Call for Entries: Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition 2024.

The deadline for entries for the 212th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in early Spring 2024 is 12 noon on Friday 2nd February 2024.

• Submission is via the OESS website
• There is a single-stage virtual judging process for ALL submitted works.  
• Selected works should be delivered to Mall Galleries, London, for inclusion in the exhibition by Saturday 16th March (10am-5pm)
• This Annual Exhibition opens on 28th March 2024 and closes on 13th April 2024.
  

I highly RECOMMEND this exhibition to ALL those who paint in watercolour media - no matter what your subject or style. I'm a very big supporter of those art societies which try hard to recognise that their annual exhibitions are

• a major way of helping 'emerging artists' with their careers - and
• finding good quality new members for the society in the future

This exhibition offers:

• several prizes and awards (see below)
• the chance to have your work seen alongside artwork by RI members
• the opportunity to exhibit at a prestigious gallery in the heart of London
• have your work seen by very many visitors - some of whom regularly buy watercolour paintings

Call for Entries - RI Annual Exhibition 2024

You can read a summary of the process below
- but for full details visit the websites of the RI and the Mall Galleries

You can READ the official details of the Call for Entries for the exhibition in 2024 in two places:

• RI Website
• Mall Galleries website

The latter will transfer you to the OESS website

• which contains all the current open exhibitions for the Mall Galleries on one page
• where you can see and read the full terms and conditions (BUT unfortunately these do NOT have a separate URL allowing artists to print and/or save)

Below is a summary - but the rules you need to abide by are in the above links!

Who can submit art to the RI Annual Exhibition

• Any artist over 18 may submit, in the UK, EU, and outside the EU i.e. this open exhibition is 
• open to international artists who live/work anywhere in the world. 
• BUT - a word of caution - make sure you understand what's involved with international art shipping, customs paperwork and VAT before you submit OR you may have a nasty surprise.

My page about Art Competitions & Juried Exhibitions provides some useful generic information for those who have never entered a juried exhibition before about

• tips for entering juried exhibitions
• outlines how artwork can make a good impression and get selected and
• why artists typically fail to get selected.

View of the RI Annual Exhibition on the Private View day in 2023

What can you submit

Your artwork MUST be ORIGINAL (i.e. all your own work) and conform to one or more of the following acceptable media and presented as follows:

• All works must be an original creation by the artist.
• Watercolour or water-soluble mediums  on any support including:
• watercolour, 
• acrylic, 
• ink or 
• gouache 
• (BUT excluding water-soluble oils).
• The type of support MUST be specified (for example paper, board, wood, parchment, etc) as well as the medium.

Age / Exhibitions

• Artwork in water-based media
• MUST have been completed within the last two years and 
• should NOT have been previously shown in London.

Size

• Works should not be larger than 240 cm high and 150 cm wide including the frame. 
• The Selection Committee has the right to exclude paintings that are over this limit.

Number

• A maximum of six works may be submitted, 
• a maximum of four works may be selected.
• TIP: My recommendations are:
• if you have never visited the exhibition before you might like to take a look at the variety and quality of the artwork selected by looking at the images in my reviews of past exhibitions at the bottom of this blog post 
• or in my Facebook Albuns eg see below
RI Annual Exhibition 2023 - West Gallery
RI Annual Exhibition 2023 - East Gallery
RI Annual Exhibition 2023 - North Gallery

• bear in mind it's unlikely that anybody who has not been selected before will get more than one artwork selected. So just submit your very best artwork!

Presentation

Review: Heat 5 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10)

This heat of Series 10 saw a lot of very good portraits - either as submissions or as heat portraits - or both.

View of the shortlisting process in Heat 5

Heat 5 Portrait Artist of the Year 

(series 10 / broadcast 8 November 2023)

What follows considers:

• the sitters
• the artists
• self portrait submissions - my analysis
• themes I identified plus comments and tips
• which portrait the sitters chose
• who the Judges shortlisted - and why
• who won

At the end of this post are details of how to apply for next year's competition and links to all my reviews of the heats to date.

NOTE: I'm going to start calling each episode a "Heat" because of the very confusing numbering of episodes which start with one involving children. Sky Arts needs a folder for ALL the episodes which are NOT "PAOTY heat episodes" and consequently are SEPARATE from those relating to the very serious art competition! If I keep saying this, maybe the people at Sky Arts will get the message that there's nothing more confusing than coming to the first episode of Series 10 and finding it's nothing whatsoever to do with PAOTY.

Heat 5: The Sitters

The three sitters were:

• Nigel Havers - an English actor in a number of very popular films and television drames/series and presenter. He is most known for "playing the quintessential, old school Englishman with his dashing good looks, cut-glass accent and thoroughly charming manner". He also collects contemporary British art.
• he brought a guitar - and some scripts to read
• Vanessa Kingori OBE - Born in Kenya and raised in St. Kitts before moving to London aged seven. She is a 'trailblazer in publishing. She is currently the chief business officer at Condé Nast Britain and is also a Vogue European business advisor. She is also British Vogue's Publishing Director. Prior to that, Kingori was the publisher of British GQ across all platforms. She is also a visiting fellow at the University of the Arts London[7] and sits on several boards and is a regular public speaker
• she brought her grandmother's silk scarf
• Mishal Husain - a British newsreader and journalist for BBC Television and BBC Radio. She was the first Muslim presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Her family are from Pakistan but she was educated in England. She lives in Camden with her husband and three children
• she brough a rug and a kilim from Pakistan

Heat 5: The Artists

PAOTY SERIES 10: Heat 5 artists

The artists in Heat 5 (of Series 10) broadcast on 8 November 2023 are listed below in alphabetical order of the surname.

You can see all the profiles on the Sky Arts site plus speeded up videos of their paintings.

THIS WEEK I've embedded the speed up videos in the shortlist section.

There's a thread about art education running through the artists this week - see themes

I actually take a look at bios on the internet and hence my profiles reflect the extent to which artists have made an effort to tell us about themselves.

• Alex Perry-Adlam (Instagram) - He is a Painter, Ceramicist, Photographer, Printmaker and Head of Art at St. Catherine’s School, Surrey. He lives in Weybridge.
• Cameron Bennett  (Portrait Blog)). He's been has been painting and illustrating professionally since 1999 and his portfolio includes illustration and mural painting as well as portraiture. He lives in West Sussex and is also a secondary school art teacher.
• Harriet Brady (Instagram) - She is based in Sheffield. She is a TV Script Editor by day and an artist at night. This is her submission in a good light.
• Marina Renee-Cemmick (Instagram) - She is a self-employed artist. She grew up in Dorset and moved to Glasgow to study Painting at Glasgow school of Art (2018). She studied at The Royal Drawing School, London (2021) before receiving Arts Council Funding to research ways of combining theatre and drawing. In 2022 she was awarded a New English Arts Club scholarship, and completed a residency at Dunfries House in 2022 and Colstoun House in early 2023. 
• Shirley Johnson (Instagram) - A New Yorker with synesthesia who moved to the UK during the Pandemic and lives in the Scottish Borders. Graduated from the University of Cumbria with a BA in Fine Arts in 2022(?). Used copic markers and coloured pencils for her heat artwork.
• Brendan Megarity (Facebook) - an artist based in Belfast. He tutors art groups part time in drawing and painting. He studied graphic design and illustration at art college in Belfast and works in Indian Ink and Oils.
• Daniel Nelis (Instagram | Facebook) -  He is a educator and curator and award-winning visual artist. One of his paintings ‘All things Shining’ has just won the Tyrone Guthrie Director’s Award at the Royal Ulster Academy 142nd Annual Exhibition. Six months ago he won The RSA Guthrie Award and Medal at the 197th Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition. He was also awarded the RUA Outstanding Student Award as part of the UU Belfast School of Art Degree Show 2014. One to watch - but he'd do better if he built a website!
• Sara Reeve (Instagram) - a Brighton-based painter who predominantly focuses on portraiture and also works as a wedding officiant. She is also a Tutor at Draw Brighton as a life drawing session leader and runs evening classes in Painting Portraits in Oils. She is also a proud @artcanorg member. Previously she worked for 12 years as a wedding photographer - so I'm guessing she knows a few things about how to make people look good. 
• Yin Wang - a figurative and portrait artist born in China, and is now based in London. She is an art student currently studying for a BA Fine Art and Contemporary Portraiture at the Art Academy London. Prior to this she got a BA and a Masters in Fashion in China.  She says her colour choices and brushwork are influenced by Chinese traditional ink art, reflecting my cultural heritage.

Self Portrait Submissions

Size, content and calibre of submissions

Self Portrait Submissions 

I've analysed all the portraits - of artists looking at themselves - and allocated them to the various categories below.

The main thing I noticed about the submissions in this episode was they tended to be larger than those typically submitted - I had to add in a new "large medium" category and they tended to have more of the artist in them. There were also some interesting backgrounds. 

It resulted in the finalists lineup of submissions and heat paintings looking very different to the one in the last episode!

There's going to be at least one artist who will wish they'd spent more time on their submission.... 

FORMAT

• Portrait format x 7
• Landscape x 2

SIZE

• Large x 1
• Medium Large x 2
• Medium x 4
• Small x 2
• Tiny x 0

SCOPE

• full size or most of body (including hand) x 2
• upper torso including hand(s) x 4
• upper torso (no hands) x 1
• head, shoulder and hand(s) x 0
• head and shoulders (no hands) x 2
• head only x 0

I think I might have to change this categorisation to include a category for those who do upper torso including hands plus a complicated background!

Themes

Every episode I look for themes I can draw out related to what I'm observing. Here's the ones I spotted for this episode

BEWARE: If you're visiting London art exhibitions today

BEWARE: If you're planning on coming to London today to see an art exhibition, you need to be aware that:

1. There is no service on the following tube lines (due to TFL tube technology update) until at least 3pm this afternoon: 
• Circle; 
• District; 
• Hammersmith & City; 
• Jubilee; 
• Metropolitan and 
• lots of tube stations are closed for various reasons
• however the Northern, Central and Elizabeth lines remain open all day and City Thameslink is always a good option
• This is the TFL Route Planner
2. There is a Pro Palestinian March from Hyde Park to the American Embassy which passes right next to Victoria Station.
3. There is an Armistice (today and tomorrow) Exclusion Zone around the Cenotaph and other key sites in and around Whitehall
4. There are going to be a lot of controls around Trafalgar Square which is designated as part of the "dispersal area"
5. Lots of controls around the Lord Mayor's Parade in the City of London
6. There is a very significant increase in police controls with a view to avoiding disturbances and keeping the peace

I'm not a fan of the Mail but they do seem to have the best map of what's going on in Central London

I find it absolutely amazing that so much disruption can be caused to ordinary people / residents / visitors and there is no one website which provides clear, transparent information to those trying to visit and/or move around London. 

PS APOLOGIES to subscribers on Mailerlite - this post should have been mailed to you at 9am this morning - but for some reason Mailerlite decided not to do so - and didn't send it at 10am either. I find the way Mailerlite plays up on occasion is making me want to look at alternative options. Such a pity Feedburner disappeared - so much more reliable

Review: Episode 4 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10)

This is my review of the fourth broadcast episode Series 10 of the art competition known as Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year whuch was filmed in April 2023.

Episode 4: Portrait Artist of the Year 

(series 10 / broadcast 1 November 2023)

It follows the normal pattern of previous posts in this tenth series of this very popular art programme.

 

Episode 4: The Sitters

Two women and a man were the sitters for this episode. They were

• Sue Barker - a former tennis player, presenter and BBC legend - as one of the presenters of Wimbledon for 30 years. Her background reflected the Wimbledon colours.
• Alan Titchmarsh - He worked as a gardener for 40 years but also became a professional gardening journalist, writer, and a radio and television presenter.
• Philippa Perry (or more correctly Dr Lady Philippa Perry) - a psychotherapist and author who brought her mother's candle stick holder which was bequeathed to her. She hugely enjoyed gaving to sit still and not look at her emails! Interestingly there was absolutely no reference to her very famous artist husband who makes programmes about art for another Channel!

I'm noting that rather having curious background of spurious value in previous series, they're now trying to introduce colours which relate to the sitter - hence the Wimbledon colours background for Sue Barker.

Episode 4: The Artists

The artists in Episode 4 (of Series 10) broadcast on 1 November 2023 are listed below in alphabetical order of the surname.

You can see all the profiles on the Sky Arts site plus speeded up videos of their paintings

The artists in Episode 4 on the steps of Battersea Arts Centre after they finished

• Aaron Bevan-Bailey (Instagram) - born in Peckham south London, of Jamaican and Scottish heritage. His paintings reflect having to negotiate ever changing boundaries of race, environment, identity and anonymity. 
• Mark Chen - He has studied art in London, St. Petersburg and Taiwan. He's a former teacher who now lives in London. He painted a very romantic memento mori still life arranged about his person. I cant'd find a working website about him (see last episode's comments about things to fix before the broadcast)
• Kuangyi Liu (Instagram) - Her family comes from China and she is a pharmaceutical manager who currently lives in Cambridge.
• Lewis McKenzie (Facebook | Instagram) - a contemporary impressionist painter from Mull who is self-taught and based in Glasgow in Scotland. He was an Art School dropout who then trained as a biologist and worked for several years in a cancer lab as a neuro scientist before becoming a stay at home Dad and rekindling his life-long love of drawing and painting in the early 2010s. His work is in numerous private collections and has appeared in exhibitions by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The Royal Glasgow Institute and the Paisley Art Institute, as well as in several private art galleries in Glasgow and Edinburgh. He will be teaching at the Edinburgh Drawing School in 2024.
• David Newens - a portrait painter based in Milton Keynes who has been painting for 35 years. He studied part-time at the Glasgow Academy of Art. After a career in railway engineering management, strategic planning and property development, David now devotes the majority of his time to painting. He likes to paint on linen and has regularly and repeatedly exhibited at major art exhibitions in London (Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Institute of Oil painters and the Rpyal Academy Summer Exhibition). He has paintings in a number of private collections.
• Maev Kelly (Instagram) - an irish artist based in Dublin Ireland. She recently left teaching to become a full time artist. She has regularly exhibited at the Royal Uster Academy's Annual Exhibition. Her portraits mainly relate to chalk drawings of children - which are very good. This is her self portrait
• Davide Di Taranto (Instagram) - an Italian artist who comes from the region of Puglia in the South of Italy. He is a miniature portraitist and fresco restorer born in Italy, but has lived in the UK since 2010 and currently lives in Southampton. After graduating at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze (Academy of Fine Art) in Florence, he worked on restorations all over the world. His self-portrait can be seen up close - and was exhibited in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2018
• Annette Tranter (Instagram) - a Retired social services worker, based in Tunbridge Wells. Studied at Maidstone & Ravensbourne Art College. Painter in acrylics, watercolour & theatre scenery.
• Tilly Willis (Facebook | Instagram) - Selected to particiate in the PAOTY Heats in 2014 as well as 2023. Born into a family of artists and other creatives. After a Foundation Course at Somerset College of Art she studied Fine Art at The Byam Shaw in London.  Currently based near Wiveliscombe, Somerset. Travels to paint - to various unusual and exotic destinations

Self Portrait Submissions

Size, content and calibre of submissions

I've analysed all the portraits - of artists looking at themselves - and allocated them to the various categories below.

The main thing I noticed about the submissions in this episode was how much content was included in terms of context.  Most were a lot more than just a head.

Review: 60th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists

The 60th Anniversary Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists is excellent as always. 

I can HIGHLY RECOMMEND this exhibition which is open daily 10am to 5pm and continues until Saturday 11th November. It opened last Thursday at the Mall Galleries  and continues until next Saturday and has events in the gallery next week  on the 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th November from sketches and linocuts to monprinting and wood carving.

The exhibition has over 430 works in the catalogue plus unframed project work from the Wadden Sea residency.

There are original prints, paintings, drawings, sculptures and animations on show including a hundred works by non members. The SWLA Bursary Scheme awarded 5 places on the John Busby Seabird Drawing Course and work from those artists will be on display. SWLA website

Medium and smaller works, together with smaller sculpture and drawings
tend to be located within the three smaller Galleries in the North Gallery.

You can view 

• all the artwork in the catalogue in the Mall Galleries Website - Online Exhibition
• most of the artwork in the three albums on my Facebook Page
• West Gallery
• East Gallery
• North Gallery
• the catalogue on Issuu

Below I'm going to comment on 

• my overall impressions 
• artwork I liked (to be added tomorrow - my other half wants his dinner!)
• awards and prizes. 
• and finally, new members and associates.

The Annual Exhibition is called The Natural Eye. This neatly encapsulates two important aspects of the exhibition:

• firstly it's about very best of fine art inspired by the natural world
• secondly, it's also about artwork which has been drawn, painted, printed or sculpted only after encounters with wildlife i.e. it's NEVER ever copied from another artist's photograph of a wild animal - and the members of the Selection Panel can definitely tell!

The latter reason is why you typically won't see a lot of endangered animals or big cats which are much photographed and omnipresent in other wildlife art exhibitions.

It's predominantly about wildlife art seen within the UK and Europe - with some relating to expeditions to other countries. The exhibition is also very popular with international artists and diversity of location of the wildlife is often related to it being local within the country where the artist lives. 

Overall Impressions

Part of the West Gallery during the Private View

One of the things which always strikes me, every single time I walk into 'The Natural Eye Exhibition' run annually by the Society of Wildlife Artists, is the sheer diversity of style and media in terms of the artworks selected for the show.

Style and Colour

• It has a great deal of contemporary approaches to representational art (i.e. NOT hyperrealistic). This, I think, is linked in part to the fact that the SWLA very much encourages direct observation of wildlife and NOT copying from photographs. This is NOT an exhibition where an artwork looking like a photograph is seen as a compliment!
• While there's a fair amount of realism, this is balanced out by a more gestural approach to artmaking.
• Colour is accurate where realism is preferred - and palettes are pushed where the artwork is more stylised.

Types of Artwork

• there's always a lot of very good sculpture - and this exhibition is not different. In part this is because the SWLA has a number of excellent sculptors as members - who make and create in diverse materials from scap metal to cobalt serpentine

Kodiak Brown Bear (Indomitable - head study)
by Nick Bibby SWLA
Bronze (edition of 9) 
I was rather glad I took the photo from this angle - where he looks a sweetie!

• I always love looking at the fine art prints - and again the sheer diversity of approaches to making prints makes this an excellent show for anybody who loves printmaking (and they're having a number of events related to printmaking this coming week)

Media

• There's a lot of mixed media - mixing watercolour or gouache with pencils of various kinds seems to be a favourite
• Probably the most prevalent painting media is oil - but this in turn is painted on a variety of supports in a range of sizes.

There is also a LOT of red dots and sales seem to be going really well. However, given the quality of the artwork that's hardly surprising!

Artwork I liked

I liked:

• The Young Hare by Tianyin Wang ASWLA (see below) - This eas a really sensitive treatment of this animal and the shape and posture are perfect.
• Puffins over Coquet Island by Paul Henery SWLA  (see below) - This jumped off the wall at me - because of the flight of puffins coming towards me. Plus the fact it shows puffins in flight as opposed to waddling around on rocks. So impressive! Plus great landscape painting too.
• Harvest Mouse by Simon Turvey SWLA - A harvest mouse in typical travel mode from one stalk to the next - blending completely into the background. I really appreciate artists who go to the trouble of demonstrating both character and habitat of wildlife.

Harvest Mouse by Simon Turvey SWLA

Oil on board, 20 x 15 cm (32 x 27 cm framed)

• The collection of Drypoint Prints (see below) by Marco Brodde - a Danish
  Wildlifeartist and naturalist living and working  around the Wadden Sea area, in Denmark. The Wadden Sea project and the artwork by SWLA artists associated with it have been facilitated by Marco. A clear demonstration below of the benefit of making a collection of prints by one artist.

PS. I want to add more - but that will need to wait until later - Sunday dinner is calling!!

Awards and Prizes