Exploring Time - Tony Foster's watercolour landscapes at the RWS Gallery

There’s an amazing exhibition of very impressive watercolour paintings by Tony Foster at the RWS Gallery in Whitcomb Street. 

It's quite unlike anything else I've ever seen before in an art gallery.

For more than 45 years now English artist Tony Foster has worked in the World’s wildernesses - mountains and canyons, rainforests and deserts, the Arctic and the Tropics. Travelling slowly - on foot or by canoe or raft, and carrying his painting and camping equipment he makes his paintings in response to what he finds on his journeys.

“Exploring Time” in plein air painting treks through geological and biological time across various wilderness locations on different continents. 

This new exhibition presents over fifty watercolours painted en plein air over seventeen years, sharing the artist's reflections on the complexity of time and its impact upon the planet. Each includes notes from the artist’s experiences as well as maps and objects relevant to its location.

Divided into Geological Time, Biological Time, Human Time and Fleeting Moments, the paintings explore how time has sculpted and affected our planet. From Colorado to Tibet, the Galapagos and Cornwall, the works celebrate the wonder of nature, highlighting the importance of leaving areas of the world undisturbed.

A view of one of the basement galleries

His watercolour paintings painted plein air over 17 years are phenomenal. 

Some are of some absolutely amazing vistas in wilderness country. Some are of things he finds and records en route when trekking - which also record the small things in places in a unique way.

• You can see some of my photos of this paintings in my Facebook Post
• You can see a record of his exhibitions over the years on his website

The resulting paintings are a visual record of what he encounters on his journey: not just the landscape, but flora and fauna, notes, souvenirs and anecdotes.

A record of small objects - leaves, fruits, birds, eggs, feathers, twigs etc
found in a specific place on is travels

He also has an extraordinarily impressive CV of exhibitions across the USA and UK and coverage in articles by very many different publications. 

This exhibition will be embarking on a tour of the US from 2026 to 2028.

Approach to Drawing and Painting + Equipment

His approach to recording by drawing and painting what he sees is quite unlike virtually all landscape artists. This is his plein air method

He does not use photography or sketches but makes his paintings on site, often in the most difficult and uncomfortable circumstances. Sometimes a large-scale work (up to 8ft x 4 ft / 244 cms x 122 cms!) will take more than three weeks on site before it is sufficiently resolved to roll into its aluminium tube to be completed in his studio in Cornwall. 

Check out his painting equipment he takes with him 

Tony Foster's very lightweight painting equipment for very large paintings

Once he has found his painting site, he erects a makeshift board as an easel. When working in freezing conditions, he adds gin to his painting water to stop it icing-up. 

Events Programme

Review: Episode 7 Portrait Artist of the Year 2025 (Series 12)

You can relax - this is not like last week!

This episode of Series 12 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2025 is a better one with a number vying for shortlisting - although uneven in their contributions of both self portrait and heat painting.

Judging the artwork in Episode 7

Episode 7: The Sitters

The sitters for Episode 7
(bottom left) Jack Dee; (top right) Jacob Collier (bottom right) Fatiha El-Chorri

The three sitters in Episode 7 are as follows:

• Jack Dee - an English stand-up comedian, actor, presenter, and writer known for his sarcasm, irony, and deadpan humour. He's now rated as a comedy legend. He brought his radio - obviously still a dedicated analogue man!
• Fatiha El-Chorri (b.1981) - a British comedian and write who was born in Hackney. Currently a rising star on the comedy circuit and television presenter on Channel $'s Taskmaster and Sky "Mr Big Stuff". She bought a family plate she was given when she got married.
• Jacob Collier (b.1994) - an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and educator. He is known for his energetic live performances. He has won 7 Grammys and has 15 Grammy nominations. He brought three instruments with him.

I must confess I'd never ever heard of the two younger ones - but maybe I'm showing my age!

Episode 7: The Artists

The artists participating in Episode 7 of PAOTY 2025

All the artists are listed below alphabetically by surname - but are not differentiated between professional and amateur. The link to their main 'contact' site is embedded in their name and social media sites follow - if available.

The mini bio provided in the programme skips over some rather important information about some of the participating artists. As always I've dug around online, and these profiles provide more information than the programme does.

• Sarah-Lee Bailey (Facebook | Instagram) - from County Durham. She produced her first ever portrait to apply for the competition. It depicts her asleep with her new baby daughter, a doll and the family cat - all snoozing away!
• Hannah Broadhead (Instagram) - a professional artist who took part on PAOTY 2023 (painting Shirley Ballas). She graduated in 2007 from Staffordshire University and won her first art prize in 2017 (People’s Choice award Lichfield Art Prize). Her artwork was selected for the Royal institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition in 2025. Her practice explores observation and narrative. Her self portrait was a complex one of a full size self sat on the floor with her easel and art materials. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Hannah Broadhead (@hannahbroadheadart)

• Joe Capps (Instagram) - a Literature graduate and practising screenwriter. His formal study stopped at A-Level and he is self-taught after that. His route to becoming a freelance artist has been defined by media exploration and stylistic refinement, culminating in a 2019 solo show, Atlas, in Kendal. He now lives in Edinburgh, where he enjoys engaging with local art groups and attending life-drawing sessions.
• James Isaacs (Instagram) - a designer and artist living in North London with his wife. Painting has always been a part of his life. During Covid he pursued portraiture and painted friends via webcam. When he's not being an artist, he's a multi award-winning designer and art director with 15 years industry experience currently working for on  internationally focused content and data driven music media.
• Hamley Jenkins (Instagram) - She is passionate about drawing and music and works as a live sketch artist in jazz clubs. In 2018 she began a residency at Jazz Live at the Crypt in Camberwell - and never really stopped!. She graduated from Bath College with a BA (Hons) in Design and Illustration in 1993. Her large self portrait was painted in just 4 hours.
• Bernie Liumako (Instagram) - a fine artist originally from Tanzania, now living with his young family in Llangollen in Wales (and somebody teach Stephen Mangan how to saw words which are Welsh! I cringed every time he said 'langollun')
• Nazreen Nazir (Instagram) - she works as a civil servant in London. She completed her self portrait using W&N Promarkers.
• Vincent Stokes (Instagram) - b. 1996 in Walsall in the West Midlands. He completed his BA in Fine Art (1st Class) from Birmingham School of Art (2014-2017); BCU in 2017, and achieved his Masters in Fine Art (Distinction) in 2018. He's a regular exhibitor in and around the West Midlanda, botably with the RBSA. He works on themes for a series of drawings - with many related to his personal life. I RECOMMEND you take a look at his instagram account!
• Millie Wilkins (Instagram) - An artist, illustrator and studio technician who has travelled and is now based in Cornwall. She did a 3D Design BA(Hons), Falmouth University and various short courses on portraiture and drawing for a graphic novel. She aspires to illustrate books and is working on some children's book submissions, represented by Gill McLay at Bath Literary Agency.

The 10 Most popular posts in the first million visits (Part 1)

One of the assets of this blog - which started 20 years ago - is there is a very considerable archive of past posts - some of which have been very popular indeed. 

I've just come across a post which highlights what were the 10 most popular posts in 2011 - after the first five years of Making A Mark. 

During this period I did regular "big projects" on specific topics - and these are reflected in the most popular posts

Below are the top five posts - with the links to each blog post embedded in its title.

Tomorrow I'll list the next 5 posts in the top 10

I've extracted a short piece of text and an image from each one - so you can get an insight as to what the post is about.

CAUTION: Given the age of the posts some of the links embedded in the post will no longer work as websites have died and been wound up.

1. 10 Tips for How to Sketch People

Drawing and sketching people is an invaluable way of developing a wide range of artistic skills.

I've been drawing people for very many years - family, friends, people in cafes and restaurants, life class models - and other artists. People often tell me how much they like the sketches I make of people I come across on my travels with a sketchbook - which I find a bit odd as most rarely have faces!

Cheers Boston!
(sketching fellow travellers at Logan Airport, Boston, USA September 2006)
8" x 10", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

2. Van Gogh: Drawing media and techniques

Drawing Media:

• Pencil: He employed pencil for preliminary drawings and then combined it with ink. He often worked with a carpenter's pencil. He liked to press hard and often worked on wet paper.
• Pen and ink: Van Gogh had a remarkable gift for pen drawing and graphic technique.
• Most of Van Gogh's pen and ink and brush drawings (such as the one above) are executed first in pencil first. He then inks/bruhes over the pencil marks once he is happy with them.
• some of his pen and ink drawings are drawn without any preliminary use of pencil
• During his visit to Arles in 1888, Van Gogh discovered the reed pen (made from local hollow-barreled grass, sharpened with a penknife). It changed his drawing style. He created some extraordinary drawings of the Provençal landscape, including a series of drawings of and from Montmajour (east of Arles) , in reed pen and aniline ink on laid paper. The ink has now faded to a dull brown.
• The Van Gogh Museum is conducting research into pigments and drawing inks in use in the period 1888-1890 and comparing this to the inks Van Gogh used [UPDATE: See the Research Results REVIGO: Paintings - which also comments on inks]

Trees with ivy in the asylum garden, 1889
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, May-June 1889
pencil, reed pen and brush and ink, on paper, 61.8 cm x 47.1 cm
Credits: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

3. Composition - Principles of Design

This post forms part of an introduction to the elements and principles of composition and design and follows on from yesterday's post about the elements of design. 

It's an overview. More can be written about each and every principle - and has been!

• Good composition doesn't happen by accident. A quick reminder. The analogy which I find helpful for remembering which is which is to compare the elements and principles of art and design to the ingredients and method of a recipe. Cookery and composition have quite a lot in common!
• All the elements are ingredients - they are separate and need to be combined effectively to produce a successful outcome. Each ingredient gets to play a major or a minor role in the eventual outcome. This, in part, is dependent on the quantities employed and, in part, on the nature and intrinsic power of each ingredient (think garlic and chilis!).
• It's the particular way that they they are combined - using the principles of design - which enables a successful outcome. The same ingredients can for example be combined in a number of different ways (think of recipes for eggs!)

Observations about Wayne Thiebaud at the Courtauld Gallery

The major revelation of this exhibition is how Thiebaud's painting is as luscious as his subject matter. Many images of his work o date appear to flatten the profound surface textures contained in his paintings - but his brush marks are fully loaded and aim to impress.

I love Wayne Thiebaud's artwork on a lot of different levels and will always recommend that people go to see exhibitions of his artwork. 

Could be because I'm a bit of a foodie! Mostly it's because of how he visualises and draws and paints. 

Close up of "Pie Rows"

Wayne Thiebaud, Pie Rows, 1961, 

Oil on canvas, 46 x 66cm, 

Collection of the Wayne Thiebaud Foundation. 

© Wayne Thiebaud/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2025.

Image: Katherine Tyrrell (Making A Mark)

I got my review "knickers in a twist" trying to think about HOW to review the first ever exhibition of his work at the Courtauld Gallery in London after I first saw it last month - mainly because it was right in the middle of an exhibition opening blitz.  (I think I did five in just over a week).

Partly because I couldn't find my notes from the PV! (Then I finally remembered - they were digital! Thank you Apple Notes!)

Mainly because I've not written a whole lot before about why I like his work so much. There again there are these posts.... 

• my obit post An appreciation of Wayne Thiebaud (1920 - 2021) after he died age 101 on Christmas Day in 2021.
• More Wayne Thibaud: "This for you is my world to look at" (2019)

For me this is a bit of a click and salivate post! In all honesty written entirely for me - for looking at from time to time - rather than sharing with any of you - but you can look too! ;)

• and finally Wayne Thiebaud working on etchings (video) (2019) age 99!

So here goes....

Wayne Thiebaud at the Courtauld Gallery

This is very much a "one time only in your lifetime" sort of exhibition!

• It's not just the first ever exhibition of Wayne Thiebaud's still like artworks at the Courtauld. 
• This is the first ever serious museum exhibition of his iconic and vibrant still lifes of post-war American subjects anywhere in the UK. 
• AND it's taken over 60 years to get them here. It's probably going to be at least that many years before they come back again.

View of three of Wayne Thiebaud's works
- with "Cakes" in the middle and "Three Machines" on the right
Image: Katherine Tyrrell (Making A Mark)

We've occasionally seen examples of his paintings in the UK - but never a solo show and never of the subject matter for which he is famed and never so many!

This is what some of the newspaper reviews have said.
 

The New York Times called him “the Edward Hopper of the dinette tabletop”

I'm going to get the basics out of the way first.

After the Mall Galleries - where smaller art societies went next and why they're loving it!

Traditionally, there have always been some smaller and more specialised art societies and groups who exhibited at the Mall Galleries.  In recent years, the nature and cost of the arrangements for renting the galleries has changed significantly. 

As a result of which, these societies started looking elsewhere for places to exhibit.  

Two of these societies are:

• The Wapping Group of Artists (the "Wappers")
• the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (the RMS)

and this post is about where they have gone!

Details of their current and opening soon exhibitions in 2025 are at the end of each section about the societies.

Note also that these are two groups of artists which love to give demonstrations during their exhibition! You can find out more on Facebook.

The Wapping Group of Artists 78th Annual Exhibition 

- at 340 Kings Road, Chelsea

Every Wednesday between April and September, whatever the weather, the Wapping Group of Artists meets to paint at venues along the River Thames - anywhere between Henley and the Thames Estuary. 

One wall of the ground wall Gallery.

I thought I'd lost the exhibitions of The Wapping Group of Artists. Except this year I saw notices about the exhibition and decided to visit last Friday when I was in Chelsea for a meeting.

Which is how come I came to visit their 78th Annual Exhibition 2025 at the 340 King's Road Gallery

I chatted to the people running the exhibition about how they liked it - and they were VERY enthusiastic about the new location!

• rent is much less than the Mall Galleries i.e. £3,000 plus VAT per week for 
• space over two floors totalling 1,178 Sq Ft
• see plan of gallery
• agents are Sloane Stanley who merchandise the space as a "pop-up shop/art gallery"
• the Wapping Group of Artists could afford to take it for two weeks - which is more days than most of the FBA Societies get at the Mall Galleries!!
• they're in an excellent location in Chelsea (just before the bend in the King's Road as you go west)
• their sales have increased since they started exhibiting here - I think they had sold nearly 30 when I was there. It proves that location is everything when it comes to passing trade. 
• The King's Road is very much a shopping location and those who come shopping here sometimes have bigger purses/wallets than others visiting other locations.
• That said, all the artworks I saw had very sensible prices - because they are all the size of plein air paintings - and certainly the red dots I saw on the wall indicated some of what had sold and they also had very sensible prices

New member Paul Alcock who was steward for the say
- standing next to the red dots of the sales.

Why you may ask are the red dots on the wall rather than on the wall where the  sold painting is hanging?

• This is because when you are running your own exhibition, you can let people take their painting away after they bought it. You then hang another "reserve" painting by that artist in its place.  So in effect they refill the gaps in the wall from sales with new artwork from reserve.
• The arrangement for the exhibition was:
• 20 members display 6 paintings - but make 2 more available to hold in reserve
• those who are Candidates for Membership can exhibit 2 paintings and have one in reserve.

It's not an exhibition which has a catalogue so much as a current list of what is on offer.

It also has a table of pics of all the artists in the show - showing them painting plein air "somewhere" along the Thames between Henley and the Estuary

The Exhibition has a table of great photos of each of its members 
- painting plein air on location somewhere near the River Thames

The exhibition has a simple (and very repeatable) approach to the management of the exhibition

• there is one paid member of staff only who handles all sales - for the duration of the exhibition. 
• Plus members and candidates staffing the floor and being able to answer questions.

It all sounded an eminently sensible arrangement to me! 

You can see a video of what it's been like here

It was also wonderful to see a Group which has been around for a long time, thriving at a new location.

Exhibition Venue: 340, Kings Road, Chelsea, London, SW3 5UR

Dates: 31st October - 11th November (Until Tuesday)  Open daily during exhibitions

Free admission | No booking required

Website https://www.thewappinggroupofartists.co.uk/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/wappingart/

The RMS at the Bankside Gallery

The Annual "Art in Miniature" Exhibition of the RMS showcases (literally) over 500 miniature artworks from contemporary artists worldwide, using traditional 16th century techniques, as well as many new and innovative styles.

The RMS had a similar opinion of the new proposed rents for galleries at the Mall Galleries - and promptly decamped to the Bankside Gallery