papers or stretched Linen with Acrylics, compressed charcoals and pastels pencils and pens, combining each medium to add variation to her mark making and colour quality.

My review commented as follows:

In essence, she starts with the big shapes as tonal colours and then adds smaller marks (using I think acrylic markers) which lend and suggest detail

• Tai was very impressed by her artwork seen together. He thought it was brilliant.
• Eva liked the overall harmonious colour palettes of both artworks. She also picked up on the fact that Kim had identified and used the purple and pink undertones on the fells.
• Generally they were all very impressed by her use of colour and the way she filled her paper with landscape. Her subject didn't drop off or peter out.

Submission and Heat Art work by Kim Day

Her artworks were described as

• having a delicious sense of colour.
• providing a sense of place
• responded to the majesty and statute of the place while interpreting it according to her own way of seeing things

Which to me sounds like a very likely candidate for the Final - but we are, of course, at a very early stage if we think what the commission is about.

This was my Review: Episode 1 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026)

I find it useful to see what she has said - in a guarded limited way - on Instagram. You can often find a bit of a hint. See what you think.....

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kimberley Day (@day.finearts)

Episode 2: St James Park, London

Nigel Glaze was the winner of the heat located in St James Park - looking at Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial across the lake.

UPDATED: Michael Chesley Johnson FREE Plein Air Primer

Michael Chesley Johnson is a landscape painter ( in oils and pastels) and an author. He's been painting and blogging two months longer than me - having started in Autumn 2025.

He also writes for magazines like Artists Magazine and Pastel Journal. He's the author of some books, including Beautiful Landscape Painting Outdoors: Mastering Plein Air

I'm very happy to recommend Michael as an artist worth reading on the topic of plein air painting. He's very experienced and he produces good plein air artwork.

However, the purpose of this blog post changed half way through writing. It's about 

• making you aware you can read his Plein Air Primer for free
• making sure you read the conditions VERY CAREFULLY.
  

EXCEPT that Michael has now worked out what went wrong - and everything is now OK.  So this blog post now reads

• Primer for Plein Air - just click a link and read the whole post for FREE
• The UPDATED VERSION (what went wrong)
• the ORIGINAL VERSION - kept as a salutary reminder that these platforms can catch out even the best of intentions

Primer for Plein Air by Michael Chesley Johnson

Michael has made his Plein Air Primer available for free on his Substack - and this post tells you how to access it! Which means a bit of unpacking of what exactly "free" means.

In these articles, I’ve distilled much of my plein air practice. With plein air painting season just around the corner, I hope you find them useful—whether you’re a beginner or an old pro

Strictly speaking, this is a FREE with "a 7 day free trial". Which should be sufficient to get through all 7 articles - listed below.

• Part 1: Gear - What do you need for an easel or a paint box?
• Part 2: Tools and Stuff - What should I take?
• Part 3: Paints, Pastels and Papers - You don't need more than a few colors.
• Part 4: Setting a Goal - Don't go out without one!
• Part 5: Location and Picking a Subject - Location is everything.
• Part 6: Making a Proper Value Sketch - Making a preliminary value sketch is waste of time, right? Wrong.
• Part 7: Making a Painting - The final installment of the series

THE UPDATED VERSION

You can now read the entire post for free just by clicking the links above.

This is the email I got from Michael explaining what had gone wrong - which means it's now OK to click any of the links above and you will automatically 

This is Michael's explanation of what went wrong

First of all, thanks so much for the review in your Making a Mark blog—and also for pointing out that my “free” plein air primer posts are free for only 7 days and that they require you to provide an email address! That was not my intention at all.

I originally had set those posts for paid subscribers only, but had a change of heart and decided to make them free. I made the change and tested it by logging out; I was then able to view them in their entirety without having to provide an email address.

What changed things, however, was another setting lurking in the background. This setting lets you turn all free posts older than a month into “paid” posts—and because the plein air primer posts are over a month old, Substack reset them to paid-only. Yikes!

I have now turned off that particular setting and have tested it again, and everything looks fine, working as I planned. No one should have to give an email address to read these for free.

As for the GDPR law, Substack, unfortunately, doesn’t have a setting for this. However, this morning I’ve put in place a TOS/Privacy Policy and have also set the system so that new subscribers will need to go through a double-opt-in, confirming their email address.

Thanks again for the review and pointing out the problem.

THE ORIGINAL VERSION: What you need to do

UPDATE (23 Feb 2026): Apparently I have spotted an unintended problem with the posts ( as identified above)

You have to 

• set up an account in Substack (which is always a good idea) and 
• then subscribe to his Substack. Over on the right is the option to subscribe for free. HOWEVER.......

WHAT IT USED TO SAY: NO LONGER APPLICABLE - BUT WORK KEEPING FOR OTHER SUBSTACK USERS WHO MIGHT ALSO BE CAUGHT OUT!

The thing is I'm not a big fan of things that promise stuff for free - with a catch - i.e. you  then find out 

• you have to subscribe for free and sign up to a subscription which is going to charge you £41 for an annual subscription every year  (which it doesn't tell you on the blue advert)
• unless you cancel - which you can at any time.

That's because I'm one of those people who has to cancel straight away, because I know I'll forget to cancel in 7 days and I don't EVER give my credit card data away for free.

Plus I don't mind giving my email away - just so long as I can also refuse further communications and am not going to have to pay for anything.

Strictly speaking, I think of he had an advert like that in the UK Michael might get  stitched up by 

• the Advertising Standards Regulator (Non Broadcast Code) and 
• the OFCOM (complaints about websites and apps) 

if anybody complained to them. That's because they who prefer people to say exactly what they mean - with no qualifications in the small print a long way in.

I get the impression that maybe things are done differently in the US? Or the regulations are not as tight as the UK's.

It really depends what you want to do. If you're serious about plein air painting, I'd recommend it. He writes informative posts (but the books are cheaper!)

NOTE: Michael also appears to have worked out the way to keep his Blogger blog going while having transferred all new content to his Substack Painting to See. So I'll be having a think about that.

Review: Episode 6 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) - Dover Castle

This is my sixth and final review of the Heats in Series 11 of Landscape Artist of the Year. This episode apparently was the first heat of the series - and the view was of Dover Castle and its ramparts

Drone View of the location with LAOTY Pods, wildcard artists and Dover castle

As always my review provides:

• more detail than the programme about each of the artists
• overview of the location for the day and how this worked for the artists and programme
• comments on themes which cropped during the programme
• details of the artists who were shortlisted and who won the Wildcard and this heat.

My next review will be about the semi final - which is in Sussex (see end).

Episode 6: Dover Castle

Location and Weather

The location for this heat was an exposed hill across a wooded valley opposite Dover Castle. The pods were set up at the top of the slop and the wildcards were located further down the slope - in the eyeline of the pod artists.

DOVER CASTLE

Dover Castle:
a classic 11th century motte and bailey castle built by William the Conqueror
transformed by Henry II in the 12th century with a massive stone keep and curtain walls

Dover Castle is cared for by English Heritage and is VERY important in UK History. 

It was originally built to overlook the shortest passage between the south east of England and the continent. As such it has played a crucial role in the "defence of the realm" for over nine centuries. As such it ranks alongside the Tower of London and Windsor Castle.

The history of the castle includes:

• The massive earth ramparts and ditches surrounding the castle were thought to have been originally constructed about 800 years BC!
• The Romans constructed a lighthouse (Pharos) to guide ships into the harbour 
• Churches were built in the 7th and 10-11th centuries
• 1066: William the Conqueror builds a castle there after he has defeated King Harold
• 1180-89: King Henry II rebuilds the Castle and constructs a huge Keep. This was the most expensive castle building project in England ever!
• 1215: King John constructs the important outer defences which hold when the castle is besieged the following year by the Prince of France
• 1217-56: over the next 30 years, enormous sums are spent strengthening Dover, making it one of the largest and most strategically important castles in England.
• 1793-1815: huge sums are spent during the French Revolution and the Napoelanic wars to make the castle safe
• 1939-45: The naval and later combined services headquarters were located in the Napoleonic tunnels and masterminded the invasion of France.
• 1956: the gun batteries were removed.

I didn't have the sense from the programme that ANY of this was explained to the artists before they started their paintings.  I don't know any serious landscape painters of major important structures who wouldn't do a bit of research before they started painting - so they can make sure they include critical bits or because they need to know what they're painting - and which bits are where!

From a painting perspective, the earth ramparts (which are entirely artificial) are at least as important as the stone structure - and yet few really showed what they were there for or what they looked like.

One artist - the winner - did. Hence why I've explained the location in so much detail.

NOTE: Incidentally, I know that drones are fabulous things that allow filmmakers to get views they could never get before. 

• For me they are good for locating the venue and the nature of its vicinity. 
• However, the film-making of this series seems to have fallen prey to using the drone as much as possible.
• what WE DO NOT SEE ENOUGH OF is what the view looks like from each artist's pod.

That view is the only one we need to know about to do an armchair judgement of whether or not an artist has captured a good likeness of what a place looks like.

All we got a was a very few seconds near the beginning as the artists began to prep their artwork. 

All we needed was for Stephen and Tai to do their double act explaining the view from inside a pod - BEFORE the artists got into them. How difficult is that.  Instead they talked about it from a place where all we saw was them talking rather than the view!

The (very) quick view from an Artist's Pod

Bottom line, it's exactly the same as portraiture - if you choose to make a portrait of a place then it must look like the place as well as being interesting as a painting.

i.e. what it looks like is the view from the pod - NOT the view from the sky!

Weather

Yet another very warm and sunny day - but apparently a great deal of gusty wind from time to time also. Easels, artwork, paint, water - all went flying! I'm not surprised there was a wind because I think the location for the pods was absolutely crackers!

Wind is normal. Artists normally avoid windy spots for all sorts of very practical reasons - the main one being lightweight plein air easels falling over. Which means Storyvault Films MUST  project manage the set up for wind - and that might include (VERY serious suggestion):

• having a VERY big think about the wisdom of some locations 
• where wind is VERY predictable 
• eg near the coast, on top of a hill!!
• thinking about / finding out what the PREVAILING WIND DIRECTION  is likely to be and how this might affect the pods i.e. 
• it looked to me like they'd pitched the pods right in the path of every (PREVAILING) south west wind coming up the channel! 
• I then checked on Google Maps and that is precisely what they had done!
• HOW can a Location Manager not understand about prevailing winds - and hence why some locations are NOT a good idea? I am just gobsmacked.

The prevailing wind direction in Dover is primarily from the west and south-west for most of the year, particularly from mid-May to mid-April. 

Strong winds (force 5 or greater) occur frequently, with higher, more dangerous gusts often coming from the South-South-West (SSW) to West-South-West (WSW) directions, affecting the port's operating safety limits. (Google)

  

The Artists in the Pods

Episode 5 artists are listed BELOW in the alphabetical order of their surnames.

• including a synopsis of their background
• Links to their websites (if they have one) are embedded in their names.
• Social media platforms are also referenced - but typically only one

Portraiture and Portrait Painting: Reflections on a Discussion by three Expert Portrait Artists

On Saturday afternoon, I went along to the Mall Galleries to hear Miriam Escofet RP, Antony Williams RP, NEAC PS and Frances Bell RP ROI CBPP participating in the Expert Artist Panel Discussion.

The subject was Portraiture. 

The Expert Panel
(left to rght: Frances Bell; Antony Williams, Dr Alison Smith and Miriam Escofet)

I know all three artists well having seen their work in various exhibitions and award competitions in the last few years - at least a decade and maybe nearer two! I have lots of photos of them with their work! You'll see some of the pics I took below.

It was interesting to hear their take on questions posed by the host who was Dr Alison Smith, who was formerly the Chief Curator at the National Portrait Gallery (2017-2024) and is curently the Director of Collections and Research at the Wallace Collection.

Below are some notes and some quotes. 

I'm not going to attribute them to individuals as, for the most part, they were all in agreement. Plus while I've got notes for some, I've not got notes for all!

You can see examples of their portraits on their websites - but they've completed very many more portraits than are typically included on a website.

(Left to right) Miriam Escofet, Frances Bell, Antony Williams

What is a portrait?

Which comes first, the person or the painting?

"Portraits are first and foremost a likeness"

The audience for a portrait expect a good likeness.

However:

• a portrait is also a painting
• there is also the issue of the difference between personal work and a commissioned artwork
• artists are always fascinated about the possibilities of their media and what they can do
• there's a tension between getting the likeness and creating a satisfactory painting

If there's no likeness a portrait isn't working BUT it's not a good painting just because it is a good likeness.

To this end

• portrait artists also like to paint personal work which allows them to explore the possibilities of their media and what they can do

What's different about Portrait Painting?