Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour - 142nd Annual Exhibition

The 142nd Open Annual Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour has opened at the Royal Scottish Academy building on the Mound in Edinburgh. 

RWS website

The purpose of the annual exhibition is to 

• showcase the best painting in Scotland in watercolour and water-based media.
• exhibit over 300 paintings by RSW members and other artists who responded to the call for open submissions from Scotland, the UK and around the world. 

For those of you like me who can't visit in person, you can see the artwork selected for this exhibition in the virtual exhibition which can be accessed via the website.

I'm going to highlight below the artwork which "jumped off the screen" at me.

• Heroes by Anita Barley FLS
• Arran from High Auchoirk by Jim Dunbar PRSW RWS RGI
• And listened for the sound of birds (Clermont Ferrand, France) by David Forster RSW
• Lunga Garden and the Sound of Shuna by Jennifer Irvine RGI RSW
• A September Field Edge by David E Johnston RSW
• Early Rain, North Uist by Susan Macintosh
• The Promise by Angus McEwen RSW RWS RGI
• Low Mist Kilchurn Castle by Hazel Nagl RWS RGI PAI
• The Ornithologist by Ian Ritchie RSW
• On the Incoming Tide by Ruth Thomas RSW
• November Hawes with Winter Thrushes by Darren Woodhead SWLA

What I found very confusing was that the online exhibition works in a very peculiar way. So, for example, I know I saw Anita Barley's work - because I wrote it down - but now cannot find it again! It's very confusing.....

In addition, it's just one artwork per artist online - so we don't see all 300+ paintings which are in the exhibition. Which is a pity....

141st Annual Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour: DEADLINE TODAY

Today is the deadline for entries for the 141st Annual Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. 

Below are the basics you need to know for anybody who wants to enter

The Exhibition - which will be the largest exhibition of waterbed artwork in Scotland this year - will be held

• AT: Scottish National Galleries (Upper Galleries); The Mound, Edinburgh
• ON: 11th December 2021– 27th December 2021

Information Pack for the Open Entry:  RSWOpen Entrants Pack 141st

The RSW believes that painting using thin films of water based pigment is a unique skill, the mastery of which confirms the painter's commitment to their art. For the viewer, the primacy of such skill conveys a particular richness, and for those who use the medium themselves, the art watercolour provides a direct inspiration.

To this end, in our membership, exhibitions, prize giving and all other activities we will curate to promote this singular and beautiful technique.

Deadline for Entries: Works may now be submitted online until midnight on 30th October for Stage 1 selection at: rsw.oess1.uk

Who can enter: artists working in the UK

What can you enter: 

• Nature of Works: All works must be in a water based medium on paper. Works submitted must be framed, suitably presented and able to be hung. Any unsuitable presentation may prejudice the hanging of a painting.
• Inadmissable: Works which have already been shown in Edinburgh in an open Exhibition 
• Number of Works: Non Members may submit up to 2 works
• Maximum size: 1 up to 48” x 48” including frame (122 cm) plus 1 unlimited size

How to enter: Works may now be submitted online until midnight on 30th October for Stage 1 selection at: rsw.oess1.uk

Sales and commission: All exhibitors will be charged a commission of 40% on the sale price of work sold in the Exhibition.

Dates: 

• Art Work Delivery: Sunday 28th & Monday 29th November 2021, 10.30 – 4.30 
• Collection of Unselected works: Saturday 4th December 2021, 2 – 4pm 
• Private View: Friday 10th December 2021 2 – 4pm
• Exhibition Opens to Public: Saturday 11th December 2021, 10am
• Exhibition closes: Monday 27th December 2021
• Collection of unsold work: Wednesday 29th & Thursday 30th December 10.30 – 4.30

Note this condition:

Anyone selected to submit work to the gallery must adhere to the COVID safety guidelines as laid down by the Scottish Government, National Galleries and RSW. It should be presumed that a face mask/covering will be necessary when delivering work. Failure to comply with the guidelines will result in the work not being accepted.

A Botanical Art Bonaza - in England, Scotland and Ireland

Making A Mark has been quiet for the past week because I've been diligently writing blog posts about juried open botanical art exhibitions opening in England, Scotland and Ireland - at the same time(!) - on my Botanical Art and Artists News blog

Here's a summary - with some pics - of what's going on in London, Edinburgh and Dublin right now!

ENGLAND: Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists (SBA)

the end wall display in the Main Gallery at the Mall Galleries

To date I've written the following posts about "Plantae" the 2019 Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists which is an international exhibition with 431 artworks by c.190 botanical artists

It's on at the Mall Galleries until 1pm on Sunday 9th June - with demonstrations of botanical artwork in coloured pencil (today) and painting on vellum (tomorrow).

It's the SBA's first time at the Mall Galleries. Everybody participating and regular visitors are very impressed with the environment and wonderful lighting and how good the artwork looks. Plus the Manager of the Mall Galleries told me on Tuesday night that he knew it was going to be good but it's actually much better!

• Plantae: SBA Annual Exhibition 2019 - Selected Artists profiles most of the c.190 botanical artists whose work was selected for the exhibition - with links to their websites are embedded in their names. (If you're wondering why it's circa it's because it comes out as a different number every time I counted and have up after the third count!)
• Awards - Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Exhibition 2019 - includes information and images of the artwork receiving awards and more information about the artists who created them

Winner of the Joyce Cuming Presentation Plate
The Secret World of Potatoes by Lidiya Doukhnevitch (watercolour £1,500)

Coming up next is

• a post about those artists who were awarded a Certificate of Botanical Merit - which was judged by Lucy T Smith, who illustrates plants for Kew Gardens.  (These are artists who get judged on science as well as art!)
• finally, the fourth post will be a review of the exhibition as a whole and a commentary on its move to the Mall Galleries. I've been asking people what they think about the new environment.

Incidentally, the SBA raised the bar considerably by putting their exhibition catalogue online and including images of ALL the artwork in the show.

SCOTLAND: Annual Exhibition of Botanical Images Scotia (BISCOT)

BISCOT is an acronym for "Botanical Images Scotia". It's annual exhibition of contemporary botanical illustration which

• promotes excellence in botanical painting and illustration.
• gives both national and international artists an opportunity to exhibit in Edinburgh and presents new and original botanical work.

Each exhibitor creates a display of SIX artworks - and the exhibition is open to and attracts international entrants. In this respect BISCOT is the Scottish equivalent of the RHS Botanical Art Show in London - and is regarded as the top show in Scotland in terms of awards and prestige.

The BISCOT Exhibition is held annually at

• Gardening Scotland (sponsored by the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society) (31 May - 2 June)
• the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) - John Hope Gateway (5-20 June 2019)​

Sansanee Deekrajang (Thailand) won a BISCOT Gold Medal and Best in Show for her Exhibit of Tropical Palms

BISCOT Medal Winners 2019 is about those artists who won their medals a week ago at the Annual BISCOT Exhibition at the Gardening Scotland show at the Ingliston Showground in Edinburgh

This week the exhibition transferred to the John Hope Gateway at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) where it continues until the 20th June.

I'll be writing another post about this exhibition as it contains a new category - which is the newly launched RBGE Florilegium (see below)

IRELAND: Annual Botanical and Floral Exhibition at Bloom

Iris “Red Rum”” by Siobhan Larkin
Gold Medal and BEST IN SHOW (BOTANICAL)

Last week Ireland's premier juried botanical art exhibition, the 7th Annual ​​Exhibition of Botanical and Floral Art in Bloom opened at the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre in Phoenix Park, Dublin - where it remains until the end of June 2019.

Bloom 2019 - Botanical Art Medal Winners is about the award winners in the botanical art side of the Bloom show. Medals for this show are awarded just for one work.

I'm really hoping that at some point Bloom will upgrade to the same type and standard of exhibition as the RHS and BISCOT which both require exhibits of six paintings by each exhibiting artist - and medal judgements are made about the six paintings as a whole.

But maybe that needs to be a different show - linked to and partnered with a Horticultural Society or Botanic Garden. It will almost certainly need to be in a different venue

Review: Episode 3 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 at Loch Fyne

I felt for the artists, presenters and the judges as I watched the opening of Episode 3 of the Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 series - filmed by Storyvault Films for Sky Arts.

Episode 3 Pod Participants line up for the results of their plein air painting endeavours

After three weeks of blazing sunshine, they ran into what Scotland does best - a dreich during a heatwave i.e. mist and steady fine rain which absolutely drenches.

So there were LOTS of umbrellas in this episode - and one even found its way into a painting by one of the pod participants.

The wildcard participants - around the corner from the Pods

Below you can read about:

• the location
• the artists
• my commentary. 
• Learning Points: The themes I identified this week's episode are:
• Dealing with a lot of landscape and changing weather
• Knowing what format works best
• Knowing what to leave out and when to stop
• The importance of a sense of place
• The need to lick your websites and social media into shape
• the shortlist
• the winners - of the Heat and the Wildcard entry

Warning if you continue to read but have not yet watched this episode you will find out who won!

As an aside - one of the very curious things is that Landscape Artist of the Year seems to have died on social media. I always look every week to see if I can find any of the artists and it's now proving more and more difficult!

The Location: Loch Fyne

The pods were set up in front of that universal phenomena - the Indian Restaurant - in Inverary on the western shore of Loch Fyne, a sea loch off the Firth of Clyde which is the longest one in Scotland (i.e. some 40 miles long).  Prior to the D Day Landings in 1945 it had been home to a base which trained a quarter of a million troops for the landings.

The day started with steady rain coupled with a low mist - and this was the view for some of the artists in the pods!

The initial view from the pods

The pods in the morning - in front of the Indian Restaurant - looking out at the above view

The Wildcard contestants around the corner and next to the war memorial - after the rain stopped

The Artists

Some 1,600 applications were whittled down to 48 for the Heats and these are the latest batch of artists to get their every move recorded by camera.

BELOW are some mini profiles of each of the pod participants - with links to their websites embedded in their names and links to Facebook and Instagram where obvious. I'm always bemused about the distinctions between the professional and amateur artists.

PS There's a point at which you know you've got the right Facebook account by looking at the faces of people who have already participated in LAOTY in the friends! ;)

Three portraits of Billy Connolly

Back in May 2017, three portraits of the Big Yin - Billy Connolly - or Sir Billy Connolly as he is now designated - were unveiled as giant 50 ft/15m high murals in Glasgow as a tribute to his 75th birthday. (see Billy Connolly murals in Glasgow – the city’s birthday gift to the Big Yin at 75).

The portraits are by the Scottish artists - Jack Vettriano, Rachel Maclean and John Byrne.

Crops of the portraits of Billy Connolly by Jack Vettriano, Rachel McLean and John Byrne

The process of creating the portraits was filmed by the BBC and can be seen on iPlayer as Billy Connolly - Portrait of a Lifetime. 

The programme involves him talking about his life with each of the artists and is worth watching if only to see how each artists addresses the conundrum of how to portray Billy Connolly.

Jack Vettriano

The self-taught artist who paints from photographs - who portrayed Billy from a still from the Billy's television programme World Tour of Scotland series in 1994. It features a very windblown Billy on a storm-lashed coast near John O’Groats

Personally I think the Vettriano portrait is absolutely awful. He dislocated his shoulder in 2015 and announced at the time that he could no longer paint.  Whether or not he is back to fine fettle as an artist, the fact remains it just doesn't look like Billy Connolly!

His mural can be seen on a wall end in in Dixon Street near St Enoch Square.

Rachel McLean

Rachel represented Scotland this year at the Venice Biennale. She was born in 1987 in Edinburgh and lives and works in Glasgow. Her first degree, a BA Honours Drawing and Painting was at the Edinburgh College of Art, followed by a stint at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, USA


She works predominantly with videos and digital prints. She created a special costume based on his jokes. This came

replete with motifs from his career such as ‘mini bike parked in bum’ epaulettes, a sporran with an ‘aged’ nose sprouting hair, and make-up reflecting his famous ‘pale blue Scotsman’ joke, with representations of Glasgow life past and present in the background

I thought Rachel Mclean's approach to making a portrait was both ingenious and very in keeping with the sort of man Billy Connolly is. I'm not so sure I like the very dark digital print which was chosen for the mural.  The video below shows the extract from the BBC programme where Billy is shown the costume he's going to wear.

Her printed mural is on the Gallowgate near Barrowland Park.

John Byrne 

John Byrne is an old friend of Billy who attended Glasgow College of Art. He's unique in being both a prominent portrait artist and a playright. He has paintings in the collection of paintings hang in The Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, the Museum of Modern Art and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. He chose to create a drawing rather than a painting of Billy.

John Byrne is obviously the most accomplished draughtsman and I was very interested watching him draw Billy as he is now. However I thought it was a preliminary study for a painting and I was rather disappointed to find it wasn't going to be converted into a painting.

His mural can be found on a wall end in Osborne Street, Glasgow.

Review: Alexander Goudie RP RGI: A Retrospective

I had the pleasure of viewing a very good looking retrospective exhibition of paintings, drawings and sculpture by the late Alexander Goudie yesterday (father of Lachlan Goudie) in the Threadneedle Space of the Mall Galleries.

The artist died in 2004, however he left a considerable body of work and a website is maintained and exhibitions are held periodically of his work - although most are in Scotland.

This is a rare opportunity to see some of his wonderful work in London.

View of the exhibition which displays the visual styles and artistic talents of Alexander Goudie

The exhibition also distinguished itself yesterday by being an exhibition which sold a very considerable amount of work in the first hour. I think the collectors were out in force yesterday! I'm not surprised - there is some very nice artwork on display by an artist who has the ability to be theatrical but also knew how to keep things simple. I was particularly impressed by some of the sculptures - in bronze and bisque - and his watercolours paintings.

Alexander Goudie RP. RGI. (1933-2004) is widely acclaimed as having been one of Scotland’s finest figurative painters.

The Private View is being opened this evening by Sir Jackie Stewart who is known to be a major supporter of all things Scottish and has been a major collector of Scottish Art for some years.

Below you can see views of the exhibition - which I very much recommend that people take a look at this week if in London and/or visiting the Mall Galleries.

Self-portrait - Homage to Van Gogh (Sold)
note the Van Gogh references in the background and foreground.
I gather Goudie also loved painting sunflowers!

Self portrait on the left, summer paintings from Brittany
and a painting (Cancan) and sculpture of his wife

Two watercolour paintings
The Day's Catch
Irises (sold)

His wife Marie-Renee Dorval is French and I had the pleasure of meeting her yesterday. She figures in a lot of the paintings.

The family spent their summer in Brittany where he painted all the time.  

His paintings of Breton ladies are wonderful - but I also particularly liked his watercolour paintings of flowers and fish.

His bisque sculpture of Le Marin is outstanding - I kept walking round and round it as it has fabulous presence and detail at the same time.

Goudie had a long-standing love affair with the Scottish tale about Tam O'Shanter and made a number of paintings on this theme. This is a BBC article about Alexander Goudie and the witch from Robert Burns' poem

If you're interested in this Scottish artist I recommend 

• the Alexander Goudie Trust website
• plus this Telegraph obituary of Alexander Goudie

An amazing painting of Tam O'Shanter - The Chase
meets the stunning painted bisque of a Breton fisherman  "Le Marin" (sold)

More about Scottish Art

In addition to the exhibition, there's also An evening of Scottish art at The Mall Galleries, The Mall, London SW1 14th April 6.30pm - but this is now fully booked. These are the speakers you will miss!

Speakers include:

• The broadcaster Andrew Marr
• Alice Strang (Senior Curator at the National Galleries of Scotland)
• James Knox (the Director of the Flemings collection of Scottish art)
• Deborah Clarke (Senior curator of the exhibition ‘From Caledonia to the continent’ at the Royal Collection)
• Nick Curnow (Vice Chairman of the Scottish auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull)
• Lachlan Goudie ROI (Artist and broadcaster, ‘The Big Painting Challenge’, ‘The Story of Scottish art’)
• The evening will be moderated by Dr Bendor Grosvenor (Art dealer and TV art historian, ‘Fake or Fortune')