Call for Entries: The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2027

The Call for Entries for the 128th Exhibition by the Pastel Society in January 2027 has been published on the Mall Galleries website. 

Artists working in pastel and contemporary dry media are invited to submit their work for the Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2027

This post summarises what you need to know. 

• Submissions are ONLINE ONLY and 
• open from 17 August to 20 November 2026

Benefits of Exhibiting with The Pastel Society

This is an OPEN ART EXHIBITION. If you submit and are selected for the exhibition your artwork will be

• included in the catalogue
• seen by visitors to the Mall Galleries - and it gets a LOT of visitors
• viewed online via the Mall Galleries website and that of the Pastel Society - before, during and after the Exhibition
• eligible for a number of prizes & awards - and some have significant cash awards (see below)if you want to become a member, you first need to get exhibited via the open entry
• may well sell - but ONLY if you pay attention to what I have to tell you below about pricing and sales!!

Pastel Society | Annual Exhibition 2027 | Key Facts and Dates

What drew me to the Pastel Society was the thought of being surrounding by other people fascinated by dry media in particular
Curtis Holder

Venue: Mall Galleries, The Mall, London
Exhibition Dates: Wednesday 27th January - Saturday 6th February 2027
Private View (invite only): Wednesday 27th January 2027 - 5pm to 8pm, official opening at 6:30pm

Submissions: ONLINE ONLY and open until 12 noon Friday 20 November 2026
Notification of selection: Friday 4th December 2026, 12 noon
Receiving Day (if selected): Saturday 16th January 2027 10am to 5pmCollection of unsold work: Thursday 11 February 2027 10am to 5pm
Awards and Prizes - see listing near the end of this post

One of the walls in the Pastel Society's Annual Exhibition in 2026

Call for Entries

What you read below is most - but not all - the terms and conditions of entry and information about what and artist must and must not do. 

It's down to you to read the Full Details, Entry Terms & Conditions

Find out more about how to enter:

The return of the visitor map!

I've been using counters for visits and pageviews for the last 20 years. I like quick information - but I also want indepth information.

A Quick Look - on the blog

For many years, I have used clustrmaps.com to provide a visual map in my side column of where visitors to my blog come from.

I've always been completely amazed that I can sit typing at home in East London and the words that get published on my blog get read by people living all over the world - literally on every continent (bar Antarctica).

However, very sadly Clustrmaps has died.

Hence I was very pleased today to find a product which seeks to replicate it. Indeed I think it might even be the same team with a different name as they seem to have the same ethos - which is one I like and very much approve of.

Map My Visitors was created by a small team — just three guys working together. We are passionate about making web analytics accessible to everyone. We understand that tracking website traffic is essential for businesses, bloggers, and individuals, but the cost and complexity of existing solutions can be extremely overwhelming. That's why we set out on a mission to create a hit counter service that is not only accurate, fast, and responsive but also user-friendly and affordable.

You can find out more about them and what they do here.

Introducing MapMyVistors

MapMyVisitors

MapMyVisitors has a real time visitor map widget - and produces 

• either a map of where all your visitors come from (unless they are blocking their location)
• or a Globe widget (which moves!) I'm not a fan of things which move!

Visitors are either a red dot ie past visitors) or an amber or green dot ie visited recently

You can see the map near the top of the right hand side column.

Today - with just a few hours of stats on it, it looks like this

ON MY BLOG - as a widget

MapMyVisitors Widget
This is an enlarged version of the widget in the side column
after a few hours (i.e. installed on 19th August)

ON MY DASHBOARD

MapMyVisitors: This is the map on my screen re the dashboard.
Below it lists all the various locations

Statcounter

I cannot remember when I first started using Statcounter - but my stats suggest it must have been nearly 20 years ago.

I also use Statcounter to provide an incredibly detailed map - which allows me to drill down to region and city and ISP - and allowed me to identify I was being absolutely hammered by visits from people in South East Asia earlier this year when my stats went totally wild for two weeks.

This is today's map for the last 7 days

Statcounter: Visitor Map for the last 7 days
- with lots of the countries labelled

HOWEVER they don't have a nice widget sized one for my blog which I can look at really easily - hence my use of MapMyVisitors

The Big Deal - a programme about selling art

The Big Deal with Steph McGovern - Media Release

A new programme about art was broadcast last week on BBC1. It's a novel idea - about seeing whether complete novices can become art dealers!

The Apprentice for the Art World?

My questions as I started to watch concerned what is it actually about and what is it trying to do. Specifically:

• Is it educational or not?
• Is it going to be informative about the business side of the art world?
• will it help artists understand better how to deal with the business side of art?
• Or is it just a game show with a spin?
• Or as characterised on the programme is this "The Apprentice for the Art World"

The proposition seems to be "art is no different to any other business". 

How would you describe The Big Deal?

It’s like The Apprentice for the art world, but the deals are all real, and it’s as much about the hustle as it is about art.

So maybe educational about the sort of knowledge and skills you need to do well - much the same as happens with Sir Alan Sugar in in "The Apprentice"?

According to the media brief

Seven pairs of trainee art dealers from around the UK are putting their creativity, negotiating and profit-making skills to the test in the highly competitive art world 

The bottom line is the seven pairs compete to win £50,000 of "brilliant British art" (I spotted a David Shrigley)

The Seven Trainee Dealers

Back row: Bella, Ollie, Liam, Gavin, Phil, Ellie
Middle row: Charles, Darren, Steph McGovern, Cordelia de Freitas, Claire, Aaron
Front row: Deborah, Rebeckah, Daisy, Rebecca

Now realistically, none of them are actually trainee art dealers! Their backgrounds seem to be completely random.

However they do, of course, cover all the demographic and diversity bases. (Do you get as bored as I do ticking all the boxes for every dimension covered? Disability - tick; Gay - tick; Black - tick)

Their media profiles suggest very little involvement in the art world in terms of making, reviewing, buying, selling, collecting or anything else.

UPDATE: After I published - and after I got some odd comments on Facebook from Art Dealers who seemed very offended by the programme - I went looking and found what are "said to be the criteria used" for those who were selected to be trainee art dealers

The production team selected contestants who met specific criteria:

• No professional experience: None of the participants had a background or professional history in buying, selling, or trading art. [1]
• Walks of life: Producers recruited ordinary people from diverse backgrounds across the UK who showed a strong competitive drive, natural curiosity, and a willingness to learn. [1, 2, 3]
• Auditioned pairs/individuals: They were chosen through standard casting processes handled by production company Stellify Media to test how well their interpersonal dynamics and business instincts translated to the high-stakes contemporary art market. [1, 2]

So is that clear? NONE of the participants had any experience or history as art dealers. They are complete amateurs.

This, of course, is where the competition starts for the viewers - spotting those likely to go to the end!

• Darren (43) and Charles (40) - characterised as the "go getters". They reminded me of second hand car salesmen. I'm not expecting much of them.
• Ollie (26) and Bella (29) - siblings who are trying to get a business off the ground. Seem to be tuned into what young people like
• Claire (59) and Aaron (36) - Welsh friends Claire and Aaron are from Pembrokeshire and have a background in sales and the building industry. She's obviously the mover and shaker. I think he's along for the ride.
• Gavin (32) and Liam (28) - Best friends Gavin and Liam from Belfast have an interest in graffiti art and want to learn more about the art world. I'm expecting them to leave early.
• Deborah (42) and Rebeckah (42) - Friends Deborah and Rebeckah, from London, hope their eye for fashion can would translate successfully into selecting and trading art pieces. I think they may go far - possible winners.
• Phil (74) and Ellie (28) - the Dad and daughter team from the West Midlands love visiting art galleries together.
• Daisy (27) and Rebecca (61) - Mother and daughter Rebecca and Daisy from Warwickshire work together on the family farm – which specialises in camel hire. I also think this couple could go far. They seem to have a good eye.

The programme has two constants throughout the series.

Portrait Award 2025 - Artists with their paintings (men and couples)

This is my final category of portraits hanging in the the HSFK Portrait Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery - and it's about portraits of men.

This one revisits three prizewinners!

In my series Artists with their Paintings I have so far written about

• Portraits of Children (and Parents)
• Portraits of Older People
• Self Portraits (which has been updated with two new entries since published)
• Portraits of Women

Two more posts to come:

• Review of Portrait Award 2026: What's changed and what's not
• Portrait Award 2026: The 10 portraits I liked the most - and I'll be going back to pay another visit to the exhibition before I write this one.

Portraits of Men

I'm starting with the winner of the Young Artist Award and then moving on to the overall winner before returning to artists with their painting - in alphabetical order by surname of the artist.

Those I don't have a photo of the artist with the portrait are listed at the end.

Young Artist Award: Joel Nichols

In Our Borderlands

Oil on canvas, 2025

© Joel Nichols

This is what the Judges had to say about his portrait.

The judges admired the painting's distinctly mysterious atmosphere and the technically accomplished use of light, which shapes both the psychological depth of the sitter and the spatial complexity of the composition.

TIP I've noted the Judges can often be won over by a technically complex design and rendition which speaks of layers within it. The sort of portrait that many people never think of doing.

Nichols says:

For me, the portrait's main value comes from the process of its creation rather than the final image itself. In this way, it becomes less about producing a fixed image and more about exploring identity, agency and the dynamics of looking!

Joel Nichols (Instagram) (b 2000) was born in Birmingham, England and raised in Winnipeg, Canada. They graduated from the University of Manitoba in 2024 before returning to the UK as a Rhodes Scholar to complete an MFA degree at the University of Oxford's Ruskin School of Art. Nichols is currentlv following an MA in historv of art. This is a link to his 2025 degree show.

Themes of identity, connection and vulnerability run throughout Joel Nichols's creative practice, which spans portraiture and ceramics. Joel connects various themes within his work, many stemming back to his roots in his dual nationality and biracial Jamaican descent.

This portrait originated in an Oxford University dorm room where Nichols would join with fellow students to 'foster community' by cooking or watching films. One evening, Nichols noticed how a mirror in the room refracted light in multiple colours across the face of a friend, Jo, and suggested they meet again to revisit the moment in the artist's studio. 

Overall Winner: Marc Dalessio

Don't skip this because you read Mark Dalessio wins £35,000 Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026 - Mark has offered us some more insight into how he went about this painting.

Portrait Award 2026 - Artists with their Paintings (Women)

Portraits of Women is my fourth category of the different types of portraits seen at the HSFK Portrait Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

My series Artists with their Paintings is organised according to the nature of their subjects.

• This excludes all portraits which were self-portraits by women artists. These can be seen in my last post about Self Portraits - see below.
• It does however include portraits of daughters which I missed when doing the Children and Parents post!

My other published and planned posts are

Other posts are:

• Portraits of Children (and Parents)
• Portraits of Older People
• Self Portraits (which has been updated with two new entries since published)

COMING SOON: to be published

• Portraits of Men and Groups

Portraits of Women

In general, the portraits of women are either full body or upper torso - painted in a variety of styles. Their artists are mostly women - but there are also some men painting women.

This post starts with two adult daughters missing from the children post. I think because both seemed so grown up it didint occur to me that they could also be children.  It is however interesting that yet again, this first parent painting a child is a woman.

Zena Assi

I'm not gonna straighten my hair

Oil, acrylic and ink on canvas, 2025

© Zena Assi

This is another child that I missed from the Children and Parents post! I will add this one in to that as well. (I'm only just reading some of the labels in detail as I'm working through the posts). 

Sitting in a meditative pose, Zena Assi's daughter returns the viewer's gaze with a calm defiance. This portrait by the Lebanese painter celebrates her daughter's choice to no longer straighten her naturally curly black hair; 'a small gesture' that 'speaks volumes about embracing difference and celebrating one's origins'. 

Zena Assi - Born in Lebanon, in 1974, Zena Assi now lives and works in London. She graduated with honors from l’Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts (ALBA), worked in advertising and taught in different universities. 

Her artwork has long explored urban tensions, memory, exile, interior architectures, and fragmented identities. There are not many portraits on her Instagram account.

Many of her pieces are repeatedly shown in different international auction houses and are part of various public as well as private collections. Her work has been seen

in solo and group exhibitions in Europe, the Middle East and the USA including at the 57th Venice Art Biennale (2017), the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2020, 2022, 2024, 2025), and the MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art in Saudi Arabia (2025).

I like the full on uncompromising steady gaze of the sitter - which feels right with the age her daughter appears to be - and her mode of sitting.

TIP: One of the aspects which make a portrait very effective is when the posture and attitude of the sitter seems to sit well with the age they appear to be.

Paul Aston

The Costumer

Oil on board, 2025

© Paul Aston

Paul Aston Instagram (b.1966) undertook a BA (Hons) degree in fine art from Leeds University. He is now a figurative oil painter working in Cambridge

His portraits of people stammering have helped to broaden the debate around speech diversity and have been used by speech and language therapists and stammering support groups to challenge preconceptions about stammering. He has spoken at conferences about his work and appeared on podcasts.

In 2023 he was a contestant in the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year competition using a portrait about stammering. Aston also took part in the stammering pride exhibition Wouldn't You Like to Talk like Us? jointly with Conor Foran at the City Lit, London, 2024 and the Space to Stutter joint exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2025.

Strictly speaking I should have spotted this was a portrait of his child, but rather than amend yet more posts, I'm including her here.

In this portrait, Paul Aston depicts the 'resilience' of his child, who is a costume

designer. 

• The abstract shapes in the background of the portrait are taken from cut out patterns of eighteenth-century men's coats. These reference his subject's  profession. 
• What's also interesting is the significant contrast between the very fine brushwork used to depict the intricacy of the tattoo and the loose brushwork used for her clothing. 

It is also a good portrait of his daughter!

Paul Benney

Fiona
Oil on canvas, 2025
© Paul Benney

Paul Benney (Instagram) b.1959

• Currently holds the mantle of "most selected artist never to have won the Portrait Award (when sponsored by BP). Previous exhibitor nine times: 1994,1996 (Winner – BP Visitors’ Choice),1997 (Winner – BP Visitors’ Choice), 1998, 1999, 2000, 2008, 2010, 2014.
• He has worked as an artist and musician in both the U.S. and U.K.
• He has painted many prominent political and cultural figures. His work is represented in public collections world wide including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Australia, The National Portrait Gallery, The Royal Collection, and a plethora of other prominent private and corporate collections.
• He is also the artist who was chosen to paint the State Portrait of HRH Queen Camilla. (see my blog post The Coronation Portraits and The King's Tour Artists - at Buckingham Palace

His sitter Fiona is pictured below with her famous big brother ex-politician / podcaster Rory Stewart.