Tuesday, February 24, 2026

LAOTY Semi Final 2026 - The Heat Winners

This is about all the Heat Winners who will be participating in the Semi Finals of Series 11 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026 - to be broadcast on Wednesday.

Which basically cuts down on what I need to write in the review of the Semi Finals - plus gives you a bit of a challenge to try and work out who might be the Finalists!

The focus for the semi-finals is The Ouse Valley Viaduct, West Sussex - see below. So reminiscent of a mountain in Ireland! 

The Ouse Valley Viaduct


Who's Who in the LAOTY Semi Finals 2026


Below is a reminder of the pod artists in the Semi Finals
  • all the heat winners + their profiles
  • all their submissions + heat paintings
Who do you think will be in the Final of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026?
See if you can work out in advance who might advance to the Finals.

Heat 1: Derwent Water, Lake District


Kim Day was the winner. I think she's got to be one of the favourites for the Final - but it all essentially depends on how good she is at making something out a boring large brick viaduct!

Kim Day with her submission

My profile of her was as follows
Kim Day (Instagram) - She lives on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset and works as a freelance concept artist for the film and television industry. She has a BA Hons Fine Arts painting degree and a Masters from the NFTS | Royal College of Art in Design for Film. She works on Saunders Waterford 638gsm papers or stretched Linen with Acrylics, compressed charcoals and pastels pencils and pens, combining each medium to add variation to her mark making and colour quality.
My review commented as follows:
In essence, she starts with the big shapes as tonal colours and then adds smaller marks (using I think acrylic markers) which lend and suggest detail
  • Tai was very impressed by her artwork seen together. He thought it was brilliant.
  • Eva liked the overall harmonious colour palettes of both artworks. She also picked up on the fact that Kim had identified and used the purple and pink undertones on the fells.
  • Generally they were all very impressed by her use of colour and the way she filled her paper with landscape. Her subject didn't drop off or peter out.

Submission and Heat Art work by Kim Day
Her artworks were described as
  • having a delicious sense of colour.
  • providing a sense of place
  • responded to the majesty and statute of the place while interpreting it according to her own way of seeing things
Which to me sounds like a very likely candidate for the Final - but we are, of course, at a very early stage if we think what the commission is about.

This was my Review: Episode 1 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026)

I find it useful to see what she has said - in a guarded limited way - on Instagram. You can often find a bit of a hint. See what you think.....


Episode 2: St James Park, London

Nigel Glaze was the winner of the heat located in St James Park - looking at Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial across the lake.

He's not on my shortlist of people I hope might be in the Final for various reasons. In part because, to date, he's only produced two small paintings. Unless he paints big in the semi-final, I don't think it likely he will proceed given the competition and the commission.

My profile of him was as follows

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.
Submission and Heat Painting by Nigel Glaze

This is what I said about his paintings

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".

I said about him

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.
Nigel is also saying nothing on Instagram....
 

Episode 3: Dover Ferry Port


The heat three winner was Prasad Beaven.  This is his profile
Prasad Beaven (Instagram) - Prasad Beaven is a visual artist whose practice explores inner and outer landscapes through spiritual and intuitive processes. A graduate of the Kings’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts (MA, 2021) and the University of Brighton (BA Illustration, 2017), he has recently been elected as a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour. He has exhibited internationally, including a solo presentation at the Saatchi Gallery and he is the recipient of the Ciclitira Prize (2021), presented by HRH King Charles III. He works primarily in water-based media, combining ink marbling with drawing and painting. His artwork develops through a slow, meditative process of layering light washes of ink and allowing the image to take shape gradually. He spent six years of his childhood in northern India, in the foothills of the Himalayas which informs his meditative approach to art.



Submission and heat painting by Prasad Beaven

My comment on his submission was as follows
I do find it VERY ODD that he submitted a religious fantasy painting for an art competition which had a sacred religious mountain in Ireland as the landscape to be painted for the commission. I'll leave it at that for the time being.....
and
I must confess I liked his heat painting better. He is one of few who painted
  • the sea and the sky and the horizon properly
  • who has got atmospheric perspective employed in relation to the distant cliffs - which Tai enthused about
  • his middle ground contains vegetation which is associated with the area - although how he saw this is anybody's guess.
I commented that I thought the Judges decided that 
he was the person who was most likely to be adept at demonstrating that he can adapt to a place and get a good sense of place which remaining true to his artistic practice in terms of the use of marbling.
I don't think I'll be surprised if he is in the Final.


NOTE: The Square Gallery in Dover is having an exhibition of artworks by LAOTY pod artists and wildcards at the Gallery from 4th April to 4th May.


I wonder why more local art galleries haven't taken the opportunity to do something similar.
(Is anything happening in Keswick?)

Episode 4: Skiddaw, Lake District


The Heat Four Winner was Dan West who won with TWO small square/squarish monochrome drawings. Both were very good. 

This is his profile
Dan West (Instagram) - Dan, age 24, is an emerging artist from Teddington who currently works full time in the marketing, branding and graphic design of events. He attended Esher College before studying marketing at the University of Portsmouth. He first appeared on LAOTY as a wildcard when he was 22. He works in graphite and coloured pencils. His artwork is a leisure time activity but goes way beyond the normal standard of leisure artists - particularly in relation to composition which is very good. He also does album cover designs for musicians.
I think he might possibly be "the curve ball".  He was the only artist in his heat who got out of his pod and went and found a view that worked for him. However, I don't see him going past the semi-finals unless he starts working bigger. But you never know....

Submission and Heat Drawing by Dan West
I said this about his drawings
Both Dan West's graphite drawings were really small. However they were also packed full of content.  For me they were a bit too dark. If you eyes are a few inches away you can appreciate the layers and the complexity and the skill he has employed to produce these. Further away they just merge into a greyish square
and
He is the ONLY artist who got out of his pod and went and found a view that he thought he could do in the time. I applaud him for that. If you're working small and tending to work from a digital image then it makes sense to FIND the best view rather than just trying to work out what you can do with what's in front of you when you look up. He didn't go far - but his view takes in the rather smaller fells to the south east of Skiddaw.

His is the only artwork which connects the bottom to the top and creates both the sense of height and depth which Tai was talking about at the beginning.
He was summarised as follows by Tai
a brilliant young artist who is able to produce with graphite pencil on paper at a very small scale immensely complex drawings which saw a lot about drawing itself and a lot about the world we live in. I'm just astonished that he can do it on such a small scale with huge distances involves. I think it's magical.
Ultimately the question posted by Stephen Mangan is going to be a decider 
Stephen Mangan asked the question - before the announcement - which everybody making the programme knew was going to be asked by viewers.

How does a small graphite drawing translate into a £10,000 commission?

This is what Dan has to say on his Instagram

Episode 5: HMS Wellington & the South Bank, London


Libby Walker was the winner of Heat 5. This is her profile.
Libby Walker (Instagram) - A landscape painter based in Glasgow. Alongside commercial commissions, Libby developed her own illustrated brand celebrating Scotland’s communities. Her work focused on the character of local places - shops, cafés, pubs and architectural landmarks. She now works primarily en plein air, alongside larger studio paintings developed from on-site studies and photographs. Her work explores light, movement, colour and the emotional experience of being in a landscape.
Winner of LAOTY 2026 Episode 5
Libby Walker with her painting


Submission and heat painting by Libby Walker

I said 
I'm not sure if I'm a fan of her colour palette or the practice of using the same one irrespective of the subject, but she is certainly a very competent artist with an original and interesting perspective on the subjects she paints.
The Judges thought she conveyed the "best sense of place" and found a joyous lyricism in her submission and were amazed to find she could do it again when painting a brown sludgy looking river. For Tai it all made sense in terms of her own poetic language of paint. He thought "it was magic"

Tai said
Libby is a fabulous painter. She's inventive, she's a great colourist, the way she puts paint down is new, it's playful and if she goes all the way and she gets the commission to paint Crogh Patrick she has the sort of joyful lyricism as part of her artistic DNA and I think she has shown that she can apply it wherever she makes a painting
My translation = the Judges now breathe a bit better as they may have found one of their finalists. It must be a worry for them if they keep putting people through to the semi finals who don't look like they could do a commission.

This is one of Libby's recent posts on Instagram.

Episode 6: Dover Castle


Lelia Gerahty (Instagram) was the winner of the my sixth episode of the Heats - which I gathered afterwards was actually the very first heat!

This is her profile.
Lelia Garahty aka Lelia Kneeshaw - an oil painter from Kent who loves painting outside and apparently does not have a website.  She likes painting with Old Holland or Michael Harding Oil Paints. I wrote about her when she was the Wildcard Winner at Llanberis Quarry in Series 10 - and look what happened! ;) Plus she was also interviewed for Cass Arts post about Series 10 heat winners and wildcard winners
Lelia Gerahty with her heat painting

Submission and heat painting by Lelia Gerahty

My comment about Lelia was as follows
Lelia is not phased by big landscapes. Indeed I think she's very probably stimulated by them. She is perfectly capable of constructing a painting which tells a story of the place. What I very much liked about her paintings was that she was the only painter to convey the way in which the castle sat within the ramparts, which all sat on top of the earthworks and how the vegetation grew around the castle.
Kathleen kept referncing how the gaps and the white spaces suggested an airiness to the heat painting - and her submission suggested she knows how to paint.
 

Who was chosen as the Wildcard Winner?


The one surprise for us on Wednesday will be WHO from the Heat Wildcard Winners was chosen as the Wildcard participating in the Semi Finals.

I'd be happy if it was Karen Adams (Instagram) from Norfolk who painted a great castle in Episode 6.


Reference


This covers:
  • Series 11 reviews to date
  • 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 - my reviews 



Entering Landscape Artist of the Year Series 12 in 2027


READ MY BLOG POST BRAND NEW FORMAT for Landscape Artist of the Year Series 12 (2027) announced!

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) but will take into account the already announced changes with respect to how many artists will be selected.

The deadline for submission is NOON on Monday 23rd March 2026 - and entries are ONLY accepted online.

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 Tuesday, February 24, 2026
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