Review: Episode 5 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2026

Making A Mark has been reviewing episodes of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year every year since Series 4. 

This is my review of Episode 5 of Series 13 of Portrait Artist of the Year (2026). This was actually Heat 1 in terms of the filming at Battersea.

Episode 5 Artists with their Self Portraits
L to R: Ruth Fitton, Shyem Ramsay, Jacob Skinnard, Amy Zhou, Rafaela De Ascenio, 
Leo Bignell, Sophie Cleave, Sara Netherley and Rickie Niehaus

It follows my standard format, which covers:

• the three sitters
• the nine artists
• self-portrait submissions
• themes arising in the episode
• who the sitters chose
• the shortlist for a place in the semi-finals of PAOTY 2026
• the winner
• the sitters for the next episode.

First a quick update on my "broken neck". After the shock horrors of early last week, I have since spent several hours (and hours and hours) in the Royal London A&E trying to get two flexion X-rays of my neck, as requested by the neurosurgeons, to check whether I did indeed have two fractures of the cervival (neck) part of my spine. I finally got the X-rays on Monday - but still haven't got the results! I'm currently taking pain medication on a routine programmed into my Apple watch! I personally think it's more likely I've got collapsing cervical vertebrae from my galloping osteoarthritis. The word "degeneration" has been used more than once!

Episode 5: The Sitters

Left: Rylan Clark and
Right: Jamie Lloyd who had pink paper "blossom"
descending on him throughout the sitting.

The three artists (and a dog) all seemed to be very well behaved!

They are:

• Rylan Clark - an English television and radio personality and presenter, well known for his participation in the X factor (2012) and Celebrity Big Brother. He subsequently became a very popular presenter of a number of high profile programmes for various tv channels. (I personally thought he was very unlucky not to get the Strictly gig and his is the name most mentioned to remedy the current levels of dissatisfaction with the male new Judges!)
• Alison Balsam OBE - a retired professional trumpet soloist from 2001-2025. She is an arranger, producer, and music educator. Balsom was awarded Artist of the Year at the 2013 Gramophone Awards and has won three Classic BRIT Awards. She has also participated in a number of activities in the music world. She's married to the film director Sir Sam Mendes (making her Lady Mendes). She brought her dog to the sitting.

Alison Balsom and her dog plus trumpet!

• Jamie Lloyd - a British theatre director and producer. He is a prominent figure within contemporary British theatre and has won many awards and accolades. He is a proponent of affordable theatre for young and diverse audiences, and has been praised as "redefining West End theatre". In 2025, British Vogue labelled him as “one of the most celebrated theatre directors in the world” and Time Out described him as “the biggest director in the world.” In terms of appearance he is covered in tattoos - including across his bald head.

Episode 5: The Artists

What I always find interesting when doing this section is finding out who is following these artists. 

When reviewing their Instagram accounts, I'm looking to see if they have people following them who are 

• well known portrait artists that I am following (via my Making A Mark Instagram) 
• or artists that I have already identified as worth following having encountered their artwork in exhibitions I've been to.

I'm also always very impressed by artists who have been following me BEFORE I look them up online!! :) There again, quite a few tell me they find these reviews very helpful. 

THE ARTISTS, in alphabetical order, are:

• Rafaela de Ascanio  (Instagram) Her art studies included a Foundation Diploma at Central Saint Martin's (2005-2006); BA History of Art at the Courtauld Institute (2006-2008) and an MA in Curating the Art Museum also at the Courtauld Institute (2009-2010). She exhibits on a regular basis and has participated in other portrait competitions like the biennial Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2025
• Leo Bignell  (Instagram) - 23 year old Leo Bignell, according to his local press was a teenage prodigy winning various awards and a teenager who know how to do marketing! He uses the classical Renaissance technique of "trois crayonnes" (red black and white OR sanguine, charcoal and chalk) on a midtone paperfor his drawings. You can see examples of his drawings on his Instagram account. His website appears to be in hibernation!
• Sophie Cleave  (Instagram) - an artist based in Suffolk, She studied Jonathan Yeo for her A Level Art and graduated from UAL Camberwell College of Artists in 2026 with a BA in Fine Art: Painting. She aims to provide an authentic subjective depiction of the female figure. She has an interesting starting phase involving pastels and water. She has started exhibiting and was recognised as an RBA Star Student in 2023.
• Ruth Fitton ROI  (Instagram) - Originally from Leeds, she now lives in London. She is a self taught artist who likes to paint from life. I have seen her work and her self portrait submission before and am trying to work out where! It's probably connected with the fact she is a Member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (elected 2023). She is also a Signature Status member of the Portrait Society of America. She has placed and won awards in a number of portrait competitions including winning the De Lazlo Foundation Award in 2026 at the RP Annual Exhibition. She has good representation and her portraits hang in homes, businesses and venerable institutions across the globe. She also has a number of demonstrations and workshops which can be downloaded from her website.
• Sara Netherway (Instagram) Live on the Isle of Wight. She studied Fine Art at Cumbria Institute of the Arts in Carlisle, then worked as a graphic designer and in-house surface pattern designer. She then worked as freelance illustrator for editorial and publishing and returned to painting in 2023. She is interested in portraiture and portraying human relationships, often drawing on historical family archives as a starting point - exploring themes of childhood, identity and belonging
• Rickie Niehaus (Instagram; Substack) - A Californian artist who now lives on a farm in rural Scotland. Her self portrait pictured her taking out the wheelie bins in front of a barn and a huge amount of mud!
• Shyam Ramsay (No website and no Instagram). A freelance artist and property developer based in London - who has the same name as a famous Bollywood Film Director. He's a graduate of the University College of London with a 2.1 honours in architecture. He participated in PAOTY in 2024 and was also a wildcard in Episode 1 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2024 at Dunnottar Castle, Aberdeenshire (see Review: Episode 1 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 9 (2024) ). I'm not getting the sense of he's produced a lot of artwork. 
• Jacob Skinnard (Instagram) He attended Alleyn’s School in Dulwich. He is 20 and the youngest participant in this heat. He exhibited for the first time at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2025 - and won the De Laszlo Foundation award! I remember his portrait of his parents very well - it was absolutely outstanding.  The Award is made to an artist under 35 years old judged to have submitted the best portrait. Interestingly he is colour blind and paints the mixes which can be achieved with a Zorn Palette
• Amy Zhou - a (Chinese?) art student based in London. Her work is about "amplifying beauty in ordinary moments". I can't find any info about her online.

Episode 5: Self Portrait Submissions

The self portrait wall - and the Judges

The way the Judges were pictured stationary - and then all walked towards the wall at the same time was a hoot! Can nobody just WAIT until you've got a good pic of them near to but not obscuring the self portraits?

PS What was Katy Hessel wearing? Is there some sort of competition going on for "being different"? Every week I award Jonathan Yeo mental points for "best dress sense"!

From left to right, these submissions are by: Ruth Fitton, Shyem Ramsay, Jacob Skinnard, Amy Zhou, Rafaela De Ascenio, Leo Bignell, Sophie Cleave, Sara Netherway, Rickie Niehaus

Format:
1 x landscape
8 x portrait
0 x tondo

Size:
0 x extra large
2 x large
2 x large medium
1 x medium
2 x small
2 x very small

To my mind, I could spot the finalists from their submissions - Ruth, Jacob and Rafaela. I liked Ruth and Jacob's which were both very accomplished. I had also seen Ruth Fitton's self portrait before in an exhibition - although whether this was before or after the heat I'm not sure.

Rafaela's self portrait SHOUTED "LOOK AT ME" which I very much suspected would get a reaction from the "contemporary" judges. 

For me, the self portrait which was the best by a mile was Jacob Skinnard's self portrait. 

• great composition 
• excellent lighting re light and shade
• complete figure
• head AND hands
• complex textures
• good balance between figure and setting
• very good control of both hue and tone

Little did I know until I started researching him that I've already seen another excellent portrait by him - of his parents - at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2025 at the Mall Galleries. It was outstanding. It also won him the De Lazlo Foundation Award for artists under 35. He was 20 in the heat when it was filmed in April and was probably 19 when he painted it. This young man is going to become a very accomplished and popular portrait painter.

Jacob Skinnard's self portrait

TIP: As I have said very many times before, never ever underestimate the impact of submissions on the Judges - and if you want to be in with a serious chance of shortlisting at the least, your best move is to make your submission the very best you can do.

Episode 5: Themes & Learning Points

Every week, in my review, I highlight what I observed as being some of the themes arising in this week's episode.

Which artist with which sitter?

I thought it was interesting which artist got allocated to which sitter.

• Sophie Cleave, whose self portrait includes her dog, was perhaps obviously with the sitter who owned a dog!
• Rylan is somebody who acknowledges he is two people - the private person who is called Ross and the public persona who is known as Rylan. He of course got Rafaela whose self portrait painting revealed the two sides of Rafaela.

It did make me think how the artists do get allocated to sitters which I've never discussed before. I've always thought that those allocated a fidgeter have a much more difficult time of it than those who have an excellent sitter - like Jamie Lloyd who was practically motionless.

Plus there are obviously very experienced / strong artists in each heat - alongside some who are much less experienced. There does seem to be some sort of effort to share them around.

Composition and Design

Different approaches to highlighting how to go about a composition were highlighted in the programme.

Performative planning?

The programme spent a LOT of time highlighting Rafaela De Ascenio and the very large number of tryout painted sketches she produced in TWO HOURS!! She described it as her way into working out the best approach. She planned, from the beginning, to not start her finished work UNTIL AFTER LUNCH!

I'm just practising composition and colour to make sure I'm happy with them before going on to the final portrait. 

I must confess to me it looked like it had only had two hours spent on it - and not two hours planning it. Plus while I can certainly subscribe to the notion that "you cannot sketch too much", the process during the heat seemed to be leaning rather hard towards being "performative" rather than adding more to her knowledge. Mainly because so many of the paintings she produced looked very, very similar. Has she not become acquainted with what turps can do?

Speaking personally I am very much NOT a fan of performative art on this sort of programme. It turns me right off.

TIP: Do NOT rush at the beginning

By way of contrast, I am very much a fan of another way of looking at it i.e. "do not rush at the beginning". 

Any Zhou made the Judges nervous because she spent an hour studying her photographs of her subject

A lot of heat portraits which "miss the mark" which have failed in the past have very often been hose where the artist moved too fast to getting paint on support at the beginning of the heat. Maybe because they usually paint slowly and painting a portrait in a defined time allowance seems like a major challenge. 

There is a solution to this which is.....

TIP: Practice fast portraits in advance

The easiest way to calm nerves and feel competent in what is a very odd situation (painting surrounded by strangers, being filmed and interrupted periodically) you should aim to produce a portrait in 3.5 hours (to allow for interruptions / settling in etc).

Those who do so very often produce very competent portraits and often progress to the next stage.

Having a defined approach and style

Ruth Fitton very much has a distinct style. She describes it as 

• looking very real from a distance
• producing more of a surprise close up - when you can see pops of paint in unexpected colours

She characterises it as her providing a pathway for the viewer's eyes

"This is the exciting bit, this is the less important bit"

Amy Zhou described her particular style as being rooted in what she has learned over time i.e. 

• have a clear focus on important parts of the drawing
• do not make everything have the same level of sharpness and focus, so that these areas can be more restrained, atmospheric, foggy.

Her self portrait demonstrated this approach very clearly. I thought it was very effective but would have liked to have seen a bigger image.

Amy Zhou with her self portrait
which I really liked

Using dry media to make portraits

There is no requirement to paint (as we saw last week with the winning artwork by Manny Woodard.

Two artists this week used dry media and charcoal pencils very effectively to create their heat portraits.

• Leo Bignell used the Trois Crayonnes method very effectively to produce an impressive tonal portrait of Rylan Clark. I'm assuming he used Sanguine, Charcoal and white chalk. Sanguine does the hard work with Charcoal providing shadows and the white chalk providing highlights. He thankfully did not make the mistake of using the charcoal as a literal hue for Rylan's died black fair. (In real life, he's called Ross and has ginger hair and hates the colour!)

Leo Bignell with his "three colours" drawing of Rylan Clark

• Amy Zhou used Chinese Charcoal pencils by a brand unknown to me (Nyoni) by using a combination of:
• very sharp points 
• shavings of charcoal as dust

Amy Zhou drawing Alison Balsam
using a Chinese Nyoni Charcoal Pencil - with a very long sharp point

Art Materials

More of Amy's art materials.... This is the pic which revealed the brand name of her charcoal pencils. One I've never heard of before. I think the different colours mean different hardnesses. I think I recognise the two cylindrical items at the back as different sized paper stumps. Presumably used with the shaved charcoal (or is that prepared charcoal dust?) on the right at the front. She also has, I think, a brush held in her left hand (above) which is presumably also used to move the charcoal dust around. I was left wondering whether she built up the charcoal in layers or removed layers and, if so, how?

I am greatly intrigued by the black device top right below. Anybody know what it is?

Amy Zhou's art materials

I absolutely loved Rickie Niehaus's very long paint brush. There is nothing worse than painting too close to a painting - and not creating distance to stand back and have a look. With a long brush you can do both!

Rickie Niehaus's very long brush - held in her right hand above

Portraits and the Judging

Given the Judges are not commenting on the nine portraits, I decided to try and see if I could catch views of them all.

Who the sitters chose

The Jamie Lloyd 'studio'
L to R: Shyem Ramsay; Rickie Niehaus and Sara Netherley

Sara Netherley with her painting of Jamie Lloyd

• Jamie Lloyd chose the painting by Sara Netherway. I thought it was a good choice. she got the "look" of the man extremely well and suggested the tattoos on his head but did not render them realistically. A classic portrait of "enough but not too much".

Three young women painted Alison Balsam
L to R: Ruth Fitton, Sophie Cleave and Amy Zhou

• Alison Balsam chose the painting by Ruth Fitton - which I liked a lot too. The skin tones in this painting are quite remarkable.

Ruth Fitton was extremely please to have her portrait chosen by Alison Balsam

Rylan Clark's moment of truth
top to bottom: Rafaela De Ascanio; Jacob Skinnard and Leo Bignell

• Rylan Clark had a very interesting choice of three different styles - but went for the very traditional style dry media drawing by Leo Bignell. Of the three artists, I thought it was the best characterisation of him by far.  I understand Rylan actually bought the portraits from the other two artists as well - of which more later!

A cropped version of the 'three colour' portrait drawing of
Rylan Clark by Leo Bignell

The Shortlist

Yet again - no discussion of the nine paintings. The shortlist was just announced and the viewers were deprived of the reasons WHY!

The Shortlist was:

• Jacob Skinnard
• Ruth Fitton
• Rafaela De Ascanio

Shortlisted artists
L to R: Ruth Fitton,  Jacob Skinnard and Rafaela De Ascanio

So basically two very experienced professional artists and a confident young artist starting out.

It became clear that Katy Hessel had been drawn to all three of the self portraits and that sorting out who was the winner was essentially down to the heat portrait.

submission and heat portraits by Ruth Fitton

Her submission painting is very accomplished. The head of Alison was very good but not complete. I think if Ruth had done more to make it less of a study and more a finished portrait, she would have stood a better chance of being selected.

submission and heat portraits by Jacob Skinnard

The Judges said some very nice things said about Jacob's artwork - but I got a sense that the Judges were maybe slightly disappointed with the heat portrait. Maybe also a bit nervous (this was Heat 1 after all) about putting a 20 year old forward?

I didn't like the composition of the heat portrait of Rylan although I thought it a good likeness. There again, I'm very much NOT a fan of "the item of importance". Too much time is spent talking about it and it frequently gets left out altogether.

It was clearly a very competent portrait in four hours and the submission spoke volumes about the scope for him to produce a very worthy commission.

I very much look forward to seeing what he will be exhibiting at the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters next year!

submission and heat portraots by Rafaela de Ascanio

These are not traditional portraits. Rafaela has a very strong style of the "love it or hate it" variety. Speaking personally, I'm not a fan. I really don't care which artist it reminds the Judges of.

Also, so far as I was concerned it wasn't even the best portrait of Rylan.

PAOTY 2026 Episode 5 Winner

The Shortlisted artists with their Heat Portraits
which was a pity because all three had much stronger self portrait submissions!

The picture above illustrates the difference in size of the three heat portraits. 

All three artists produced large self portrait submissions which, in my opinion, were much more representative of what they were capable of doing.

But yet again the programme confuses the viewer by lining them up with their heat portraits, giving the impression that it all depended on them - and them alone....

The winner of Episode 5 was Rafaela De Ascanio.

Rafaela De Ascanio with her self portrait submission

The Judges indicated that:

• she has a very compelling process 
• she engaged well with the sitter
• they found it very exciting watching her paint today 
• they are excited to see what she does next.

I'm not quite sure how providing an interesting performance makes a difference in terms of painting a commission for the National Portrait Gallery. There are certainly some sitters who might well not be quite so engaged with the process.

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Next Episode

The sitters for the next episode are:

• comedian Michelle de Swarte,
• musician Kojey Radical or
• restaurateur Jeremy King.

So that's three more people I've never heard of!

REFERENCE: PAOTY SERIES 13 (2026)

• Goodbye - ALL THREE Artist of the Year Judges (Jan 2026)
• The NEW Portrait Artist of the Year Judges (Feb 2026)
• Call for Entries: Portrait Artist of the Year 2026 (Feb 2026)
• Series 13 of Portrait Artist of the Year starts 7th October 2026 (Sept. 2026)
• Review: Episode 1 Portrait Artist of the Year 2026 (9th Oct.)
• Review: Episode 2 Portrait Artist of the Year 2026 (15th Oct.)
• Review: Episode 3 Portrait Artist of the Year 2026 (25th Oct.)
• Review: Episode 4 Portrait Artist of the Year 2026 (30th Oct.)

YOU CAN READ MY BLOG POSTS ABOUT PREVIOUS SERIES

BY LOOKING AT THE REFERENCE SECTION

AT THE END OF THE CALL FOR ENTRIES POST