Review: Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 214th Annual Exhibition (2026)

I think the 214th Annual Exhibition by the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours is probably the best RI exhibition I've seen by them at the Mall Galleries on two counts:

• excellent artwork
• extremely well hung - it reads very well throughout both the West and East Galleries and most of the North Gallery.

It also has the unique distinction of:

• a VERY colourful title wall in the West Gallery
• a monochrome title wall in the East Gallery

RI Annual Exhibition 2026: Very colourful end wall in West Gallery

RI Annual Exhibition 2026: Monochrome end wall in the East Gallery 

Also, given there are 462 artworks hung in the show, I can also say it's one of the very best hung exhibitions - of LOTS of artwork - that I've seen of the different FBA societies who exhibit at the Mall Galleries. 

Too often, I've found exhibitions with lots of artwork to be very difficult to look at because too little thought has been applied to how the works should hang. Indeed, I think maybe there should be a rule "don't come to the hanging if you haven't worked out what goes where if you are hanging in excess of 300".

I gather that the hang of this exhibition was planned in enormous detail by the new President Juliette Losq in her first year - and the effort has well and truly paid off.

It is certainly getting lots of visitors!

This blog post tells you:

• how to see the exhibition - whether or not you can visit it at the Mall Galleries
• how to check out the events during the exhibition
• how to check out the standard of work by artists applying to become a member
• observations about artwork in the exhibition
• what can be improved for next year

Plus an extra post tomorrow - about the name and the importance of water.

How to see the RI Exhibition

You can visit the RI 214th Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries until 11th April (however it is closed in Easter Sunday and Easter Monday).

• Venue: Mall Galleries, the Mall, London - North, East & West Galleries
  Hours: 10am - 5pm every day except Easter Sunday and Easter Monday when the Galleries are closed
• Dates: 25 Mar 2026 - 11 Apr 2026 
• Entry: Admission £7, Free for Friends of Mall Galleries and under 25s. Concessions available. No booking required.

You can also SEE ALL THE ARTWORK ONLINE

• via this Mall Galleries website - which also allows purchases online
• via my Making A Mark Facebook Page where I have created four separate albums for
• RI Prizewinners - Annual Exhibition 2026
• RI Annual Exhibition 2026 - West Gallery
• RI Annual Exhibition 2026 - East Gallery
• RI Annual Exhibition 2026 - North Gallery

One of my photos of two colourful walls in the North Gallery

A FREE Plein Air Painting Handout

This is about a FREE Plein Air Painting Handout by Michael Chesley Johnson - a very experienced American plein air painter and instructor in oils and soft pastels of repute.

His CV is impressive - see below to check out the credentials of the chap who is providing this handout for free.

He says 

This is the handout I give to my all-level plein air painting workshops. Although it covers only oil and pastel, the methods and information apply to all media. (Watercolor is a bit different, though!)

I'm not going to include the link to it here - however I will include 

• the link to the page that the handout is on - on his website
• the link to his Substack - which also includes a link which takes you to the website link above!

Content of the Plein Air Painting Handout

The headings and subheadings are:

MATERIALS

• Pastel: Basic materials and Procedures
• Oils: Basic materials and Procedures
• Note for acrylic painters

You’d think that, over 25 years, the handout would need updating, but I’ve found “how to paint” consists of some basic principles that, like the laws of phyics, don’t change. The only thing that might change are some of the products listed (which I have updated for this release.)

PLEIN AIR METHODS, TECHNIQUES & TIPS

• Purpose in Plein Air
• Principals to Capturing the Landscape Quickly & Accurately
• How to Paint - Not Draw
• Plein Air Tips (which are excellent! KT)
• Different Approaches to Interpreting Landscape Values
• Dominance & Contrasting Pairs
• Finding Color Harmony
• Color Harmonies
• To Match Any Color
• About Black
• Useful Resources for the Plein Air Painter

You can find his handout here

Paintings in the South West Gallery on Michael Chesley Johnson's website
- the application of media and techniques to landscape
Note how they all "read" really well even in a thumbnail version

About Michael Chesley Johnson AIS PAPNM

I'm going to use the words from his "about" page and will add a few bullet points and a few extra words!

Basically he is an all round "good guy" in terms of being a plein air painter and helping others to become one too - through a variety of channels.

What does he do?

• He paints primarily outdoors in oil, pastel or gouache, choosing locations from the American Southwest, Downeast Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. 
• He has been invited repeatedly to national plein air events:
• most recently was on the distinguished faculty of the annual Plein Air Convention & Expo in Denver, Colorado.
• He delivers plein air painting workshops across the U.S. 
• He is a frequent writer for 
• The Artist’s Magazine, 
• Pastel Journal, 
• Watercolor Artist and 
• PleinAir Magazine, 
• He is also the author of several books, including Beautiful Landscape Painting Outdoors: Mastering Plein Air.

Recognition and Awards

• Awarded Master Pastellist status by Pastel Artists Canada in 2008
• Signature Member of 
• the American Impressionist Society and 
• Plein Air Painters of New Mexico 
• plus a past signature member of several national organizations. (Read here to learn why I let these memberships lapse.) 
• Featured in The Artist’s Magazine in September 2013.
• His paintings 
• have appeared in many magazines 
• are in both corporate and private collections. 

Website:    https://www.mchesleyjohnson.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mchesleyjohnsonstudio

Substack:  https://mchesleyjohnson.substack.com/ 

• you can subscribe on this page https://mchesleyjohnson.substack.com/about

Making A Mark still in Top 10 Art Blogs

I recently found out that Making A Mark is still in the top 10 of a list of art blogs from all over the world

Specifically they are #5 in the 60 Best UK Art Blogs and#10 in the 100 Top Art Blogs according to Feedspot. 

Not quite sure how they work out the rankings either and not quite sure how this happened but I'm happy that it did. 

Although I was #5 in the Vuelio's Art Blogs UK Top 10 in 2022

60 Best UK Art Blogs - according to Feedspot

The best UK Art blogs curated and ranked based on multiple factors, including content relevancy, subject expertise, posting frequency, and freshness of content. Blogs with highest credibility within the UK Art space are ranked higher. This list is updated regularly to ensure it reflects the most active, influential, and valuable UK Art blogs on the internet today.

In the 60 Best UK Art Blogs to Follow in 2026, Making A Mark ranks 5th!

5. Making a Mark

+ Follow Blog
Description A top art blog for artists and art lovers: news about major art competitions and exhibitions, interviews with artists, techniques and tips for art and business
Email ****@gmail.com
Location London, England, United Kingdom
Facebook 12.5KTwitter 3K Domain Authority 46

100 Best Art Blogs- according to Feedspot

The same principles apply in relation to how different sites rank within the 100 Best Art Blogs to Follow in 2026 - where Making A Mark is ranked 10th.

10. Making a Mark 

+ Follow Blog
Description A top art blog for artists and art lovers: news about major art competitions and exhibitions, interviews with artists, techniques and tips for art and business
Email ****@gmail.com
Facebook 12.5KTwitter 3K Domain Authority 46

This is despite a reduced level of posting in recent times due to the facts that:

• I got to 70 and decided if I was ever to retire I needed to make more time for me. This is despite the fact I took early retirement (knowing that severe osteoarthritis was a racing certainty for me) back in 2005 and started this blog a few months later
• I now need to walk a decent amount every single day to stop me from seizing up. I average between 5,000-6,000 steps
• Periodically I have to get ready for and recover from surgery. Like I said I always knew osteoarthritis was in my future. I didn't quite factor in the time needed for surgery!
• Not to mention other health hiccups. I was told I need an urgent MRI this morning! They're going to see if they can fit it in before surgery next month.

Although I do fewer posts now I do seem to get better audiences for the ones I do.

For the record, other art blogs "from the old days" also ranked as follows in all Art Blogs

1. Artsy

3. ARTnews

13. Artwork Archive Blog

14. Jackson's Art Blog

16. Artnet

23. Lines and Colors

24. Parka Blogs

26. Gurney Journey

38. Art Biz Blog

39. Art Marketing News Blog

40. Xanadu Gallery - Red Dot Blog

41. Artsy Shark

Note: I do find these inventories of blogs to be very useful. If you look at the Feedspot Instagram, you can see all the other categories which are ranked.

Landscape Artist of the Year: A Celebrity Twist!

The Sky Arts website recently announced innovations for the next round of Landscape Artist of the Year.

At the weekend we heard - via the main Sky Arts website only - that:

• Fearne Cotton is to join as a new celebrity Co-Host
• More Celebrities will be involved in every episode - talking about their landscape
• Still no announcement about the Judges for LAOTY although we now know who two are.

Image for Series 12 - using submissions from Series 11

However, what is very weird is that 

• they have added text to the page, 
• without removing images and text associated with previous incarnations. 
• Hence we have two lots of text describing the format of one programme in two different ways!

A New Co-Host

Fearne Cotton is to be a new Co-Host for Series 12 which will be filmed this summer.

She a long-standing British TV presenter - mainly associated with the "popular tv" end of the market with mainstream broadcasters.

She also describes herself as Mother, Broadcaster, Writer, Founder.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sky Arts Artist Of The Year (@artistoftheyear)

Since finishing The Fearne Cotton Show (2009-2015) for BBC Radio1 she has branched out on her own and now hosts an award-winning podcast Happy Place (on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Her Happy Place Brand has since expanded into:

• a wellbeing brand including
• a book club,
• an annual festival and
• a marketplace that champions small businesses that are female-led, minority-owned, and/or based in the UK.

In other words, treading the well trodden path of celebrities who now need to differentiate themselves - while remaining popular - and generate their own audiences in the new social media world. 

“I am thrilled to be joining Landscape Artist of the Year as part of the presenting team at Sky Arts. Art is such an important, emotive and expressive medium for me and I know that the audience is just going to be absolutely blown away by the level of enthusiasm and passion that we see from the artists taking part in the show. I can’t wait to be part of that journey and to help them tell their stories.”

She also comes with:

• 1.1 million followers on Facebook
• 3.9 million followers on Instagram
• 113k subscribers on YouTube

Which makes her very good fit with lots and lots of women over the age of 30 who like watching Landscape Artist of the Year.

I can see why she could be attracted to LAOTY and why Sky Arts might be attracted to her. 

Casting now depends on social media following - as well as the ability to do the job!

Plus - and this makes her sound a very positive addition - she's a celebrity who can paint!!!

Review: UKCPS Silver Anniversary Annual Open Exhibition 2026

After 25 years, the UKCPS is celebrating its Silver Anniversary with its first exhibition at the Mall Galleries.

It's always been an ambition of the UK Coloured Pencil Society (UKCPS) to hold its Open Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries. Making it to its 25th Birthday seemed like an opportune time to spend some money and celebrate in style.

UKCPS Annual Open Exhibition
Part of the Hang in the West Gallery

For those UKCPS people not familiar with me or my blog (although I gathered from the PV on Tuesday night that a lot were), I am 

• a coloured pencil addict and a past signature member of UKCPS. I've written about its exhibitions a lot over the years (see the list of blog posts at the end which also give an insight into artwork in past exhibitions)
• somebody who reviews ALL the national art societies which exhibit at the Mall Galleries - and has done so for nearly 20 years. So I've got a very good basis for saying how this exhibition compares with the norm at the Mall Galleries.

History of the UKCPS Society

The Society was founded in 2001 by Bob Ebdon and Pat Heffer.

The UK Colour Pencil Society (UKCPS) was founded in 2001 by Bob Ebdon, spurred by a letter in A&I magazine from Pat Heffer (who became a founder member, enthusiastic supporter and finally President). A few people sharing their interest of colour pencil art, who had never met except via the Internet, started the Society and it was launched at Patchings Art Centre in Nottinghamshire. The Society has grown over the years: the second issue of the quarterly magazine (September 2001) reported they had just reached the 100 member mark, and now there are just over 750 members.

I was also a coloured pencil fan and found them online a little later and subsequently became a member and exhibited with them between 2007-2010. After that I gradually withdrew as a member from all national art societies I belonged to so as to be able to do better reviews of their exhibitions!

The society is different in some ways from other national art societies.

• anybody can become a member
• recognition of expertise and contribution is made through
• becoming a Signature Member (which I became in 2009 - see my blog post Signature membership)
• progressing to Silver Signature status (pictures accepted into 5 exhibitions within 10 years) and Gold status (pictures accepted into 10 exhibitions within 15 years.)
• it holds three exhibitions each year
• an open exhibition for all artists using coloured pencils - which is competitive
• an online exhibition for all members
• members only exhibition held at the Derwent Pencil Museum, Keswick. (This year it will be 31st August to 30th October 2026)

In June 2018 it was granted charitable status - with an objective of:

• promoting the art of drawing for the public benefit through the use of colour pencils
• holding a public exhibition at least once a year to showcase work and provide tuition
• help educate the public how to use colour pencils

The definition of a coloured pencil for the purposes of the exhibition is 

"wood-cased, wax- or oil-based colour pencil"

i.e. pastel pencils are excluded.

The 25th Annual Exhibition of the UK Coloured Pencil Society

Venue: Mall Galleries - West and North Galleries
Dates: Open from Tuesday 17 March 2026 - Saturday 21 March 2026,
Hours: 10am to 5pm

Workshops: click for more information

How the work was judged

• One member and two independent artists selected the artwork for the open exhibition.
• Another artist judges the selected artwork for awards. This year it was Curtis Holder - a leading exponent of coloured pencil artwork.

You can see all the artwork in the exhibition in two ways:

• In the albums of my pics that I've uploaded to Facebook - just click the link in the listing below. BTW, if I like a work I tend to take a photo of it on its own.
• UKCPS Annual Exhibition 2026 - West Gallery
• UKCPS Annual Exhibition 2026 - North Gallery
• Via the UKCPS website where all images of all the artwork are now uploaded

BEST PICTURE IN SHOW

Where ­Time ­Rests by Pauline Stuart

(which I had spotted as a "go back and look again" pic!)

Facebook now only allows 63 characters for visible description

Facebook has made a terrible decision to limit the number of visible characters on posts of pics or links to a Facebook Page (124 characters with spaces in this sentence)

That includes spaces!

So the opening sentence of this blog post would be halved on Facebook. (this sentence is 69 characters with spaces - so you wouldn't see all of this short sentence)

Why is this happening?

Here's Google AI's explanation of what Facebook if trying to do.  

But you do agree with their reasoning? Read on to find out some of my thoughts on the imploications....

Is Facebook trying to behave exactly like an Advertiser?

In effect it is treating every post by all normal Facebook subscribers as if it was an advert.

It seems to want to get us to write ADVERT TITLES for each FB post!

Is it possible that is so they can sneak in more advert content and we won't notice.

Is it possible that it is trying to create more clicks to its site so it can show advertisers a click heavy profile?

Compare Facebook with Instagram

It's very similar to the truncated text associated with an Instagram pic. (73 characters including spaces)

Maybe Facebook is trying to be more like Instagram?

Thing is they are demographically quite different. The big difference being that users of Facebook tend to be older and don't skip or skim text the way those under 40 do.

Older users are readers - and they like to see text.

So maybe Facebook is trying to win back younger users?

However maybe Facebook is also alienating its older users (like me) at the same time?

Compare Facebook with Google

Title Links (Blue Links): Approximately 50–60 characters (or around 600 pixels).

Google AI tells me that the character limit allowed for the title associated with a weblink is 50-60 characters

Hence, one might conclude that Facebook wants us to write titles as the text for the first 63 characters of the description of what a pic is or where a website link leads

Conclusion: we need to get a lot smarter about writing text TITLES for our links or pics on Facebook Pages.

However Google has the advantage that it also shows text AFTER THE TITLE - with no "read more" prompt. i.e. we get to see more text when viewing a link in the Google Search Engine

These are called snippets and there has always been a limit on how many characters get displayed

So what does Google have to say about the ideal length of descriptions (snippets) after the title of a website link?

Something completely different from Facebook!

Guess who's more experienced in the search engine aspects of what gets people to open posts?

Bottom line - Google Search allows at least TWICE THE NUMBER OF CHARACTERS ALLOWED BY FACEBOOK.

Which is WHY the search description for this blog post reads

Facebook wants titles not text for posts on Pages. Check out the changes re text length and compare to what Google thinks is best.

Who do you think understands responsiveness to search engine links better?

Google or Facebook?

FINAL Call for Entries: New England Art Club Annual Exhibition 2026

You have until 12 noon on Friday 20th March to submit your entries for the New England Art Club Annual Exhibition.

While the seriously committed will have submitted their entries already, there's still time to submit that work which you are pleased with.

Historically, the New English Art Club was founded by a group of artists dissatisfied with the entrenched attitudes of the Royal Academy

Today, its intent is spelt out by its President Patrick Cullen

At the heart of the NEAC is the search and propagation of meaningful, resonant art. It is committed to authenticity through the observation of life, as well as the task of articulating and communicating ideas with the beauty of skilful language.

FINAL Call for Entries: NEAC Annual Exhibition 2026

Entries from open artists are welcomed.

The NEAC Annual Exhibition is a showcase not only for its members but also for aspiring artists: with a history going back more than a hundred years, it is an opportunity for work to be seen alongside some of the best artists today.

I describe the process below. Here are the links to all relevant pages

• This is the official call for entries https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/open-calls/new-english-art-club
• This is the official entry portal https://mallgalleries22.oess1.uk/
• you need to locate the correct exhibition as this is the entry portal for all FBA Exhibitions at the Mall Galleries
• UNFORTUNATELY the Full Details, Entry Terms & Conditions is a pop-up page and is NOT a downloadable PDF. Which means if you want to make a record for your files / notes - you have to copy and paste into Word - and then you can print it.

NEAC is not an art society which is afraid of colour!
(NEAC Annual Exhibition 2025: End of West Gallery)

If you want to know what NEAC is about, take a look at my pics of the 2025 Annual Exhibition

Last year, the exhibition 389 artworks which included a lot which were big to very big - which made the hang look very crowded to me

Guidelines re Sales and Pricing

You can see the nature and price of the artworks which sold in 2025 by right clicking HERE and opening in a new tab

• 60% were painted in oils
• just over 20% were landscapes and cityscapes
• just over 10% were portraits
• just over 10% were still life
• the remainder covered marine and coastal (4), other (1) and abstract (2)

In terms of sales, 17 of the 50 sales were by open artists - and the majority were by women. I think it not unlikely that most of the sales were heavily influenced by women too.

For the record, although I've not crunched the numbers for 2025, there are some guidelines for open artists if you want to achieve a sale

• 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)
• OPEN ARTISTS tend to do better in the £500-£1000 price range and pricing - and this is consistent across a number of the art societies exhibiting at the Mall Galleries

SGFA 105th Annual Exhibition + scope for a VERY BIG exhibition about Drawing at the Mall Galleries

It's interesting to see how many of the national art societies who are not members of the Federation of British Artists are now holding their annual exhibitions at the Mall Galleries.

To date we have:

• SBA - Society of Botanical Artists - regular exhibitor in the whole gallery on a biennial basis (next exhibition in 2027)
• SGFA - Society of Graphic Fine Art - regular exhibitor West and North Gallery (exhibition on at present - until 14 March
• SWA - Society of Women Artists - long term regular exhibitor on annual basis - next exhibition 23-27 June 2026
• UKCPS - UK Colour Pencil Society (for their 25th anniversary show only - next week 17 -25 March 2026

One wonders whether - at some point - some might become additional members of the Federation of British Artists. 

The Society of Graphic Fine Art - currently exhibiting this week - are a case in point.

The Society of Graphic Fine Art

It's other colloquial name is "The Drawing Society"although I think its lost sight of its drawing purpose in the narrative at the beginning of the current exhibition page on the Mall Galleries website (i.e. the word drawing is absent)

The Society of Graphic Fine Art ...exists to promote and exhibit original works of high quality in colour or black or white. This includes both traditional and contemporary media, which includes pencil, pen, watercolour, oils, charcoal, pastel and any of the forms of original printmaking.

I suggest the second paragraph needs to come first

A national society based in the UK, the Society of Graphic Fine Art is the only society dedicated to excellence in drawing and draughtsmanship, demonstrated by hand.

This art society was founded over 100 years ago in 1919 and now has 160 elected members who are professional standard artists from all areas of the art world who work in all drawing and printmaking media.  (I used to be one of them until I decided to not belong to any society while writing reviews of exhibitions.)

The Society was formed by students and teachers in the etching class at the London Central School of Arts. They wanted to establish a society that would

‘uphold and maintain the interests of all those forms of art that do not use colour as a form of expression’

which was another way of saying that drawing counts and, in one form or another, always will.

Their first exhibition in 1921 was supported by the RA and their first President was Sir Frank Brangwyn RA RE, the renowned muralist, painter, architect, illustrator and designer,

Current focus

Drawing excellence and draughtsmanship is still the focus of the society and its exhibition

The main criterion of membership, regardless of media discipline, is drawing excellence.

Nowadays, in addition to black and white work and traditional drawing skills, the society encourages the use of colour and non-figurative art.

105th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Graphic Fine Art

The entrance to the exhibition at the Mall Galleries

I visited the annual exhibition on Monday.

SGFA Exhibition: West and North Galleries of the Mall Galleries

Dates: 9 Mar 2026 - 14 Mar 2026 
Hours: 

Admission: FREE

I've uploaded my photographs of the artwork I saw to Facebook Albums

The Pileon = Facebook Comments now restricted to Followers

This is about a change of policy for Comments on my Making A Mark Facebook Page. It's also a reminder about what is and is not OK when commenting on my Facebook posts.

Last night at 6pm I published my review of the Commission episode called "The Winner's Programme"  at the end of the current series of Landscape Artist of the Year.

Before I went to bed last night, I had to add a comment to the post because of the incessant negative comments on my review made by people who, it appeared to me had:

• neither watched the programme
• nor read my review
• nor explained the reasons for their negativity.

I remember names. I know when people have commented before. Having written on social media for the last 20 years, I also know when people have no interest in art and/or are just trolling.

In short, my post was experiencing "a pileon" and I was starting my response....

This is the comment on my Facebook Post about the Commission

It then occurred to me, I'd also received more ignorant comments than usual on my review of the Final Kim Day wins Landscape Artist of Year 2026 as well.....

What is a "pileon"?

I checked out definitions for Pileons on Google. It's not a recognised word in the Oxford English Dictionary. I'm not even sure I'm spelling it right however Google AI recognised the colloquial term and was able to provide some informative context.

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

The Commission Prize comes right after the we find out who won Landscape Artist of the Year for 2026 - see my post Kim Day wins Landscape Artist of Year 2026

This post is about the Commission:

• the brief for the Landscape Artist of the Year commission
• the Commission Programme - what's involved in understanding the brief and the constraints on the artist
• the Commission Painting produced by the winner of Landscape Artist of the Year 2023.

Before the Unveiling of the Commissioned Painting of Croagh Patrick

The Commission

It's probably worth saying that this is not a prize in the sense that a nice tidy sum of £10,000 lands in your bank account. 

First you have to work for it!

What you get in effect as a prize is an opportunity to EARN £10K through creating a painting - which everybody will want to comment on (and have done!)

The Challenge

The Commission is both like and unlike a commission an artist usually receives.

Usually it's only illustrators who get a tight brief and an absolute deadline for delivery - and given her day job is being a scenic artist for film and television Kim will have been very used to working on commission.

However most artists have some flexibility about deadlines (i.e. you say whether to accept it or not and when you can do it / deliver it) and briefs when doing a commission. This one you have

• a very specific subject - it has to be a painting about Croagh Patrick, the holy mountain associated with St Patrick in County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland
• a very specific deadline - for delivery to the National Gallery of Ireland and the filming of the Winner's Commission programme
• considerable latitude as to what you do and how you do it - within the context of media allowed in the competition - and the constraints of being followed around by a film crew the whole time

The winner will receive a taxable fee of £10,000 (ten thousand pounds) (“the Winner’s Prize Fee”) for creation, completion, and delivery of an artwork (“the Winner’s Prize Artwork”) of a landscape (“Winner’s Prize Location”) on dates and times and locations to be determined by the Producer at its absolute discretion. Extract from the Series 11 Terms and Conditions

The Brief

The first part of the Commission is a visit to the National Gallery of Ireland to meet Dr Brendan Rooney, Head Curator and Curator of Irish Art to:

• get the brief
• ask questions

Kim Day wins Landscape Artist of Year 2026

This review is about the Final of Series 11 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2026 which was won by Kim Day.

The Pods next to Falkirk Wheel

The Final of Series 11 of Landscape Artist of the Year (2026) was held at The Falkirk Wheel in Scotland last summer - and was broadcast on Sky Arts on Wednesday evening (followed straight afterwards by the programme about the commission for those wondering when that's on. My review of that will follow by Sunday).

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

• Review of the Commission 
• Review of the Series as a whole.

About this post

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

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
• The Commissions
• The Final Painting
• The Winner

At the end you can find 

• all my reviews of previous programmes in this series at the end of this post. 
• how to read reviews of past series
• Plus how to apply for the NEXT series which will be filmed this summer in six heats in three places around the UK.

But before I begin.....

There's an aspect of this competition which is not explained well in the programme. I'm writing this now because I've noted a LOT of comments complaining about who won on FB.

• A lot of people appear to THINK that the winner is determined by the artwork they paint in the final (i.e. 4 hours). 
• This is not the case. 
• Unfortunately, what really happens seems to be spelt out less clearly than it needs to be given the number of people who think this.

To go back to the beginning, who wins a heat depends on:

• the submission AND
• the heat painting i.e. it is NEVER just about the heat painting.

Who wins the whole series depends on:

• the submission AND
• the heat painting AND
• the semi final painting AND
• the commission AND
• the painting in the Final i.e. it is NEVER just about the 4 hour painting in the Final.

Let me put it another way. WHY would they ask them to paint a commission - of what ever size they like - in however long they want to spend on it (within the time constraint of a week - I think) if it did not matter a LOT?!

Bottom line, the portfolio of paintings build up over the course of the series - from the application to the Final and provide a good insight into who an artist is and what they can do. 

One might characterise the programme as a long-running audition.

Almost without fail, I have observed almost all winners across many series as having a very clear style and proficiency in specific techniques and a range in terms of what they like to paint and how they like to paint - and a very stong portfolio built up over the course of the competition.

It's my strong belief that it is the OVERALL PORTFOLIO - with a particular emphasis on BOTH the commission and the heat painting which tells the Judges who is the best artist for the commission.

It's the most logical and best way to judge the overall competition.

I stand to be corrected, but that will involve the programme makers in providing a very simple and explicit explanation of the process that is used to judge the competition - and restate this in every episode for ALL the viewers as well as the participants.

It's just very sad that this is not communicated and explained simply and clearly to viewers. 

This approach is one of the principle reasons why I bang on and on and on about the importance of the submission.

Ditto same applies to the commission for the Final.  An outstanding commission will tip the balance and win the Final. I've seen it happen across both PAOTY and LAOTY a few times.

NOTE: My personal preference would be to skip the final painting of "something" which they all do together and make it a programme about three different commissions of a significant landscape similar to the commission - with no pod - as an audition. That way you can also keep the winner secret!

So - now we've got that straight - on with my review of THE FINAL AUDITION FOR THE COMMISSION and TWO ARTWORKS!

Artists in the Final

As if you need reminding, however this is relevant to all those think they know better than these artists