A loss of humerus

This is all by way of explanation for why this blog might have big gaps in posting from time to time in the next few months.

As I get older (70 last birthday!) I seem to spend more and more of my time engaged in:

• dealing with current health issues - which is mostly about bone rubbing on bone
• managing future health appointments
• attending such appointments
• having surgery to correct the bone-on-bone
• recovering from surgery

My other half has decided to join in the fun as well. After his recent medical emergency, he now also has a set of appointments etc he wants me to attend as well.

Over and above this I still need to do my exercise every day to keep my osteoarthritis at bay. That's as in "not deteriorating any faster than it is already".

Anatomical Studies of the Shoulder - by Leonardo da Vinci

Last week I had surgery as a preliminary to my reverse shoulder replacement - hopefully in the next few months. I have bone-on-bone arthritis in my shoulder with "significant glenoid retroversion of 20 degrees"

Unlike my ankle fusion (just two titanium pins), my new shoulder will have quite a lot of kit inside AND wants to be kept rested for something like six weeks post surgery. So I'm already practising doing everything with one arm.

a lot of kit for a reverse shoulder replacement

Plus my knees have suddenly started hurting a LOT in the last 6 weeks or so - and I suspect I've probably lost a big chunk of cartilage in my right knee (given I'm now very experienced in how osteoarthritis progresses)

So in top of everything else, I now have 

• shoulder exercises to do before the surgery; 
• plus I'll be in a sling for several weeks afterwards and then doing yet more exercises to get my range of movement back (it's very limited at the moment).
• Plus I need to do my new knees exercises to stop me falling over while I've only got one operational arm!

Last week I did rather a lot at the beginning of the week - surgery on Monday, followed by two major exhibitions on Tuesday - after which I could barely walk and flaked out for most of the rest of the week.

I obviously also need to work more on my expenditure of energy and remembering to rest!

At the moment, I'm late on

• my review of the RI Annual Exhibition
• my review of the LAOTY Series
• other stuff I have on my list of things to write about

and I will get round to them as quickly as I can - commensurate with getting all my exercise done and not getting too tired.

So please bear with me. I'm not giving up this blog - but from time to time my body is giving up on me - and needs my attention!

I do find it easier to post "quickies" on my Making A Mark Facebook Page - so if you do want contact and to see what I've noticed, do please follow me there at https://www.facebook.com/makingamark2/

"Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur" at the Wallace Collection

I had a lovely morning yesterday visiting the Wallace Collection and getting to photograph and hear about "Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur".

The exhibition is in the basement of the Wallace Collection and fills three rooms plus two side galleries (where the Portraits of Dogs exhibition was).  I enjoyed it and will probably go again because, oddly, previews are not the best times to digest everything there is to enjoy.

It's both a visual feast and an amazing confection of a variety of media and items  ceramic, sculpture, textile (tapestries and carpets) and works on paper made by Sir Grayson Perry RA in the last three years. Apparently there is more diverse use of media in this exhibition than in any exhibition he has done ever before. It has everything!

Just his use of colour - and he is a master colourist - will mean most people leave the exhibition with a smile on their face.

I'd recommend a visit while recognising it is not an exhibition which will appeal to everybody (see some of the links to reviews at the end)

Heaven's Gate by Sir Grayson Perry RA

As always, everything in the exhibition - with the exception of a few items from the Wallace Collection - has been drawn, designed and created by Grayson Perry - or in the case of things like the the carpets, tapestries and wallpaper, created by others under his very, very specific direction. I heard about what happens if you don't stipulate very exact colours!

Heaven's Gate (wool carpet) in the background
and The Great Beauty (oak,brass and ceramic) on the right

Pots and sculpture form an important part of the exhibition

Drawings - in pen and coloured pencils - and pot

I walked in to the photocall with Grayson Perry - see below.

Review: £10,000 Commission for Landscape Artist of the Year 2025

This post follows on from my review of the Final of Landscape Arrtist of the Year - see Ben MacGregor wins Landscape Artist of the Year 2025 - and deals with all aspects of the Commission.

This post is about:

• the challenge of the Landscape Artist of the Year (Series 10) commission
• the Commission Programme
• the Commission Painting produced by the winner of Landscape Artist of the Year 2025

I confess part of this review is also part guide to the places Ben visited - because I've visited them too!

The Commission Challenge

Every year a different organisation provides both the brief and budget for the commission. 

For the 10th Anniversary, the production team were looking for a prestigious client and commission

I wrote about the Commission Challenge back in April 2024 in 10th Anniversary Prize Commission for Landscape Artist of the Year

Last week Sky Arts announced the organisation which will receive the commission and the location of the 10th Anniversary Prize Commission for the next series of Landscape Artist of the Year has been announced.

• The Courtauld Gallery will be the recipient of the £10,000 Prize Commission - meaning the winner will have their commission painting hung in the Courtauld. (You can see online versions of paintings in the Courtauld Collection - but always best to visit to see the real thing and appreciate its impact)
• The location for the Commission will be the South of France

Following in the footsteps of famous painters like Monet, Cezanne and Van Gogh, the winning artist will travel to the south of France to create a work inspired by one of the most famous coastlines in the word.

Ben visiting the Gallery holding the Permanent Collection of the Courtauld Gallery

Ben Macgregor visited the Courtauld Gallery to meet Barnaby Wright, Deputy Head of The Courtauld Gallery and Curator of 20th Century Art. 

He advised Ben of what the £10,000 Commission Challenge comprised and how it related to three important paintings in the Courtauld Collection (see below)

Ben Macgregor getting his briefing from Barnaby Wright

What we would like you to do is to go to those different sites where those three artists painted and were so inspired and produce your own contemporary response to those three landscapes.

Barnaby Wright

Wow - you've just given me goosebumps!

Ben MacGregor

I thought it was a very challenging commission. I could see the rationale behind it but it would have had my stomach doing somersaults of it had been me!

The Commission Programme

Ben MacGregor wins Landscape Artist of the Year 2025

This review is about the Final of Series 10 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2025 which was won by Ben MacGregor.

Final of Series 10 of Landscape Artist of the Year 
The Artists and Stonehenge - early morning

The Final of Series 10 of Landscape Artist of the Year (2025) was held at Stonehenge last summer - and was broadcast on Sky Arts last Wednesday. 

Following this review of the Final, there are two more posts to go 

• Review of the Commission (after I've got the stepladders out, rescued my holiday photos and found the ones where I visited Cezanne's studio!)
• Review of the Series as a whole.

About this post

Below you can read about

• Artists in the Final
• Venue: Where/when the Final was held plus observations about the subject
• Observations, Themes and Tips
• Decision Time: 
• The Commissions
• The Final Paintings
• The final decision
• The Winner

As always the programme about the Final is always something of a bit of an odd show since

• 5 other participants are missing
• there is the need to recap the journey to the Final
• plus a more indepth profile of each artist AND
• the story of the three artists doing a commission between the semi-finals and the Final

You can find all my reviews of previous programmes in this series at the end of this post. Plus how to apply for the next series which will be filmed this summer in six heats in three places around the UK.

The Final

The Finalists (left to right):
Kieran Guckian, Susan Isaace and Ben MacGregor

The three artists in the Final were - in order of the heats they won - were:

• HEAT 1: 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.
• HEAT 3: Kieran Guckian (Instagram) - Born in Dublin, Kieran attended Crawford College of Art and Design graduating with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting. He switched from his career in web design to becoming a full time artist a year prior to the heat - so this was a big opportunity for him.
• HEAT 4: Susan Isaac (Instagram) - Born in Cardiff and now based on a farm in Nottinghamshire. Her initial training in fine art & sculpture was followed by a Design History degree, an Industrial Archaeology Masters and an early career as an historic buildings investigator. She is an artist and sculptor and has won several awards. Her submission was a painting of "Senate House Passage, Cambridge" (a place I know well). Previously she has been a wild card winner in 2021 and a shortlisted ‘pod’ contestant in 2022

The Final: Location and Timing

The Pods at Stonehenge

On the face of it, when the programme started, the choice of iconic megalithic Stone Circle seems rather a good one. I'd guessed they'd start very early and the early morning mist seemed very appropriate to the place - and provided no clues as to what the weather would be like!

Then we began to realise just how far the Pods were from the stones. Look at how tiny the pods are below - and how faw away from the Circle they are.

Distance between the Stone Circle and the Pods

......and then the visitors started to arrive.  Loads of them!

So not only were the Pods at some distance - but they also had a steady stream of visitors in view - between the stones and the pods. All day long!

I thought Sky Arts might have shelled out and booked the place for the whole day - from 9.30am to 7pm - and then somebody told me what the admission ticket cost! 

• the filming was during the standard season of June to August if filmed between Monday and Friday (if it had been at the weekend it would have been peak season!)
• a Family Ticket - for 2 adults and up to 3 children would be £72.50
• two adults would cost £56 on the day
• so the likely cost to hire the place for the day must be well in excess of £50,000 

You only need to look at the numbers visiting - which was a steady stream through out the day to realise that booking the place to have no visitors would have been a high five if not a six figure sum.

So the artists watched a steady stream of visitors and the sun did not come out giving them a very flat grey light throughout the day - reducing the scope for contrast and edge interest.

Observations, Themes and Tips

LAOTY 2025: Meet the Heat Winners and Wildcard Winners PLUS View the Commission Painting!

This is about:

• Interviews with all the Heat Winners and Wildcard winners in Landscape Artist of the Year (Series 10) - now available on Cass Arts website
• How to view the Commission Painting - now hanging at the Courtauld Gallery
• My reviews of the Final and the Commission programme

Interviews with the Artists

For those who have been following Series 10 of Landscape Artist of the Year (2025), you'll be interested to know that interviews with participating Artists can now be found on the Cass Artists blog in this post Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year Series 10: Meet the Artists

Heat 1: Ben McGregor with his submission

The article covers Heats 1 to 6 and

• all the Heat Winners
• all the Wildcard Winners

and has quite lengthy text about each one. 

Very definitely a "get a cup of tea and find a comfy chair" long read!

If you want to see the Commission Painting

The winner's Commission Painting inspired by three locations associated with Monet, Cezanne and Van Gogh in the South of France is now hanging in the Courtauld Gallery.

You can read more about where it is and how to view it in Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2025 winning commission now on display at The Courtauld Gallery

Note that Goya to Impressionism is SOLD OUT until 30th March.

It's priced admission and don't forget there are a limited number of "walk up" tickets which enable to go free as a Friend of the Courtauld or if you have an Art Fund National Art Pass. Otherwise an adult is £10 to see the Permanent Collection

If you also want to see the current Goya to Impressionism, you'll be waiting a while as it is currently booked out for a few weeks.

My reviews of the Final and the Commission Programme

I'm still feeling fairly wiped out following my partner's very sudden emergency admission to hospital last Friday and his five day stay. Coupled with the fact I went to hospital again yesterday for my outpatient appointment and now have to work out how I'm going to continue blogging in a couple of months after my left shoulder replacement operation! (Arm in sling for six weeks!)

So I'm having a quiet day today and tomorrow and will be hoping to publish as follows

• Sunday - Review of the Final
• Monday - Review of the Commission (after I've got the stepladders out, rescued my holiday photos and found the ones where I visited Cezanne's studio!)
• Tuesday or Wednesday - Review of the Series as a whole

I hope you'll be back to read them despite the fact the Series has now finished.

Review: Landscape Artist of the Year 2025 - Semi Finals at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

This is a formal Review of the Semi Finals of Landscape Artist of the Year 2025 (Series 10) which took place and was filmed at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in July 2024.

The seven semi final paintings - and one print

Last Wednesday, the semi finals of Landscape Artist of the Year 2025 was broadcast. I then watched it again the next day and started to write this review. 

However my partner then intervened and what was due to be a quick finish off on Friday morning has turned into an even quicker finish off on Wednesday afternoon six days later. Inbetween, I've spent most of that time either in A&E at the Royal London Hospital with his medical emergency or trying to catch up on sleep or sort things out post discharge. Anyway, enough of that.....

This was quite possibly the worst Semi Final of Landscape Artist of the Year I've ever seen - and was particularly notable for how many of us drifted off to sleep while watching it.

This review includes a lot of comments from people who were once avid fans of the show - but who feel it could be so much better than the tired, self-indulgent version we now see on our screens.

I feel that this series has truly lost the plot. (comment on FB)

The judges seem to delight in making life difficult for the artists, cackling at the thought of their plans going awry as the tide came in. It feels almost sadistic to me: does making the heat as difficult as possible for the artists make good telly? (comment on FB)

I've watched the program over many years too and to doze off and come to as they announce final three is a first for me. (comment on FB)

Location and Weather

Yes - it was yet another one of those ludicrous locations which this series chooses for its semi-finals. 

Complete with a tide which was coming in.

None of them are thrilled with the Challenge (Judge)

They were all out of their comfort zone and certainly out of their depth. (Observation on FB)

What a ridiculous subject for the semi final. Especially given what the commission is. I haven’t got a problem with the concept of urban as opposed to organic/countryside landscape, but this is more akin to a still life. (Observation on FB)

Dealing with tidal changes in a natural landscape is already a challenge, but in this environment it’s setting them up for a challenge that needs more than 4 hours.
They will never get the best out of artists in this way.It was not fun to watch. (I did have to go back to watch the bits I slept through and didn’t feel it was really worth it in the end) (Observation on FB)

The location was Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. The pods were on the concrete slipway below the jetty which goes out to and partially obscures HMS Warrior.

Those pods - at the bottom of the pic - and sitting very low down on a slipway
well below the jetty which hides the bottom part of HMS Warrior

Below is the very tight view of HMS Warrior in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. 

If you look at it on Google maps, the artists had a very narrow field of view: restricted by a massive boat house on their right, and the Mary Rose museum on their left. They had no choice but to paint either the long pier with HMS Warrior hidden behind it or the more industrial-looking pier on the right. I thought Ben made the best of a terrible situation - I think I'd have walked off set!. (comment on FB)

Problems with the location of the Artists Pods were as follows: 

Artwork I liked at the RBA Annual Exhibition 2025

I promised another post about the art I liked in the Annual Exhibition 2025 of the Royal Society of British Artists.

This is probably the most electic of all the art societies belonging to the Federation of British Artists BA Exhibitions - whose home is at the Mall Galleries. 

This is because their media spans drawings and paintings in every media, all manner of fine art hand pulled prints, and sculpture in various media.

As a result, if frequently gets large and imposing works which are absolutely impossible to ignore.

"Capital at Risk: Drawing the City of London (pen and ink, 1.5m x 2.5m) by Louis Pohl
and
"Effects of Lockdown" (cardboard, 170x45x45cm) by James Lake

Two such this year that I found absolutely unmissable in the East Gallery (above) were:

• Louis Pohl's very large and incredibly impressive pen and ink drawing of "Capital at Risk: Drawing the City of London (1.5m x 2.5m) 
• James Lake's Cardboard sculpture of "Effects of Lockdown" (170x45x45cm)

I work with cardboard for its immediacy, ease of availability and low environmental impact. My disability and dyslexia have also influenced my choice of material and the way I create my sculptures. For over twenty years I have created life-size three-dimensional portraits of people.

There is just so much to look at in Louis's drawing - in terms of both realism and allegory and just sheer expertise in the use of pen and ink for drawing people! I was extremely surprised that it did not get a prize for the ambition and the story-telling. As in "truly gobsmacked"!

By way of contrast, James Lake's sculpture won The Nathan David Award for Sculpture.

I also spotted a style I recognised straight away in the East Gallery - although I've not seen it in some time. It's very memorable.

"The Sky" by Ana Schmidt 
Acrylic 73x 65cm

"The Sky" by figurative artist Ana Schmidt reminded me a lot of the much larger painting she created which  won the £20000 Columbia Threadneedle Award 2018 for contemporary figurative and representational art. She is amazing at painting urban landscapes with huge sheets of water or puddles which reflect the sky.

In the North Gallery, there were two paintings which both immediately captured my attention.

Review: Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition 2025

RBA Annual Exhibition 2025: East Gallery

This is one of my very analytical posts - for an important reason. The story unfolds below....

Last Tuesday I was at the extremely well attended Private View of the Royal Society of British Artists.  It was very pleasing to see a much better mix of members and open artists work aross all three galleries at the Mall Galleries. (for how to visit, see below)

This is my review of what I found. My guess is there may well be a significant post mortem after this exhibition. For a number of reasons.....

• the size of the Exhibition
• Initial Sales - a variation on "less is more"?
• Social Media Marketing
• The Private View

with another more generic post tomorrow about Private Views and another post on Wednesday about the art that I liked, where it will get highlighted more than in this already long post.

Yesterday, I went back to take more photos, as the galleries had become too crowded before I'd finished on Tuesday. A second visit after the PV also offers the chance for another and much better look at the exhibition.

 

Facts about the exhibition

There are 554 artworks hung in the show split between:

• 275 artworks by members
• 279 artworks by open entry artists

I applaud the RBA for achieving a 50:50 split in terms of artwork hung between member artists and open artists. That's a significant achievment and is also the mark of a "proper" open exhibition.

The artwork selected comes from 3,843 submitted images. To give you a sense of what that represents it's bigger than the entry for some major art competitions. There's a lot of younger people who now want to show with the Royal Society of British Artists. There's also a lot of people who would like to get their hands on some of the very significant cash prizes.

Artwork at the entry to the West Gallery

You can see the exhibition at the Mall Galleries ( in The Mall in London)

• Open every day (10am-5pm)
• Exhibition Finishes: Saturday 8th March 2025 at 5pm
• Admission £6, Free for Friends of Mall Galleries and under 25s. Concessions available. No booking required.
• Catalogue is available at the Gallery - or you can view it online
You can also see the artworks in the exhibition ONLINE via
• the Mall Galleries Shop website shop - 60 artworks to the page + you can see the media used easily
• The Royal Society of British Artists website

I will also be uploading my photos of the three galleries to my Facebook Page in three seperate albums for the West, East and North Galleries.

RBA 2025
End "Feature" Wall in the West Gallery 

The Size of the Exhibition

Mostly I found, as I usually do, a very wide range of styles and media used in paintings, drawings, printmaking and sculpture. There's probably something for everyone.

Mostly it was good work, although it certainly included artwork I personally would have edited out at the selection stage.

The thing is I'm experiencing real difficulty conjuring up the exhibition in my minds eye.

I can do it if I look at my photographs - but I normally don't need to do this

I have the sort of brain which remembers good exhibitions extremely well. I can walk around them in my head. I can remember exactly where certain paintings I like are situated - and what artwork is near it. I can remember that for a very long time afterwards. For some exhibitions I can do the walk around in my head somes months and even years after the actual exhibition. 

So to have difficulty recalling more than small sections of the exhibition causes me concern. 

I came to the conclusion that I was faced with VISUAL OVERLOAD.

Call for Entries: New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2025

I should have written about the Open Call for Entries to the New English Art Club weeks ago! So apologies for that. 

This is a reminder that the DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES is Friday 14 March 2025, 12 noon

Most of this post is about how to enter - but I'm starting with two important considerations as to whether and why you might want to enter.

• whose artwork gets hung
• what prices artwork sells for

View of the East Gallery at
the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition in June 2024

Who gets hung

There have been two major changes in recent times. 

• For a very long time (i.e. most of the time I've reviewed the exhibition) the open entry artists who got hung used to be dominated by members of other national art societies who also wanted to be members - but that has changed 
• The ratio of artworks by members to non-members has changed and become more like other FBA Art Societies exhibiting at the Mall Galleries. (I bleated at PVs for years about "you can't call an Open an Open if 80%+ of artworks hung were by members!")

Last year the 409 artworks which were hung were distributed in the following percentages. This conforms to the now more usual notion that at least one third of artworks need to be from people who are not members of national art societies

Bottom line - there's now a much better chance of an open artist getting hung than happened in the past. 

While some open artists get more than one artwork exhibited, the majority only get one selected - so make sure you enter your very best!

Pricing is VERY important

The Messanine Wall always has a lot of small and affordable artworks

Another important thing you need to know before you proceed to consider "how to enter" concerns pricing of your artwork. 

This is important. You could waste your time if you want to sell but don't read this first.  

Below are two charts which indicate what artworks sold for in the 2023 and 2024 exhibitions across different price ranges. The second differentiates between members and open artists.

• the 2023 chart compares artworks sold to artworks hung across various price ranges. Note that sales drop off once you breach £1,500 which I've identified for a long time as an important threshold for sales (i.e. not a lot above this, and these are mostly by members)
• the 2024 chart indicates that OPEN ARTISTS do better in the £500-£1000 price range and pricing above £1,500 is tantamount to not minding spending a lot of money on entering and transporting an artwork TWICE (to and from the galleries) for no sale.