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Pods and wildcards in the Privy Garden next to the baroque extension to Hampton Court Palace |
This review follows the same format of my other reviews and
considers.
- the location and weather
- the artists' profiles
- themes arising during the episode
- who was shortlisted and who won
Preamble - about my reviews
At the beginning of this new series, for those unfamiliar with the
way I review, first a little bit about me. I retired early and have been writing this top 10 art blog in the UK
for the last 19 years - and I'm now 70!
- I like to provide a comprehensive perspective on what I review.
- Hence, my posts tend to be VERY LONG and packed full of CONTENT - and there's a few winners of Artist of the Year series who have thanked me profusely for what they read before they participated!!
- I also like to say what I think
- I often won't say exactly what I think about artwork in the heats as I have absolutely no beef with any of the artists.
- If I make critical comments they tend to be generic, oblique and anonymous
- ....until we get to the shortlists and near to the final. That's because there's a £10,000 prize at stake and I have always adopted the philosophy on this blog of saying exactly what I think about artwork winning prizes of that magnitude.
- I also say exactly what I think about the way the programme is made and how the judges judge. That's because they're also paid a lot of money to do their job by Sky Arts and they need to be professional and do it well - for the viewing public - and there's been a LOT OF CRITICISM by the viewing public in recent years. Notably about some of the extremely silly locations and views!
Some of what I say is often a repeat of what I have said in previous
years.
- I do recommend people read my previous reviews before they participate in the programme!
- You can access my previous reviews of ALL the episodes of Landscape Artist of the Year since 2018 on my Art on Television page.
I welcome contributions on both the programme and my comments from the
viewing public
and you can find me posting links to my reviews on my Facebook
Page https://www.facebook.com/makingamark2/ where the reviews tend to get lots of comments.
(I apologise for no comments facility on the blog. It ranks very highly
in Google and became a big target for spammers and it just got very
tedious so I had to close comments down!)
Preamble - about Landscape Artist of the Year
- 48 artists are selected - from c.2,000 applications.
- Eight of these artists compete in each heat on location in a pod by creating an artwork within 4 hours about a selected landscape
- Six Heats are held at each of the six locations which were filmed last summer in North Wales, Bristol and London.
- 50 wildcard artists also attend each heat - although we see very little of them
- Three pod artists are shortlisted and their submission artwork and heat painting are considered together
- the winner of each heat moves forward to the semi-finals
- where all the heat winners and one or more wildcard winners will compete for the three places in the final
- the three finalists produce two paintings - a commission (prior to the final) and a painting
- The Judges remain the same as they have been for all previous nine series
- one artist is chosen as Landscape Artist of the Year
- he or she receives a £10,000 commission to produce an artwork.
New for 2024 - and continuing in 2025
There is no "wall of submissions". The the Submission Painting is now
located in the pod with the artist. That makes it very difficult to assess them together as a group. However I guess the relocation means the Judges tend
to look at both together for longer.
New for 2025
- I'll be including extracts from public comments by different individuals from my various LAOTY posts on Facebook in my blog posts
- This year the commission is to create a landscape in a very special location in the South of France
- The painting commissioned (by Sky Arts) will be on view in the LVMH Great Room at The Courtauld Gallery in the Spring - after the end of the series.
Episode 1: Hampton Court
Location and Weather
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| The Pods at Hampton Court |
"The geometry is quite overwhelming"
LAOTY seems to like starting with a flashy venue and they do like their
architecture.
- Last year it was Dunnottar Castle, Aberdeenshire.
- This year, it's Hampton Court in south west London.
Or to be more precise it's the spectacular
baroque palace built for William III and Mary II designed by Sir Christoper Wren as
an extension to the original Tudor Hampton Court Palace. Of course it helps that it also features as
a location for many film and TV productions! (eg Wolf Hall, Bridgerton etc)
The pods were located on the high walkway at the side of
the Privy Garden
which includes some amazing topiary. This is a restoration of
William III's baroque Privy Garden of 1702.
A couple of evenings before the event, an amber weather warning was given for extreme heat and we were informed that the location would have no shade all day. Sue Smith, Wildcard Winner
The weather appeared to be very hot to absolutely sweltering and
sunhats and manufactured shade were in use by all experienced plein air
painters. The Pod artists had the benefit of industrial strength fans! I don't think I've ever seen as many umbrellas as in this episode!
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| Wildcard artists |
The Usual Suspects
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Long dresses/skirts are adviseable when sat in the sun on a hot day if you don't want to find out what walking is like after you've burned your legs! |
Despite very many calls for a change in Judges, the "Usual Suspects" continue.
They are:
- Judges: Kate Bryan, Kathleen Soriano and Tai Shan Schierenberg
- Presenter: Just the one - Stephen Mangan. The programme is turning his hair grey.....
The Artists in the Pods
- 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.
Update 27 January 2025: One artist has reinvented himself on Instagram post broadcast - and this review now reflects this! I do urge all those in subsequent episodes to get their social media sites linked into shape prior to broadcast.
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The artists sat in front of the Yew Topiary - which is much more
interesting
(Memo to the producer - try to get the artists with vertical backs so we can see them) |
- Lesley Banks (Instagram) - a professional artist from Glasgow. She trained at Glasgow School of Art in the Drawing and Painting Department tutored by Barbara Rae and Jack Knox. The recipient of numerous awards, her work is held in several public collections including Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow.
- Hannah Day is a designer from Stourbridge. She's a senior creative working for a company which provides design solutions for the leisure and tourism sector.
- Jill Hurst (Instagram) from Brighton who is a textile designer
- Barry Lowenhoff (Instagram) is a professional landscape artist based in Sudbury in Suffolk. He has a degree in graphic design at Canterbury College of Art (1975-78) and had a career as a designer. He works within a limited palette. He has regularly exhibited with The Pastel Society and currently has three artworks in the current annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries (in the East Gallery) - which I happened to photograph this week!
"I was nervous about talking to the camera and being filmed, but actually that kind of melts away when you're doing the work because you're concentrating so much on what you're looking at." Interview with East Anglian Daily Times
- Ben McGregor (Instagram + new Instagram account post broadcast) - a self-taught amateur artist based in London. Born in 1979, he grew up in Surrey. He began to be interested in art when in 2015 he returned to the UK after working overseas. He now runs a luxury bespoke furniture company. He's never studied art formally but has, instead, studied artists whose work he liked - including post-impressionists and more contemporary painters.
- John Shave (Facebook) - an artist and art tutor who grew up in Australia and lives in Norwich in Norfolk. He always paints plein air and is a member of The Wapping Group of Artists and The East Anglian Marine Artists. He has also regularly exhibited at the Mall Galleries with the Royal Society of Marine Artists, the ROI and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
- Bach Singh (Instagram) - a Printmaker, Artist and Illustrator who is Lead Technician of Printmaking at the University of Gloucestershire.He has a degree in art and design from Leeds University.
- Imogen Slater - an illustrator with a very impressive list of clients from York. She studied Philosophy and History of Art at St John’s from 1995–98, then went on to do an MFA in painting in New York. Having worked with Apple, Marie Claire, Tatler and The Independent, and for bars and restaurants around the globe, she now designs for VR studios and education.
In terms of the artists' day,
an East Anglian Daily Times interview with Barry Lowenhoff
described the artists' day.
Mr Lowenhoff arrived at Hampton Court at 7.15am to be checked in, before starting the actual competition at about 9.45am. The artists finished their paintings at about 3.30pm, but the subsequent judging process was completed between 5.30pm and 6pm.TIP: If you were selected as a pod artist for LAOTY 2025 - and will be appearing on this blog in future episode reviews:
- do try and make sure all the places you can be found online are in a very good shape before the broadcast - I'll be looking for them!
- make sure it's very easy for me to find a profile of who you are and what you do. Those who get the longer profiles below are those who provide the "easy to find" info!
My first port of call is
https://skyartsartistoftheyear.tv/landscape-artist-of-the-year/ where you can see small images of their submissions and videos of
them painting.
The Wildcard Artists
The wildcard artists were arrayed around the middle of the Privy Garden with its baroque conical topiary - under a lot of umbrellas providing shade from the sun
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| The wildcards around the pond in the middle of the Privy Garden |
Themes & Learning Points
I've got lots of notes from this week's episode and I'm starting the series with a rather unusual summary of themes - more or less all on
the same topic....
The LAOTY Obsession with Architecture and BIG STRUCTURES!
A stately home is not a landscape. A cityscape is not a landscape. The view they gave them was a weird combination of over complicated and uninspiring."Over complicated and uninspiring" is a very good way to sum up the view offered up to the artists.
HOWEVER Watch this Instagram video in which Tai confesses that
- it's an insane subject
- he has no idea how he would tackle it
- it would take him days to work out what to do.
Does nobody ever ask the only artist working on the programme what he thinks about their possible choice of venues?
To be honest, I can't think of anything more unlike a landscape! Those tasked with picking locations for this competition seem to
wholly obsessed with architecture and very large structures as opposed to
LAND and NATURAL OBJECTS.
Bottom line, they reveal again and again and again THEY KNOW ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING ABOUT LANDSCAPE PAINTING.
What is the point of giving people locations like this to paint when it serves no useful purpose? Except, of course, for looking a bit glitzy and providing some nice photos for the marketing
blurb about the new series
If you go to any art exhibition about landscape painting, the bulk of
paintings will be concerned with landforms (hills, rivers, fields etc) and
natural built forms eg hedges and barns). Sometimes, in more urban contexts,
they might be about a more holistic perspective on a neighbourhood.
If you are drawing and painting a building that is precisely what you are
doing. You are EMPHATICALLY NOT drawing or painting a landscape.
I suppose a very few landscape painters get commissions to paint stately
homes, but they must be few and far between.
The point is the public at large like landscapes. As in paintings of
the land. We have lots of gorgeous and very different landscapes in this country
and we end up with endless venues which have nothing to do with any such
views.
What is it with Storyvault Films? Have they
- never ever seen any good landscapes?
- or never ever been to the countryside?
- or never ever studied any of the classic or contemporary landscape painters?
Do all the artists really all need to look the same way?
When any normal plein air artist is setting up, they normally walk
around looking at options and the optics of different views, then settle
on one and generally move to make it easier to do
However filming a television programme involves a few more restrictions -
and I understand that. BUT what we really don't need is a conveyor belt
approach to painting.
One artist commented as follows
the programme is primarily entertainment aimed at non painters in my opinion. The makers have this idea that an “ empty” landscape would be boring for the non painter, where the finer points of atmospheric perspective, tone and colour would be lost, so they have to include a tangible object like a building so we can compare the painted version with the real one. They definitely have no idea of what a compelling landscape is for an artist.
What I don't understand is:
- why the artists are constantly being presented in front of some monumental architectural behometh?
- Most plein air artists actively AVOID major structures.
- Keep including such silly subjects and most of the good plein air artists will stay away from this competition!
- why are they not encouraged to find their own view - as if they made sketches on the spot and then returned home to their studio to develop a painting
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| My photograph of the Privy Garden a year ago. The wonderful yew trees are just beyond the wall - and the Pods were all located just in front of that wall. Nobody had to paint the Palace and the Garden - if they turned around |
You have to be in the pod for the filming - but if you want to look in a
different way to everybody else, somebody just needs to re-angle the
camera which follows your work.
Just turn around and look the other way and somebody will doubtless appear
PDQ to sort you out!
So - why not get out of your pod?
TOP TIP: I'm going to HIGHLY RECOMMEND
that artists in future heats get out of their pods and taken themselves
off to find something that interests them
and which they are moved to make a painting of. It's been done before by other pod artists who were disenchanted with what was on offer.
However most don't - because they're plonked down in front of a monumental scene and asked to paint it. Very, very silly. This sort of approach
- does not maximise the benefit the film company could get from the applications they receive.
- does not generate good quality applications in future
So here's what I think artists should do:
- make sure you take a camera / tablet
- make sure you take a sketchbook
- get out of the pod at the earliest opportunity (before or after the start) and start looking around for something that interests you. It might just be
- a better angle and perspective on the proposed subject.
- turning your back on the proposed subject and looking out the sides and at the rear of your pod.
- take photos, make sketches, make colour notes, note light direction, record darkest tones and lightest lights, do a tonal sketch
- then skip back to your pod with all your information and start your painting
- you can make up painting time by painting through lunch
- however given you are now painting something that interests you, you won't be spending time counting windows etc. and may well not need to!
If you are a practiced plein air painter, none of the above should take
you very long. I always find the most time is spent walking and looking
for the subject that inspires - but if you know you've only got 10-15 minutes it's perfectly possible to find something in that time.
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| If they'd set up the pods in front of the other facade - this would have been the view |
In this episode, there's a very clear example of an artist who eventually
got out of her pod and found an a perspective that interested her
- but I think maybe the quandary of "what to do" left her with too little
time to finish.
Using a sketchbook and thumbnail
I saw artists who were used to working out what's the best option and how
to crop it using sketchbooks and thumbnail sketches to develop the idea
behind a painting.
That's just plain good practice. It is what everybody should be
doing.
A lot of repetition - how much editing are they doing?
Given a venue like this - and the angle of the pods relative to the
subject matter, there's a dire need to edit down.
Otherwise you just end up painting windows and counting conical topiary!
I absolutely 100% guarantee that none of those artists would have
chosen to do this view if it had been up to them.
However:
- those who are compliant will do their best to create a painting.
- Those who don't like it will edit their view.
We'll come back to editing when we get to the wildcard winner
TIP: There is no requirement to do the
view you are presented with.
It is up to you to find a view which works for you.
Standard of submissions seem to have improved
My general impression is that the general standard of submission has improved
and there's a lot of quirkiness going on.
However, I think they could improve even more, given it's possible to see what
else an artist has produced in the past when looking at their websites and
Instagram accounts. You also get a very good idea when looking at these sites
of whether or not somebody is really a landscape painter or maybe
somebody who just fancied being on television
Acrylics dry very fast in hot weather
Now I know all acrylic painters know this - and yet they still bring acrylic
paint!!
TIP: Bring a back up medium. If you find it almost impossible to paint with acrylics in hot weather, you'll be a lot less stressed out and not waste as much paint
if you bring a back-up medium with you. Tubes of watercolour paint don't weigh
much.
Decision Time
Wildcard Winner
The wildcard winner was
Sue Smith from
East Sussex. She writes about her experience in this note on her website which is well worth a read.
Somewhat predictably she had appeared earlier in the programme sat down
talking to Kathleen Soriano - which means this was a set-up and had not
happened spontaneously. (i.e. the wildcard winners are always somebody they've talked to
earlier)
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Kathleen Soriano and Sue Smith reviewing her small painting of a corner of the garden |
choices (why had I turned my back on the palace?). What an honour!
Sue is inspired by the South Downs and normally paints big vistas of rolling
countryside. With that sort of preference for landscape subjects, if I had
been Sue I would have had a hissy fit. Sue made the more sensible decision
to turn her back on the Palace and found a corner of the garden which
appealed to her more.
I wish she'd got up to the higher level and looked out of the back of the
garden to the river and open countryside.
What a way to end the day. It was a complete whirlwind. My experience from start to finish was such a positive one, from the beautiful historic venue, the friendly artists and visitors I met, the organisation, the care from the film crew, the kindness of the judges, to being the wild card winner. I can honestly say that it is a day that I will never forget.
The Heat Paintings
If you are an aspiring to participate in the future, I'd listen very
carefully to the part of the programme where they discuss the pros and cons
of each artwork.
Here are all the completed artworks - or in some cases, the part completed
artworks.
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| Clockwise from top left: Hannah Day, Lesley Banks, Barry Lowenhoff and Jill Hurst |
These first four all tried to tackle the whole landscape including both Palace and garden. To my mind only Hannah and Barry got the tonal patterns correct. That hedge - which grows on a loggia - on the left is huge and a very dark green
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| Clockwise from top left: Ben McGregor, Bach Singh, Isobel Slater and John Shave |
More emphasis on editing and being selective in this group. Ben omitted the Palace almost completely and focused on the garden, I'm not quite sure what Bach was doing, Isobel wins my prize for getting out of her pod! Her view is from the other side of the garden, looking up the huge loggia hedge towards the palance and had some very interesting shapes - but was wholly unfinished (but great idea). John's feels a bit like it's tilting and has focused on colour rather than tone.
In terms of commentary from the the Judges,
- the front runner for a new "word of the series" for 2025 appears to be "charming" but I'm not sure that's altogether positive.
- they noted that at least two artists appeared to run out of time. I don't think the shortlist was the one they thought they were going to be creating.
The Shortlist
When you're looking at the paintings, do make sure you measure them up against the standard size of the easel they are sitting one. It tells you a lot.
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Shortlisted artwork (left to right): Jill Hurst, Hannah Day and Ben
McGregor |
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Shortlisted artists: Jill Hurst, Hannah Day and Ben McGregor |
- Jill Hurst
- Hannah Day
- Ben McGregor
I must say at this point that the choice of which artists were shortlisted again flummoxed quite a lot of
the viewing public. This means that any discussion of the merits of the painting up until this
point - by the judges - had not meant anything to those viewing the programme.
Speaking personally, I could have made a case for both Barry Lowenhoff and Imogen Slater being shortlisted as well as Ben McGregor.
- Barry would have provided a contrast in media, he edited well and he completed a more accurate depiction in terms of drawing and tonal shapes
- Imogen got out of her pod and found a much better view. I think if she'd been more decisive at the beginning and completed more of her heat painting (the Judges thought it weird how little she'd done) and her submission landscape had looked more like a landscape she could have walked it. As it was it was a bit too clever. I think she was under-prepreared and might be persuaded to have another go.
Jill Hurst
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| Submission and Heat Painting by Jill Hurst |
Essentially all we have learned from Jill's paintings is she likes plants and
painting gardens. Can she do more?
I like the composition of her submission - the paths of different colours suggested there was a journey to be followed through this garden and she had quite clear zones of background, middleground and foreground
I must confess I found her heat painting not as well designed and in part that's because she maybe painted too much of what was in front of her and edited too little. I do not like the top third at all.
I like the composition of her submission - the paths of different colours suggested there was a journey to be followed through this garden and she had quite clear zones of background, middleground and foreground
I must confess I found her heat painting not as well designed and in part that's because she maybe painted too much of what was in front of her and edited too little. I do not like the top third at all.
Hannah Day
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| Submission and Heat painting by Hannah Day |
I like Hannah's submission of painting of a sliver of New York. It's an interesting view, the portrait format works well with the crop she chose and I could well imagine it on the walls of a contemporary home in New York.
Her painting on the day is VERY small - which I don't think is ever a good idea. It's difficult to paint a complex subject on a small size of support.
She suffered from the fact her acrylics were drying so fast. She's
aimed for a representative view - but given I know the view I would
question whether she has got the proportions right in relation to the
different components in the painting. It also lacks light and shade in terms of
the painting rather than the weather. It also lacks interest. If she'd gone bigger, maybe she would have found it easier to paint and might well have introduced more interest.
I liked Ben's submission painting when I first saw it as it was very quirky
and yet conveyed the shape and contours of the land wonderfully well. It's
also really good at showing what you can do with a limited palette. I also
like the 'very brushy" brushwork - which I know will have also appealed to
Tai.
Post publication: It's been pointed out to me that Ben also won the Episode 4 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2021 at Chartwell. This is what I wrote about him then
You can read past reviews of the Landscape Series of the Year which very many artists have said they have found helpful. See my Art on Television Page which:
Ben McGregor
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Submission and Heat Painting |
I think he was very wise to edit out the Palace. I think he could have
completely eliminated it (eg by painting the garden against the very dark
hedge which would have made it look even more interesting). The brushwork
enlivens the surface of the painting and the choice of location for the
conical topiary provides an interesting account of how the Privy Garden
works. Plus the entire palette works well together. He has suggested grass
rather than painting little slabs of green.
To my mind this was the best painting of the garden on the day. It's also the biggest painting on the day - and I mention that to remind people what I keep saying about "don't go small!".
Interestingly he also did another painting - which I actually like even better!
Heat Winner
Ben McGregor won this heat and will move forward to the Semi-Finals.
Ben MacGregor (Instagram) Ben would normally be working on a building site - but in what capacity I'm not quite clear. (Decorator?). It's such a shame that Ben is not online with his artwork. He prefers to work in an expressionistic abstracted way and his artwork reminded me strongly of some of the works of the painter Paul Nash - not entirely divorced from reality but not realistic either. He spreads his paint with spatulas [UPDATE: I've been sent his Instagram ID!]Hence he was a known quantity to the Judges - who already had a view about his work. I wonder if he was invited back?
Next Week
The location next week is Yr Wyddfa, know to most as Mount Snowden in North Wales. It's the the highest mountain in Wales and the highest in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands.
I'm left wondering where they found the flat ground for the pods!
Reference
For all those interested in entering the series which will be filmed this summer (during June/July) - see my blog post about Call for Entries - Landscape Artist of the Year 2026 (Series 11). The deadline for submission is NOON on Friday 3rd May 2024 - and entries are ONLY accepted online.
- lists all reviews I've published for series episodes broadcast between 2018 and 2024
- together with the topics / themes /TIPS I identified in each episode.
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