Friday, January 23, 2026

Review: Episode 2 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) - St James Park

This is my review of Episode 2 of Series 11 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026.  (LAOTY)

You can see listings for all previous reviews of most of the previous LAOTY series - which ALL have lots of tips on my Art on Television page.

Pods set up on an angle next to the lake in St James Park

Episode 2: St. James's Park, Central London


Location and Weather


The location was St. James's Park in central London - which is the oldest of the Royal Parks. It was created so that King Henry VIII could ride from his palace in Whitehall up to where he hunted in Hyde Park.  This is a video about it by Royal Parks, which enables you to see more of what the people there at the heat could see.

On the map of the park below you can see a red mark. This is where the artists' pods were located at an angle looking west to Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria Memorial which are just outside the park at the western end.

Map of St James's Park - in between The Mall and Birdcage Walk
- with Buckingham Palace and The Queen Victoria Memorial at one end
The red patch is where the pods were located next to the lake.

Top down view of the location of the Pods in St James's Park
- and the view they had up the lake to Buckingham Palace
and the Queen Victoria Memorial

Filming was on one of the hottest days of the year in June 2025. There's quite a few pics of artists enjoying lollies and icecream!

I know this park extremely well and was very keen to see what the artists would make of it. 
  • I comment later in this post, in "The View", about what I think about the view which was chosen for this heat.
  • You'll also see a couple of artworks I've done in the park and about this location in this post - in relation to points being made.

The Artists in the Pods


Episode 2 pod artists are listed BELOW in the alphabetical order of their surnames.
  • Including a synopsis of their background
  • Links to their websites (if they have one) are embedded in their names.
  • Social media platforms are also referenced - but typically only one
The schedule for the day started at 6:45 am at St James’s Park. I live in Oxford, so I stayed at a friend’s house in London and took the earliest Underground of my life to Green Park, carrying my carefully curated backpack for the contest. Painting Under Pressure: My Day on Landscape Artist of the Year by Alice Kwan

Artists relaxing on the grass in the park after painting is finished

The artists are
  • Tanya Farrugia (Instagram) - Lives in Solihull and is a semi professional artist who also works as a family support worker.
The whole day was fantastic from start to finish. Thank you to the amazing crew @StoryVaultFilms who were so friendly and attentive, making us feel completely at ease and enjoy an unforgettable experience.
  • Nigel Glaze (Instagram) -   Born in Birmingham and now lives in North Wales where he  works as a professional artist and psychotherapist. He earned a BA Hons (1st Class) from his studies at the Falmouth School of Art (1982-85) and an MA Degree in Art Psychotherapy at St Albans School of Art. Exhibits widely across Wales in group and solo shows. He's interested in directing attention to places where people don't often look - as exemplified by his submission.
Painting, in my view, is a human endeavour, a struggle in trying to capture a human experience. The image is an interplay between the visible and a sort of psychological connection whereby a feeling, or an idea is developed.
  • Alice Kwan (Instagram) - A part-time self-taught artist who was born in Hong Kong and now based with her husband in Oxford. She has a Diploma in Fashion/Textiles and now works for the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. She has written a blog post about Painting Under Pressure: My Day on Landscape Artist of the Year in which she reveals she was selected without even having watched the show! However she made up for this by making sure she did lots of plein air sketching before the filming day.
Working from observation and from memory, I use loose lines and a muted palette to create atmosphere rather than photographic detail.
  • Mike Lumb (Instagram) - Studied fine art at Manchester Polytechnic. He's now a civil servant from County Durham who studied art at Manchester Polytechnic. His submission is a rural road in Teesdale. His Instagram account also indicates very clearly he is very used to painting very rural hilly landscapes, which to my mind would make him a hot contender! He managed to get a couple of articles about his experience in two local papers! 
  • Peter Morris (Instagram) - an architect and interior designer from London. Only started painting about a year go. Seems to be a bit of a TV Junkie as he is apparently also doing Grand Designs and wants to do Interior Design Masters. He also uses AI and acrylic paint markers and gel pens.
"It (AI) is a new tool and I find it fascinating"
  • Andrew Sanders (Instagram) - Took early retirement from a career in Insurance and is now an amateur painter in acrylics living on the Isle of Wight and is also a member of NAPA. You can see a wide range of his paintings on his Instagram.  He uses vibrant colours to layer and then scratch out in a systematic way to reveal underlying layers.
"realistic colour left the building some time ago"
  • Chris Scott - An older artist who works as a part time solicitor from Shrewsbury and paints evenings and weekends but has never ever painted plein air. He has been painting and drawing as a hobby for over 20 years and has learned "how to" via YouTube videos. he likes dark monochomish paintings. (My first thought is he may have cataracts and lost the ability to see colour. I vividly remember what it was like for me). He has never painted outside before. He typically does loose watercolour landscapes, often featuring British countryside but was working in oils for the programme.
  • Jess Shrubb (Instagram) - A recent graduate from Northampton. She has a BA in Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art Drawing from Falmouth University  - and got herself an interview on BBC Radio Cornwall - Falmouth artist takes on TV challenge.  She likes detail. Also, not quite the usual dress for plein air painting - a bit more Love Island than LAOTY! 

The Wildcard Artists

The Wildcards made the most of what shade they could find under the trees.

Normally the wildcard artists head for the sunny spots with their sun umbrellas. Before very long, I gather they were all heading back under the trees for the proper shade.

Oddly they were all focused on the lake whereas very many paintings of St James's Park all focus on the people

Themes & Learning Points


Every week, in my review, I highlight what I observed as being some of the themes arising from the location, the day and the nature of the artists in this week's episode.

This week it's A MAJOR WHINGEFEST! 
For which I make absolutely no apologies because it's 
  • partly to do with knowing the location very well and 
  • a lot of the issues associated with painting on a hot day; and
  • yet more artists who are not experienced and have never painted outside before.
But mainly because I was NOT hugely impressed with the paintings produced and I know some of the reasons why. We COULD have all watched 
  • better artists 
  • knowing more about how to work outside 
  • in hot weather; and 
  • producing better paintings.
It's all down to selection and whether you know how to do that to create a good programme.

The View


View the artists were asked to paint.

I know St. James's Park very, very well. I suppose if you are trying to sell this series to overseas countries then this is a view to go for. 

For me it is just much too touristy and far too twee. All the things the Judges don't like.

More to the point, I visit St James's Park a LOT, and 
  • have watched plein air painters there many times, 
  • have sketched there myself on more than a few occasions and 
  • have viewed a huge number of paintings of St James's Park in the last 20 years in exhibitions 
and I cannot remember anybody ever thinking this is the view to go for. 

Which makes me think there's no artist advising the production team about locations. This is also a park which is mostly flat with large expanses in a number of locations suitable for the pods so there's a lot of other places they could  have been. 

For example:
  • One of the most popular views is up the other end - of the buildings around Horseguards and the London Eye with the Lake in the foreground
  • The next most popular views are of people under the trees on either side of the Lake or lazing in the striped deckchairs.
The Bird Lady and the St James Park (with Horse Guards in the background)
8" x 10", pen and ink and coloured pencils
(a quick early evening sketch after a pastels workshop at the Mall Galleries!)
© Katherine Tyrrell

There are regular plein air meetups on St. James's Park. For anybody who is interested these are some of the blog posts I've written about drawing and sketching in St. James's Park
This is a link to London Plein Air Painters scheduled monthly meetups for the first half of the year.

TIP: Think about the options with no pods! 
With an easel and no pods there are any number of places they could have been - including in the shade under the trees! Apart from the fact the artists is in a protected space, the only other benefit is the video it gives the programme - but how much are these videos are a feature of the programme. They're on for a few seconds at the end. Would we miss them? Probably not.

Portrait Format


This links to the last point.

WHY are 50% of the artists painting with a portrait format? I really cannot recall the last time this happened in LAOTY. This is supposed to be a landscape competition and in other heats, virtually all artists paint in a landscape format.

Could it be that the view they are presented with just seems tall and narrow? 
i.e. a sliver of interest in the centre and quite boring either side?

Very NEW artists


I gather (from a conversation I had with somebody from Storyvault Films) that nobody ever looks at the websites of the artists who are close to being listed as pod artists. I kid you not.

I suggest they have a rethink. Two examples re Episode 2 pod artists
  • One of the artists highlights their submission on social media as "My first Landscape". I'm not a big fan of people who copy other people's photos for their "first landscape drawing" - and I've seen that the photo before. I know precisely where the Marina Motel is and it's not a location many people from the UK choose to visit....  (I once tried - on the back of a Harley and conked out before we got there because of the extreme 115F heat)
  • Another artist only started painting the previous year - but he seemed to be very dependent on AI to give him ideas of what and how to paint his entirely imaginary landscapes. I have just one question - Why would somebody painting imaginary landscapes be considered suitable for painting a commission for the National Gallery of Ireland?
Need I say more?

If I was a Judge, I'd want to be able to see a portfolio of their work before choosing anybody for a pod - and a very quick look at somebody's website tells you straight away whether or not they are a serious landscape artist.

I want to see a body of work which says this artist (professional or amateur) is serious about landscape - as opposed to having a fleeting acquaintance with it, sometime in the past. 

Some of the artists selected is beginning to look a bit X factorish i.e. casting according to "characters" as opposed to who can actually deliver quality artworks.

To me, this sort of "we only look at the submission" is indicative of laziness and/or play-acting at credible quality control re producing an artist who can deliver a £10,000 commission - which is the type of fee a professional artist of standing will charge.

As a result, I'm having a think about whether to start a system for indicating within the profiles I do how experienced a landscape painter each artist appears to be....

Choosing very inexperienced and "novelty" people is seriously insulting to 
  • those serious landscape painters who have taken the trouble to apply and 
  • those who are really interested in art who want to see proper artists. 
Plus - and this is REALLY IMPORTANT - it deters serious landscape artists from applying.

It's yet more evidence that this programme is about "entertainment" and "being original and different" without having any sort of clue what the latter actually means.

Artists who have never ever painted outside before - or on a hot day


I really and truly never ever want to hear another artist in this programme say they have never painted outside before. 
  • WHY have they been selected? 
  • It's very unusual for such artists to do well - and who wants to not do well on television?
The organisers are behaving as if painting outside is the same as painting in a studio - and it's NOT!

TIP FOR THE ORGANISERS: Ask the applicants if they have drawn / sketched / painted plein air before. It's a Yes No answer - not difficult to compute.

Artists who have never painted outside before - especially on a hot day - are going to run into all sorts of issues.

Examples include:
  • your paint dries very fast - which is absolute disaster for 
    • anybody working wet on wet in watercolour
    • I always feel sorry for those working in acrylics as the paint not only dries on your palette, but on your brush and if you're really unlucky in your tube.
    • Those who paint in oils do better - but the oils don't perform in the same way as the solvents tend to evaporate so you need to know how to adjust for the different temperature. 
"The paint is drying very, very quickly now"
  • you get very tired - because the light is so very bright on a hot day. In order to avoid eye strain and a headache, your eyes need either:
    • sunglasses 
    • or (my preference) a golfing visor with a big wide brim (I have collected a large collection over time!
    • a hat with a big wide brim which also shades the back of your neck - which it is essential to keep cool if you don't want to fry your brain!
  • your eyes cannot properly see colours and hues and tones of objects in bright sunshine after a while - but I didn't see anybody using any of the available aids to correct this. (see The Val-U-Viewer)
By way of contrast, those who know about painting on a hot day also know that you choose to paint in the cooler parts of the day - either early or late - when the colours are also better!

If filming on a hot day in summer, I'd be starting at 6am.

Incidentally, I've had quite a few comments on my Facebook Page this week from past participants in LAOTY who were complaining vociferously about how they were fried alive in their pods because of the lack of shade.

WHY don't the pods have sun shades installed as a "clip on" at the top for sunny days? Duty of Care to your participants means Health and Safety comes first folks!

Colour - especially Green


You can always tell people who don't paint landscapes often. Just look at their Greens.

One of the things that ALSO annoys me so very much about including artists who have never painted plein air before is the extraordinarily boring one colour trees they paint.  

This is in part because people not used to painting trees don't know how to mix greens or how many greens you can mix!

Now I always draw in dry media and have developed a large collection of greens over time (see How green is my coloured pencil collection?) BUT pre-arthritis, I also used to mix them on the paper using colours which create green through the use of optical hatching. Many plein air painters do a variation on the same using the art media they favour.

Trees in leaf are not just "green" - there are many different colour hues and tones.
Some basic points:
  • trees are not all the same green
  • the green in trees also varies within the tree
  • the green in trees gets reflected in water - but it's not the same green
  • grass in hot summer is NOT green, it's straw yellow
Many of the artists in this series also completely fail to differentiate between 
  • the different types and habits of trees e.g. a weeping willow is not the same as a great big fir tree
  • the colours to be found in different trees
  • how colour varies by time of day
This is one of mine - of trees next to the lake in St James Park - with a few more colours.

The Magic Hour
8" x 10", coloured pencils on Arches HP
© Katherine Tyrrell

Skies


VERY BIG TIP Paint some Skies.  If you want to do well, assuming the Judges will recognise the value of your work, I'd highly recommend you spend time just painting skies.

I see much better skies in the submissions which means I guess people are just not used to painting skiles which
  • move and change
  • have hues and tonal values
  • etc
Get outside and just paint skies as practice before your heat!

Allowing the Use of AI - is a BIG mistake


One artist, Peter Morris, used AI to create a painting. I wouldn't call it a landscape.

I think it's a HUGE MISTAKE of Storyvault Films to allow the use of AI.

Especially if what we see as a result is lots of imaginary landscape - which are of ZERO relevance to the commission.
How are they going to vet the submissions? Rely on what the artist tells them? Sure - that's a great strategy which always works well when people really want to be filmed for a popular television programme.

There's a reason why all other art competitions place a very big emphasis on all artwork submitted being ALL the artist's own original artwork.

The big reason is copyright. If Sky Arts wants to thumb its nose at copyright restrictions on the use of images, then I don't wish them well. There are some very big prominent artists who have come unstuck in the past infringing the copyright of others - and I have written about this extensively ( see copyright infringement and What to do about copyright infringement - for artists )

Reverse image searching works fine for finding artwork which has copied other images. I'm not quite sure it works so well for AI concoctions.

Judges


There was something very odd about this episode. They were not seeing the things I was seeing. I don't know if it was the same for other people.

and then there was this comment
"The artists have all been very obedient and given us the Palace and the Monument"

What did they expect, given the angle of the pod and the view? 



Decision Time


The Wildcard Winner


The Wildcard Winner for Episode 2 was Neil Muldowney

Kathleen Soriano congratulates Neal MacDowley on winning the Wildcard entry

Lovely chap who had popped over for the day from Dublin just to participate as part of the Wildcard entry - and had packed all his paint into tiny pots.

This was Neal's painting - which I rather liked - because the trees are recognisably different and he has caught their habitat correctly and they are painted in different colours.
Wildcard Winner: painting by Neal MacDowley from Dublin
and this folks is what it's like if you win the Wildcard section!

The Heat Paintings
The eight paintings from Episode 2 in St. James's Park
Above are the heat paintings lined up at the end of the four hours. 

I do not think I have ever seen so many landscapes in a LAOTY Heat painted in a portrait format. Only 50% are painted in a landscape format - of which only one is panoramic and another is almost squarish.

 Then we move to the announcement of the shortlist.

The Artists lined up to hear which three have been shortlisted

The Shortlist


The shortlist selected from this week's artists were: 
  • Mike Lumb
  • Tanya Faruggia
  • Nigel Glaze
Submission and heat painting by shortlisted artists
(left to right) Mike Lumb, Tanya Farrugia and Nigel Glaze
Below are the submission and heat paintings for each artist and commentary on their artwork.

Mike Lumb


Submission and heat painting by Mike Lumb

This was my personal favourite combination of paintings of this heat. The Submission was outstanding - and very relevant to the subject of the commission.

Kathleen commented that they were really about light and the qualities of light and made observations about it worked in both paintings.

For me I saw an artist who had obvious talen in being able to see both colour variation in terms of hues as well as variation in tones - both of which are vital to good paintings in this style. I just wished he's punched in a few more darks which were really dark.

Tanya Farrugia


Submission and heat painting by Tanya Farrugia

Tai suggested that Tanya was a colourist - which became more obvious in her heat painting which was bigger and involved more colour variation.

I'm not convinced she sees all the colours in the greens properly, so although there was variation in tone there was less variation in hue - when compared to her very good treatment of the water. I also liked her goose - they are so omnipresent in St James Park, it helped "ground" the painting.

I was left wondering what her paintings might look like if painted in dull light.

Nigel Glaze


Submission and heat painting by Nigel Glaze

His submission is not a "come hither and look some more" painting - but it's an interesting treatment of a very common sight. It accords with the theory that he's trying to make viewers look at things they might not notice

I really didn't like the composition of the heat painting with the Memorial and its shadow bisecting the board into two halves. 

Also, on my whinge about colours in trees his are not great, save for the fact he made a clear distinction between the tall tree and the weeping willow. (Compare for example with the colours found in Mike's willow)

These two paintings felt very subdued to me. I tried converting them to greyscale and they both looked boring with slabs of darker tones to either side.

These are also two small paintings. My personal perspective is I'd be very worried putting anybody through to the semi final who has not yet demonstrated that they can "go large".


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Heat 2 Winner


Shortlisted artists
(left to right) Mike Lumb, Tanya Farrugia and Nigel Glaze

The heat two winner was Nigel Glaze.

This was a complete surprise. There was absolutely nothing said in the programme which led me to think he was the obvious winner.
To be perfectly honest I just didn't get it.

Based on the the fact that everybody had a very boring view for the heat painting, I would have given it to Mike - on the basis of his submission.

Next Week


Next week the pods are located on top of the White Cliffs of Dover - looking down on the Port of Dover.  

Pods above the Eastern Docks with the wildcards lower down the cliff

EEEEKKK!!  I'd hop out of the pod and go home if I was given this as a landscape!

Eastern Docks, Dover

Reference


This covers:
  • Series 11 reviews
  • Entering Landscape Artist of the Year Series 12 in 2027
  • Past Series reviews - which you're recommended to read if you want to enter - LOTS OF TIPS

Series 11 

Entering Landscape Artist of the Year Series 12 in 2027

For all those interested in entering the series which will be filmed this summer (during June/July) - I will be writing a blog post in the near future about Call for Entries - Landscape Artist of the Year 2026 (Series 12).  (Note: It will be very similar to
Call for Entries - Landscape Artist of the Year 2026 (Series 11)

You can already see my comments about the change in format on my Making A Mark Facebook Page.

The deadline for submission is NOON on Friday 8th May 2026 - and entries are ONLY accepted online. 

EXCEPT THAT THE WHOLE FORMAT AND DEADLINE HAVE BEEN CHANGED Watch out for my upcoming post about what has happened and the Call for Entries

Past Series


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:
  • 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.


Posted by Making A Mark on Friday, January 23, 2026
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