Friday, February 27, 2026

Review: Semi Finals of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) - Ouse Valley Viaduct

This is a formal Review of the Semi Finals of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026 (Series 11) which took place and was filmed at the Ouse Valley Viaduct in July 2024.

It starts with a preamble about past semi finals and their locations - and some tips which artists might like to bear in mind if they are participating.

Which artists reached the final of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026?

Location and Weather 


The very weird semi-finals locations to date


I will repeat what I said last year
All that the semi final location choices do is
  • (typically) provide big structures - which won't be present in the commission locations
  • provoke difficulty
  • generate disappointing paintings
  • guarantee that a talented artist(s) will mess up - and not make the final
In this instance, it also bears no relation whatsoever to the Commission and likely locations that the winning artist will visit

If you think "this can't be right", you can check it out below.


LAOTY Semi Final Locations


I started my reviews in Series 4 and the links in the list below are to my reviews of each semi-final - where you can see pics of all the structures.

YET AGAIN we got a BIG STRUCTURE for the Semi Final
  • 2015 - Potters Fields Park in central London - painting Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and the City of London
  • 2016 - Margate Harbour - painting views of the harbour
  • 2017 - Castle Farm in Kent (the exception which proves the rule - given what happened the next year) - painting enormous fields of lavender
  • 2018 - Felixstowe Docks - a container port with very big cranes and ships and stacks of containers - complete with an ocean going container ship turning up halfway through. (The eventual winner of the series knew it was coming as given a vague idea of where the semi finals were she'd had the foresight to look up both tide tables and arrivals and departures!)
  • 2019 - Oil Rigs in the Cromarty Firth - extremely peculiar vertical structures sat in the middle of the Firth?
  • 2020 - change of timing of broadcast (the year of two PAOTYs)
  • 2021 - the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at Stratford in East London (filmed under Covid constraints in 2020 and broadcast changed to Jan-March slot in 2021) - looking south down the River Lee - towards the Olympic Stadium and the ArcelorMittal Orbit in the distance.
  • 2022 - Forth Bridge - a VERY meccano set over the Firth of Forth
  • 2023 - Thames Barrier- next to the River Thames!
  • 2024 - Bucklers Hard - in Hampshire
  • 2025 - Portsmouth Historic Dockyard - with a view of the 19th century warship HMS Warrior
I think the theory might be, if you can make an attractive artwork from what are very typically unappealing big structures, you're probably going to be capable of portraying the commission subject. 

Except they will keep choosing natural landscape for the latter! e.g. Croagh Patrick - a very large holy mountain in Ireland - for this current series 11.

I absolutely disagree with my postulated theory. I can't think of a worse test. 

Natural landscape painters do not tend to respond well to big structures. In general, they're trying to get back to nature and away from big structures. I'm not quite sure why this thought has never occurred to whoever procures the locations.

TIPS For LAOTY Semi Finalists (and Pod artists)


Again I can do no better than repeat my previous advice for semi-finalists
  • Expect a big structure at some point 
  • polish your perspective chops
  • A panoramic format might be a very useful option for your support
  • Take suitable tools for drawing/painting structures e.g. take a ruler (for measuring)
  • large pieces of stiff card (for very fast delivery of sharp edges)
  • flexi curve or french curve for bends
  • Binoculars - because sometimes the structure is a VERY long way away!
  • Make sure you know how to paint effective water quickly and easily
Finally do NOT enter this programme unless you are prepared for the programme makers trying to humiliate you and the Judges laughing at you in the semi-final.


The 2026 Semi Final Location


The location for the Semi Final is the Ouse Valley Viaduct on the Balcombe Estate in in the High Weald AONB of West Sussex. The viaduct opened in 1841 and is used by the trains which travel between London and Brighton. It has:
  • got 37 arches and was built using 11 million bricks
  • been described as the most elegant viaduct in Britain. 
  • has an iconic infinity view when seen from inside the arches.
I can't help feeling the pods were the wrong side of the viaduct for capturing the shadows of the viaduct on the land. There again that would have meant looking into the sun.

The artists initially seemed to spend some time pondering what the sun might do - along with working out a composition and either drawing or blocking in.

Then it was down to the serious business of interpreting how to set about (what the Judges called) a "monolith".

View of the pods side on to the Viaduct.

The Weather

In a series of endless sunny days and hot weather, this was a semi-final on "an incredibly baking hot day on location" with absolutely no shadow.

I keep wondering how the pod artists cope in terms of being baked alive! I know I absolutely couldn't do it - I'd go all woozy and pass out! I "think" (as in "I'm not sure") that they had some sort of cover for the pods which maybe deflected the rays.


The Artists in the Semi Final

The artists after they finished painting - in a nice shady spot

We had two surprises not one!  There were eight artists in the Pods and they were:
Deborah Frank is a practicing artist living in West Essex, England. Currently completing a BA in contemporary portraiture, at The Art Academy London (her website)
NOTE: from the comments on my Facebook Page there seem to be quite a lot of people who think there is an episode which is the showdown between the wildcard artists to select the best for the Semi Final. This is NOT the case. The Judges choose a Wildcard at their own discretion - on the basis of their wildcard painting on the day. I'm assuming they've probably got access to the digital version of their submission as well.

The Semi Final Paintings


Here they all are at the end of the day. As you can see there are:
  • 3 x panoramic
  • 3 x portrait
  • 2 x landscape
The only two people who "went big" were "the wildcard" and "the best of the rest". Those who get a lucky break do tend to come out fighting to justify that decision!

At the end of the semi-final, they had eight similar paintings of the same subject, which were all different. I think the good ones stood out.

The relative size and format of the Semi Final Paintings

There's a post on the Artist of the Year Facebook Page and Instagram which has all the paintings as individual images.

BUT not one single painting is attributed to the artist who painted it
"Also blown away are the names of the artists" Marion Boddy-Evans
I personally think is completely disrespectful to the artists and unprofessional.  Plus, this is emphatically NOT a good way to get applications for the series filming later this year! 
i.e. if you want great applications you need to show LOTS of respect for the current set of artists

So here they all are again - attributed to the artist - plus comments from me.

But first a comment on my Facebook Page which I think nails the issues for many artists who watch this programme
I totally agree with your opinion about names of the artists were not treated well in the programme. I would love to see the names on the screen when they introduced the participating artists and when they show their works alone. It’s not much to ask to add the names on the screen. I’d like to see the view from the pods of each artists and how they chose their frames. I think it would be much more interesting to see how the each artists are thinking rather than the judges often describe the obvious of the subjects.
Maybe they should ask each artists to prepare for the short and clear comment of their plan of the day rather than asking them while they are trying to work. I think it’s fair for the artists to be credited properly at the end of the credit. Yoriko Cole
Pause for thought about how the NEW reinvented LAOTY works later this year?

On with the Artists in the Semi Finals - and what they produced. Those who made it through to the Finals have more comments.

HEAT 1: Kim Day


Ouse Valley Viaduct by Kim Day

I've had Kim Day (Instagram) - down as a potential finalist since her heat. Mainly because the Judges raved about her artwork. Also because she was using media in a way I like to use it, drawing into her underlying painting and producing some impressive artworks as a result

I now think she's very much a potential winner.

For this view, she chose to work with a portrait view with a very high horizon and continued with her approach of underpainting in acrylics and then drawing on top with dry media and crayons and acrylic liners. Her mark-making wasn't very evident in the first half - but came through strongly towards the end as she did enough but not too much with her drawing media.

She tackled a monumental form + nature and the way it varies across her picture space.

This view was less abstracted than the others I have seen. Nevertheless, it has a number of positive points
  • she can handle perspective - this was one of the best set of arches on the day 
  • she got the colour variation in the brick which is important.
  • she doesn't paint vegetation one colour (which is a big bugbear of mine so anybody who does the complete opposite has immediately got a big thumbs up from me!)
  • she got appropriate texture into the field of corn - and also varied its colour. It could have been a very boring patch of corn yellow but in Kim's hands it became much more varied and interesting. At the same time the variation does not beat you over the head. It's subtle and refined and most importantly works.
However she did have to cope with her wax crayons becoming very bendy because the heat was melting them!

Here's the condensed video view (one of the good things about Landscape Artist of the Year) of how she produced her artwork plus Kim's own description of how she developed it.

See my Review: Episode 1 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) for her submission and heat paintings
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.

 

HEAT 2: NIGEL GLAZE


Nigel Glaze's subdued painting of the view from St James's Park was followed by a subdued painting of the viaduct and not much else.

Kathleen eulogised about the sliver of sky in the top right hand corner, which almost sounded like an insult to me in terms of what else she was ignoring. If I'm being honest, compared to other paintings, there was little - except maybe the sky - which said that this was a blisteringly hot sunny day. I also don't think it was the best perspective - and when you make the viaduct most of your painting, it needs to be either spot on perspective or abstracted - and this was neither. Plus there wasn't much colour variation in the brick and colour and tone seemed to get muddled in parts.

I'm trying hard to resist saying that painting was, for me, rather boring. But it is.

the viaduct by Nigel Glaze

See more of his work in my Review: Episode 2 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) - St James Park


HEAT 3: PRASAD BEAVEN

I had high hopes for Prasad early on - especially when he brought out the template for the viaduct cut out of water to help control the flow of ink on the surface of the water. However he ended up with big green mounds where there were none - and while the painting of the viaduct was fine (and good on perspective), I don't think his normal technique helped him this time.

This wasn't highlighted in the programme, but Prasad responded to a question on Instagram to indicate that the paper he used this time was a Canson photo paper rather than the traditional suminagashi paper.

See more of Prasad's work in my Review: Episode 3 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) - Dover Ferry Port

HEAT 4: DAN WEST

The man who draws small in graphite. I'm not sure Dan is a natural landscape artist because when I look at his Instagram he seems to be much more interested in people. Nevertheless, he's done two good drawings of landscapes in this series. 

However he didn't go bigger - and I think that really emphatically answered the question of how would you justify a small drawing as a £10,000 commission. 

What he did to was sat and waited for two hours to see what the sun would do in terms of having an impact on how the arches would look.

TIP FOR FUTURE LAOTY ARTISTS: If you want to demonstrate you have the capacity to go big either do it with your submission or in the semi-final. Otherwise you're asking the Judges to go with an "on a wing and a prayer" option!

Dan West's drawing of the Viaduct in graphite

I just keep wondering what those Skiddaw artists would have done if they hadn't been told they had to include everything in front of them...... See my Review: Episode 4 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) - Skiddaw

HEAT 5: LIBBY WALKER

Two weeks after Episode 5, Libby Walker was back on our screens - painting in the same palette she used for her submission and heat painting - and with the same keenly observant and experienced plein air painter eye. 

Just read her comments on the painting below. I don't think anybody else spotted the pylon or painted it!

Libby's format was portrait and she selected just a few of the arches for her painting - in much the same way that Dan did for gis graphite drawing.

It creates a simple spare painting - which hints at the height but not the sheer enormity of the viaduct. I'm not sure that's a problem, because there are going to be some people who would much prefer this more austere approach to design, coupled with her primary colour palette which adds interest in a subtle way.

Libby Walker was the winner of Heat 5. See my Review: Episode 5 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 11 (2026) - HMS Wellington & the South Bank

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

HEAT 6: LELIA GERAHTY

Lelia chose to paint a long view of the viaduct in a panoramic format. Somehow it failed to impress like her heat painting did.  Overall there was not enough intrinsic interest.
  • Maybe because it looked rather cramped? 
  • Plus it rather fades away into the background - while the foreground lacks any textural detail - which was abundant. 
Somehow, the eye passes through the painting - and moves out and on to the next one.

Ouse Valley Viaduct by Lelia Gerahty


THE BEST WILDCARD

The best wildcard was Deborah Frank (Instagram) who did that impressive oil impasto painting of a very small part of Dover Ferry Port. 

She's a practicing artist living in West Essex and is currently completing a BA in contemporary portraiture, at The Art Academy London. She works primarily in oil paints.
I wish i could pocket this beautiful bridge! What a location and play of light, colour and form.
Deborah went BIG and painted FAST. I was very impressed. The scale and size of her painting is one not often seen in this competition. However she clearly indicated it's perfectly feasible to deliver a large painting in four hours. (I've personally always thought it's much easier to go big than to work small. I used to routinely do my plein air work on pastel card which was 19.5" x 25.5" supported by an A1 size foamcore sheet)

The only issue for me is I think she maybe ended up overpainting and doing too much. She had captured the view by about half way through and if she had maybe slowed down, she may have seen it didn't need to do a lot more work. Certainly the colours seemed a tad muddier and the strokes less clean by the end - and it lost the sense of being a blindingly hot day.


THE BEST OF THE REST

The best of the rest was Tom Winter from Episode 5 on HMS Wellington. He was the man with the amazing grasp of architecture and that acid yellow underglaze of the Thames and surrounding buildings. He is clearly a man who doesn't shy away from major challenges!

Tom was painting on a good size panoramic support - which I think probably helped him enormously. As the Judges noted, Tom can draw precisely and caught the monumental nature of the viaduct accurately with his very lively painting. His washy neon-like paints excite the eye and were a hyped up version of what was in front of him. Which essentially is how Tom paints. 

They also noted his colours vibrate and how he paints with energy in every single brushstroke.

Tom Winter (Instagram) - A graduate of the Slade and an artist and tutor from Bournemouth. He's an established artist specialising in oil painting, graphite, and ink, working primarily from his studio at Hengistbury Head, Dorset. For almost thirty years he has worked as a freelance painter, producing portraits, landscapes, figures, and still lifes. His submission was an impressive large and colourful painting of a building site at his kids's school. He likes using very thin trasnparent layers. (see Submissions)

Decision Time - The Finalists


Semi Finalists lined up to hear the result

The Finalists are:
  • Kim Day
  • Tom Winter
  • Libby Walker
I think it's a good choice. Certainly my jaw did NOT drop as it did last year. I think some of the other artists in the semi final could have done a good job but the reality was they didn't persuade on the day.

The paintings by the selected finalists
Left to right: Kim Day; Tom Winter; Libby Waler

Each, in their own very different way, gave a good sense of the place, the heat and the light. What's very interesting is that they are good colourists. They all think and see a view in colour.

Tom was rather more "in your face" psychedelic in his use of colour. I personally could never ever hang one of his paintings on my wall because they'd my eyes would hurt. 

Both Tom and libby have a marked preference for a strong primary colour palette.

However, both Kim and Libby are much more sensitive and  subtle in their use of and variation of colour within their paintings - in a very effective way. I think it's going to end up being between the two of them.

The commission deserves somebody who is sensitive to colour. I'm not sure how it could ever cope with Tom's very robust brash colours. That said, if he did win, it would be interesting to see how he coped with painting a much revered holy mountain!

Next Week - The Final at Falkirk Wheel

A side view of the Falkirk Wheel (Sean McLean | Wikimedia) 

This will be the second visit to Scotland for a subject for the Final of Landscape Artist of the Year.

The Falkirk Wheel is an unusual choice as a subject for a Final - because it moves! They are definitely going to have work, in part, from photographs because the rotating boat life half turn takes five minutes! https://www.scottishcanals.co.uk/visit/canals/visit-the-forth-clyde-canal/attractions/the-falkirk-wheel
The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift in Tamfourhill, Falkirk, in central Scotland, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. It opened in 2002 as part of the Millennium Link project, reconnecting the two canals for the first time since the 1930s
Major challenges will include:
  • the fact it moves - see above
  • very structural - with lots of curves
  • the perspective issues
  • plus how to make metal look anything other pale dove grey
I'm surprised they didn't choose the Kelpies which (thinking of the commission) are enormous horsehead "mountains" which are not far away!

Previous locations for the Finals include the following. (Links are to my reviews of those episodes)

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

Reference: Landscape Artist of the Year


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 Friday, February 27, 2026
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