BP Portrait Award 2016: Selected Artists

53 artists out of 2,557 entries from 80 countries have had their portraits selected for the 2016 Annual Exhibition of the BP Portrait Award.

• 439 (17%) of the original entries made it through to the final judging session at Trinity Buoy Wharf. 
• The judges then reduced this number to 209 paintings (8%) and 
• the final step was the selection of the final 53 for the exhibition (representing 2% of the total entry).

You can see their names - plus links to their websites and a short summary of their CV below - organised by the country where they live at present (when available). If anybody spots a mistake with a website please let me know via comment or contact me.

My congratulations to all those who have been selected.

SELECTED ARTISTS ARE INVITED to send me a copy of the image of their selected work - to feature in this blog post - along with a copy of their confirmation email. See the side column for how to contact me.

Commiserations to all those that made it through the first stage but were not selected - especially those that made it to the final 209. The BP "Best of the Rest" will be published on Sunday. (See my blog post BP Portrait Award: The Best of the Rest for my invite to those who failed to get selected)

....but first the story of one selected portrait by an artist I've been following for a while. I'm delighted to see Jane Gardiner has a portrait in the BP - especially given the challenge of recent surgery!

To sense what is coming by Jane Gardiner- a portrait of landscape painter Julie Arbuckle

"Last May I knew I wouldn’t be able to paint for extensive periods after carpal tunnel surgery, so asked for people to come and sit in the weeks after to get reference material to work with once the hand was fully recovered. I was looking to explore how people use props to tell stories about themselves and provided a range of crowns/ears/masks and so on that I’d made for them to choose between at each session. Julie is a landscape artist (which might partially explain the landscape format) based near Glasgow whom I had met several times through mutual friends/ at openings and had long wanted to paint, so I was delighted when she volunteered. She was a terrific model and we had a lot of fun playing dress up. She commented that everyone should wear ears more often and I think would like to have taken them home.
During the session I did some sketching and a little oil colour study, as well as taking over a thousand photographs. Once my hand had started recovering enough I did drawings based on this reference material, from which it was clear this pose had potential. However, when it came to making the painting I reversed the tonal graduation as having Julie face into the dark felt more appropriate. The paint was kept loose, neutral and thin except in the lit portion of the face to similarly suggest a process of becoming and change, with the uncertainty that brings. My hand was recovering much slower than expected and later Julie told me it had been a very intense, challenging and cathartic time in her life. I feel that these factors have very much feed into the final painting. It was finished on Christmas Eve, after having delegated the Christmas preparations.

Selected Artists - 2016 BP Portrait Award Exhibition

There were 1,241 entries from the UK (48.5%)  and International Entries 1,316 (51.5%). I do wish the NPG would also provide gender data re the entries.

I THINK I'm detecting more BP Portrait Award novices than usual. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes looking at the entries has influenced this?

£30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016 - The Shortlist

Three very impressive and very different paintings have been shortlisted for the £30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016. Each of them is guaranteed a prize. 

They are:

• Girl in a Liberty Dress by Clara Drummond - a portrait of her friend and a fellow artist
• Hugo by Benjamin Sullivan - a portrait of the poet Hugo Williams; 
• Silence by Chinese artist Bo Wang - a portrait of his dying Grandmother.

Both Clara and Benjamin have been selected a number of times previously. In fact Benjamin has been labelled by me as a future BP Portrait Award winner a number of times! However Bo Wang is selected for the first time.

They're brilliant portraits - I love them all! I've also got the big high res images of them and after close inspection I'd find it very difficult to choose between them.  However if you read on, you will realise that past experience suggests one is a clear front -runner......

The portraits and artists are highlighted below

In terms of the competition as a whole:

• The Entry: The shortlist of three was selected from 2,557 portraits by artists from 80 countries (the entry is limited to one portrait per artist). 
• Selected Artists: More about who got selected for the exhibition tomorrow when I will link websites to the names of the artists whose portraits have been selected to be in the exhibition
• The Best of the Rest: the closing date for my invitation to the "best of the rest" - of those not selected - is Friday.

Shortlisted artists

The BP Portrait Award is said to be the world’s most prestigious portrait painting competition - with total prize money of £60,000. 

Just being selected, never mind shortlisted or winning a prize is a great honour.
The prizes are as follows:

• First Prize: £30,000 plus a commission worth £5,000 to paint a portrait for the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection, to be agreed between the Gallery and the artist. 
• Second Prize: £10,000 
• Third Prize: £8,000. 
• The BP Young Artist Award of £7,000 will be awarded to the work of an entrant aged between 18 and 30. 

Who has won which prize will be announced at a special Evening Reception at the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery on the evening of Tuesday 21 June 2016 - and prizes will be presented by athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill.

Girl in a Liberty Dress by Clara Drummond

Clara Drummond is shortlisted for the first time.

Girl in a Liberty Dress

oil on board, 260 x 370 mm (10.2 x 14.5 inches)

copyright Clara Drummond

There's lots to like about this portrait.

The oil in this portrait is applied very thinly and sensitively almost in the style of a watercolour painting. - a technique which we sadly see far too little of. It reminds me very much of the way in which Jennifer McRae (a former BP prizewinner) works - it's all about the composition, tone and the draughtsmanship. There are also echoes in the pose of Jane Morris who inspired any number of portraits.

• Age: 38 years old (b. 27 September 1977)
• Nationality: British
• Occupation: artist
• Current home: Cambridgeshire (born in Edinburgh, Scotland)
• Art education: Prince’s Drawing School. (She studied studied modern languages at Cambridge University)
• Previous appearances in this award: previously selected five times for the BP Portrait Award Exhibition (2006, 2009, 2013 and 2014)
• Previous notable portraits for this award: Iris Palmer for BP Portrait Award 2009, and her friend, actor Ben Whishaw (2005 exhibition).
• Website: http://www.claradrummond.co.uk/
• Title / Media:  Girl in a Liberty Dress (260 x 370 mm, oil on board)
• Subject: Friend/artist Kirsty Buchanan (also painted for her exhibited works in the BP Portrait Award in 2013 and 2014)

The model Kirsty is a friend and fellow artist - and the subject of two previous works which have been selected for the BP Portrait Exhibition. On this occasion, both artists were working with the William Morris Society archive on an exhibition at the time and were looking at the hand drawn patterns for fabrics, wallpapers and tapestries by Jane Morris and May Morris, William Morris's wife and daughter. Hence the Liberty Print dress seemed appropriate for the context of the time.

Drummond says of Kirsty that

she is inspiring because she is always immersed in the ideas around whatever she is making at the time, history, nature, mythology and art all feed into her work, so when I am drawing or painting her it feels more like a collaboration than a portrait sitting.'

Hugo by Benjamin Sullivan

Benjamin Sullivan is shortlisted for the first time.

Note this is the ONLY one of the three paintings which demonstrates torso, head and hands - and I refer people back to last year's analysis of the paintings selected and my observation

all the portraits which have WON the BP Portrait Award since 2010 have all included hands

UPDATE: Fabriano Paper

Two notable things have happened since my last blog post (Fabriano, R K Burt and St Cuthberts Mill - and fine art watercolour paper for precision painting) about innovation and change within the world of Fine Art Hot Press paper used by watercolour painters who paint plants and flowers to botanical standards. .

Systematic tests of watercolour paper

The first is that yesterday Dianne Sutherland published an extremely helpful blog post - Paper Matters: St Cuthbert Mill vs Fabriano.

As I wrote yesterday

It covers:

• various types and weights of paper produced by Fabriano (in Italy) and St Cuthberts Mill (in the UK).
• systematic and structured tests involving the various techniques used by botanical artists - as you can see from some of the samples in the image below
• a well-informed and well balanced commentary by Dianne who is a very experienced botanical artist and teacher.

Dianne Sutherland's blog post

I should also emphasise that we're also beginning to see other artists try the new papers and commenting on the results via the Botanical Artists group on Facebook.

The Fabriano Response

The second is that today I received a letter by email from the Marketing Director of Fabriano.  In it he:

• explains the changes made recently - and indicates an acknowledgement that maybe the changes that artists have detected are ones that might not be picked up my their machines which measure continuously for quality control purposes
• makes a very generous offer of wanting to know more about what artists have experienced and offering to come and watch artists work on the paper and explain what sort of problems they have experienced. 

So this is all really GOOD NEWS!

I've attached an image of the letter so you can all read it. I close cropped the letter to make it easier to reproduce. You'll need to right click and open in a new tab if you want to be able to read the larger version more easily.

I'm now convinced they want to know so we need to show them!

Now I just need to work out - with Dianne and other botanical artists who are interested parties - how we can demonstrate what has been happening to the Fabriano people so they can see for themselves.

One option might be to set up a Special Group on Facebook to which people could contribute a narrative and/or videos and/or photos of their experiences and problems with the paper of late.  That might lend itself to a virtual meeting with Fabriano if the logistics of getting everybody in the same place were to prove too difficult.

Anybody interested in meeting up with the Fabriano people please

• either leave a comment below 
• or contact me personally via the Botanical Artists Group on Facebook 
• or contact me via my email address (see contact me in side column).

Display your art online - for free

The fourth article in my series of "Cost effective ideas for artists" is all about how you can get your art online for free.

'Display your art online - for free' is now available in the May edition of The Artist.

A sample of the latest article in the May edition

This article looks at:

• how to share your art and ways to get your art seen online for free
• how you can improve your chances of your art being seen using social media
• why it's essential to be mobile friendly
• how to avoid some nasty surprises - in terms of time, effort and money
• what costs are involved if you choose to pay third parties for your site
• tips relating to the money side - and selling your art online

In addition you can find out more about ​E-commerce for artists on my website. 

Before you start selling online you NEED TO KNOW the rules and regulations which relate both to selling online on your own account and via third parties.

You can buy 'The Artist' at all good newsagents in the UK - but you can also subscribe and read it online as a digital magazine. It also has a lot of other good content of interest to many artists!

BP Portrait Award: The Best of the Rest

I was sent an image today by somebody who did NOT get their work selected for display in the BP Portrait Prize Exhibition 2016. (Those selected will be announced this week).

Hello Katherine,
Thanks for the consistently excellent reads.This year, I am one of the selected artists for the BP Portrait Prize who did not make it into the exhibition. I thought I'd send along an image of my piece, The Big Time, should it be of any use for your article.
Best,Alessandro

However it struck me, I've got a lot of BP Portrait Followers and it occurred to me I could offer a second bite of the cherry with a "best of the rest" virtual exhibition for anybody interested. 

• Entries are strictly limited to those who entered the BP this year but were unsuccessful. 
• An explanation of what you need to do can be found below.

Congratulations to Alessandro Tomasetti for having a good idea and prompting this blog post! This is his portrait which didn't make it.

The Big Time by Alessandro Tomasetti

50 x 65cm, oil on linen

"BP Portrait - Best of the Rest" - how to enter

Subject to enough submissions I'm happy to display "the ten best of the rest" i.e. of submissions sent to me for review which were not chosen for exhibition by the BP Portrait Selectors this year.

What I need from the artists whose entries were rejected is:

• TWO digital images
• your portrait as per the image you submitted (I want good images to review). I'll then downsize the images of the ten best and make them web-ready for the blog. They will be displayed @72 dpi with the longest dimension being no bigger than 600 pixels 
• PLUS a scan or photo of your rejection letter from the competition showing the date, your name and the title of your portrait and the outcome of selection. (I'm no fool - I don't want to be drowned in portraits from those who forgot to send their entries in!). 
• dimensions and media of the portrait in your email
• your website domain name. I will provide a link to your website if your portrait gets posted - much as I do for the selected artists.
• receipt of your entry by Friday 8th April.

Where to send your email entry

This web page gives you my email address - on the right under the pic of me.