MAKING A MARK: Kim Day wins Landscape Artist of Year 2026

Thursday, March 05, 2026

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

Kim Day

Kim Day - back at the beginning in Heat 1
on Derwent Water with her submission

Background:

She has a BA Hons Fine Arts painting degree and a Masters from the National Film and Television School | Royal College of Art in Design for Film.
She lives on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset

Occupation:

She works, at the bottom of her garden, as a freelance concept artist for the film and television industry - for the last 20 years. This involves drawing and painting what scenes look like. She has worked on a number of major series for Sky including the new "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms"

Preferred Art Materials:

Working on Saunders Waterford 638gsm/300lb papers or stretched Linen
Uses Acrylics, compressed charcoals and pastels pencils and pens, combining each medium to add variation to her mark making and colour quality.

website (art): https://www.dayfinearts.com/
instagram (art): https://www.instagram.com/day.finearts/

Her website says

Her abstracted landscape paintings are a response to places that may seem familiar but with the use of composition and colour she looks to focus in on something undefined, to offer up the essence of a place whether local or afar.

Back in Episode 1 of this series which she won, I said - in my review

Her artworks were described as

having a delicious sense of colour.

providing a sense of place

responded to the majesty and stature 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

and

I think she's got to be one of the favourites for the Final

Libby Walker

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Libby Walker (@libbywalkerartist)

Background:

Graduated with a BA Hons Illustration from Edinburgh College of Art (2009)

Occupation:

Works on commercial commissions as an illustrator and independently as a primarily plein air landscape painter. 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 and explores light, movement, colour and the emotional experience of being in a landscape.

Art Materials:

She seems to be a minimalist and is devoted to what seems to be a three colour palette - red, blue and yellow and anything she can mix with these three colours. This and her technique makes her paintings very distinctively hers.

website: https://libbywalker.co.uk/
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/libbywalkerartist/

Based on Tai's comment about Libby in Heat 5, I wrote in my review

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.

Tom Winter

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tom Winter (@tomwinterart)

Background:

A graduate of the Slade School of Art, Tom lives in Bournemouth and has been and an artist and tutor for nearly 30 years.

Occupation:

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.

Art Materials:

He likes using very thin transparent layers.

website: https://tomwinterart.co.uk/
Instagram: https://tomwinterart.co.uk/

Venue: The Falkirk Wheel

A world first - a boat lift which works on the principles of the Archimedes Screw
run by power which is equivalent of 8 kettles of boiling water
to move canal boats between two different levels of canal water.

There were times when I felt we were in an engineering programme, there was so much given over to the unique concept and structure of the Falkirk Wheel.

The world's one and only rotating boat lift.

Spot the Pods on the green mound (top left)

Observations, Themes and Tips

Structures as subjects for Finals

Some quotes from this programme about The Falkirk Wheel

It's interesting we brought them here. It's manmade, it's in the landscape and it moves. If I'm honest I wouldn't know how to deal with it as an artist so I'm really intrigued as to what these three will do Tai Shan Shierenberg

"What a great thing to paint!" Stephen Mangan (secret engineering geek)

It's terrible! That's why they're here!" Tai Shan Shierenberg's laughing explanation for the venue for the Final

Tai elaborated:

the light is flat
the concrete is grey
what's beautiful is how it frames the landscape.

I will speak plain - I thought it was an absolutely diabolical subject for a Final.

It also bore no relation whatsoever to the subject of the Commission and one must seriously question what was the point of this being the subject for the Final.

How does finding out who paints a complicated structure best help with a 'pyramid like' very simple structure of a holy mountain in Ireland?

To my mind, the obsession of the programme makers with getting people to paint structures has got entirely out of hand and, in my opinion, had little value in the first place. While those illustrating places in the era of the Grand Tour (Turner, Cotman, Girtin etc) might have included lots of structures in their landscapes, in present time the emphasis on landscape painting is on views which provide an escape from the large structures which dominate too many people's lives.

If you look in any art gallery or go to any exhibition - and look at landscapes - they are almost always natural in form. (eg landscapes in the current RBA Annual Exhibition) plus a few cityscapes which are views at street level.

So why isn't the focus of the programme more about natural landscapes?

I always come away thinking somebody key involved with the programme is has an absolute obsession with architecture and would really like to be making that programmes about a competition for best building of the year!!

I can think of no other rational explanation which would satisfy anybody seriously involved with landscape art

(OR me for that matter! Did I ever mention my The Art of the Landscape blog which I used to write. )

The pods at the Final

What to do when you can't paint the subject

Any serious artist will know sometimes you cannot draw or paint a subject. Not because it is difficult but because it does nothing for you. There is no feeling. You have no response.

In my opinion, Kim was dismayed by the subject and really did not want to paint it. This is pure conjecture on my part. However I do know the feeling.....

Sometimes, you have no space in your brain for looking at a subject.
It means nothing to you.
It's easier to just walk away.

What's important is that there's nothing in the programme which says you have to do literally what it looks like. You can select and choose some aspect of it which is more appealing. They may set up the pod at one angle - but so long as you paint the subject in some respect, you have fulfilled the brief.

The thing is artists can't be treated like automatons who will just paint whatever they are told to. They have a heart, a brain and a soul and when one of these cannot cope with a request it will default to "what's the least worst thing I can paint?"

So she walked around the subject - and found a part of it which appealed to her more, which is the basin of water used by the vessels travelling between the two canals. Then got back in her pod and produced an artwork from a digital image. Which looks nothing like what she normally does - because the subject was so dismal.

TIPS for Really Horrible Subjects

Get out of your Pod (you won't be the first!)
Go off and have a wander and a think
See what you can see
Paint whatever you respond to i.e. take a photo and take that back to your pod
Paint your alternative view
That's it.

Other people have done it before. It's been done in the Final before.

My guess is that the producers really do not want you to leave altogether because you can't paint their dreadful subject - so they will agree to anything so you stay. Or replace you with one of the Standby Artists if you are in a Heat.

But you can't really do that in the Final can you?

Judges Criteria (Absence of)

The Judges pondering on what has happened to date

The reason competitions need rules and standards is to be fair - to assess everybody in the same way.

But how do you do that when

these rules and standards are never written down and
these get spoken about in various diffuse ways by different judges over different series and episodes - but never ever documented!

The standard required of any competition is to have a clear idea about standards and how you can assess people fairly against these i.e. none of this "I know it when I see it" nonsense which makes no sense to viewers.

It also helps and reminds Judges about what they should be doing.

I can do no better than to refer to last year's rant on this topic because it annoys me to have to write this again when I see so many "The Great British (whatever)" productions coming out of the studios of Love Productions which have absolutely no problem whatsoever in stipulating during EACH AND EVERY programme

what the challenge is intended to test and
how each of the participants will be assessed.

Decision Time: The Commissions

Three Commissions
by (left to right) Kim Day, Libby Walker and Tom Winter

If I had to rank them, I'd order them Kim, Libby, Tom i.e. from left to right in the above pic.

I thought the three commissions were all very redolent of who the artists are in real life.

Kim creates and illustrates dramatic scenes for films and tlevision as a job - and creates abstracted lamdscapes based on views of natural spaces for her art. Her landscape art is much more about empathy for the view - about a feeling rather than literal accuracy.
Libby uses Pollock Park in Glasgow as her back garden and enjoys views of the trees and undergrowth. Her past paintings suggest she can do structures - but she obviously enjoys a wilder landscape and things which grow!
Tom is a man who really likes structures - and does an excellent job painting them. Virtually all his previous paintings of landscapes make a feature of the structures they contain. He went to the end of the drive to his house, turned left and drew and painted his road - in a very structural way. It struck me that he is VERY literal when somebody says "Paint your Home" - and that I guess this is the major difference between him and Libby and Kim

I've always been emphatically of the opinion that the initial submission AND the Commission done by the Finalists - between Semi-Finals and Final - are hugely important to the eventual final result of who wins the series.

and so it came to pass....

I had a sneaky suspicion, that Kim had worked out how this programme works (and/or possibly read my blog post comments on the topic!). I knew in advance that she would invest a lot of time and effort in the Commission to offset any issue in relation to not responding to a final venue with an awful big structure.

The Final Paintings

The Paintings in the Final
(left to right: Kim Day, Libby Walker and Tom Winter)

They ALL did so much better than I was expecting in painting The Falkirk Wheel. Not as good as one might hope for but much better than I expected.

Who on earth thought this was a good subject for a four hour plein air painting really needs to go back to the basics of what landscape art is all about

i.e. it's not like one cannot make a decent landscape painting out of this very curious construction - but it would take more than 4 hours to do something really decent.

Plus all their commissions were interesting.