Do you want to apply for The Great Pottery Throwdown? (series 8)

The latest series of the absolutely amazing "feel good" programme which is Great Pottery Throwdown" is drawing to an end - and the FINAL is tonight! 

This is the stage at which they always start the search for the participants for the next series......

Do you want to apply for The Great Pottery Throwdown?

If you are thinking you have the right knowledge and experience to enter, below is a very brief summary of "what you need to know". 

You can also find a longer summary HERE PLUS you MUST read 

• the Rules of Entry
• the Terms and Conditions and
• the Privacy Policy

This is where to start https://eu.castitreach.com/ag/love/gptd8/welcome.html

Who can apply

Only those who are:

• aged 18 or above on 25th February 2024.
• a resident of the UK (including Isle of Man and Channel Islands) 
• NOT a professional potter, meaning that
• you do not work full time as a potter, either at home or in a professional environment, 
• nor does your main source of income derive from commercial ceramics or pottery.
• NOT a Fellow or a Selected Member of the Craft Potters Association (CPA) 
• nor can you be judged, by the programme makers, to be at that level.
• NOT connected to the Love Productions (who make the programme) or Channel 4 (which broadcasts it) in any way
• can commit 100% to the filming days during a filming period between August and November 2024. (I get the impression it's weekends - not sure why)
• agreeable to background checks being performed to confirm who you are and what you have/have not done.
• able to respond accurately to all questions asked and do not withhold anything when asked
• able to keep all information about the application process for the programme and the programme itself strictly confidential.

This confidentiality applies and continues whether or not you are selected to take part in the Programme or remain actively involved in the Programme. You are not permitted to respond to any approach from the press or anyone else enquiring about the application or production process, anyone else involved in the process and/or anything about the Programme and will refer any such enquiries immediately to Love Productions.

What you need to do

Review: Landscape Artist of the Year 2024 - The £10,000 Sustainable Orkney Commission

This review of the £10,000 commission won by the winner of Landscape Artist of the Year is always a really odd review to write.  This post is about why - and includes:

• the £10,000 Commission
• the challenge of the Landscape Artist of the Year commission
• the Commission Programme
• the Commission Painting produced by the winner of Landscape Artist of the Year 2023.
• how you can see it at the Science Museum.

There are two main aspects to the review

• the programme
• the commission artwork

I know all I'm doing is looking to see whether, to me, it looks like an artwork worth £10,000 - and hence the client has not been diddled.

In this instance Monica very clearly demonstrated in her commission painting produced for the Final - of her neighbourhood where she lives - that she's clearly capable of a lot more than the small paintings she was producing in just 4 hours (for the heat, semi-finals and final).

The £10,000 Commission

First - a quick preliminary - about the Commission

The £10,000 Commission is, of course, the Prize for winning Landscape Artist of the Year 2024.  (See my blog post for my review of the Final - Monica Popham wins Landscape Artist of the Year 2024)

The Client for the Commission is the Science Museum.

The Science Museum in Exhibition Road in South Kensington.

The 2024 Landscape Artist of the Year prize was a commission by the Science Museum Group to capture the story of Orkney's central role in the UK's transition to low-carbon, renewable energy.

Does the client get the artwork irrespective of what sort of artwork the winning artist turns out? I thought there must be something in the rules somewhere which indicates "best efforts" etc. But instead I found this

If the Winner rejects the Winner’s Prize or otherwise fails to carry out the creation of the Winner’s Prize Artwork on such dates and times and locations required by the Producer, then the Producer reserves the right to take the Winner’s Prize away from the Winner and the Producer shall be entitled to select another Winner.  

The Challenge of the Commission

I've always thought that the commission is typically a prestigious view for a prestigious client. In other words it:

• brings a very worthwhile prize pot 
• alongside something which is a difficult challenge to confront and address. 

Plus you might get to go to an interesting place.

PAOTY 2024: Heat Tickets sold out / All successful artists notified

All artists selected for the heats of Portrait Artist of the Year 2024 have now been told.

Similarly, all those applying for tickets to watch them in the heats at Battersea Arts Centre should, by now, know whether or not they have tickets. 

Tickets for the Heats

I'm afraid I was rather slow off the mark in indicating that tickets for watching the heats of Portrait Artist of the Year at Battersea Arts Centre have ALL SOLD OUT. 

The change this year (I think) was that people could apply for four tickets at a time - which I guarantee will mean ticket touts will have have got some of them.... Watch out for them being sold for premium prices! Or refused at the door.....

It's possible there will be returns - in which case this is the link to bookmark and keep a eye on https://www.eventbrite.com/o/storyvault-films-ltd-77588482973

If you secure a ticket and can no longer attend, out of courtesy to others who have missed out, please return your ticket immediately via Eventbrite.

Tickets were available for morning and pm sessions. So no scope to be there all day unless you got a ticket for each session.

For the record, the dates of the Heats etc are:

• Tuesday 26th March 2024
• Wednesday 27th March 2024
• Thursday 28th March 2024
• Tuesday 2nd April 2024
• Wednesday 3rd April 2024
• Thursday 4th April 2024
• Friday 5th April 2024
• Saturday 6th April 2024

This is 

• either the six heats, the semi finals and the Celebrity Artist version - with the Final reverting to the National Portrait Gallery
• or the six heats, semi finals and the Final

Artists who didn't get selected

Here's an extract from the letter of rejection

What I can tell you is I think this might be the first time they've not extended the deadline, while trying to find more better artists to participate.

Which rather suggests the competition for places is hotting up! This may also mean the standard of participant in the next series - to air this Autumn - might be rather better than in previous years. We can but hope!

If you put "portrait artist of the year" into the search engines of Facebook or Instagram, you will see a lot of pics by all those who did not get a place in a pod.

While most are pretty predictable as rejections go, I've seen some very good ones rejected!

What does it take to get in to Portrait Artist of the Year

To those who got the "Thanks but no thanks" letter MY RECOMMENDATIONS would be:

• do what they ask - it's supposed to be a self portrait!
• do NOT use gimmicks - you've got to have been doing this for a long time to come up with one which works. However, unusual perspectives are a welcome change from the (very) standard head and shoulders.
• try to paint at least some of it from life and NOT all of it (very obviously) from photos - photorealistic is NOT what this competition is about. You've got 4 hours to complete your artwork in the heat!
• paint a large or large medium sized painting which includes at least all the upper torso - this gives you more chance to impress - unless you are a master of miniature painting!
• paint one and preferably two hands - this is when you can use photos! I was counting last year and most had at least one hand included
• demonstrate mastery of your chosen media - because if you're not very good, it's very unlikely you'll be chosen
• demonstrate mastery of your ability to eyeball a model and record accurately the shape and features of their head and posture and clothing.
• read all my past reviews - which provides LOTS of critical observations, tips and techniques - which you can find on my Art on Television Page. You need to scroll down to find them all back to 2018.

Postscript: For those wondering where my review of the Landscape Artist of the Year Commission painting is, 

• I've decided to go to the Science Museum tomorrow to see it in the gallery it was commissioned for.....
• The blog post is very nearly finished, so likely to be published later on tomorrow!

Review of RBA Annual Exhibition 2024

I visited the Annual Exhibition 2024 of the Royal Society of British Artists last week at the Private View - which became increasingly packed with people as the afternoon became evening. I'll be trying to see if I can go back before it ends.

It's open every day until Saturday 9th March (10am - 5pm) at the Mall Galleries in London.

I LOVE the Catalogue cover. It illustrates perfectly the diverse nature of the artwork in this exhibition It's also much fairer to all those artists who work hard to produce excellent artwork to have so many gracing the front cover. Plus it has a very contemporary look!

Catalogue of the RBA Annual Exhibition 2024

There are 495 artworks in the show - which I think is slightly more than usual. You can view and read the catalogue online. The artwork covers

• paintings and drawings in various different media
• fine art prints - which are generally of a very high quality and look amazing when hung together on the Print Wall in the East Gallery
• sculpture which is very diverse in terms of theme, media and construction. I am emphatically not a fan of 

Examples of "below the eyeline" sculpture in this shot
two on very short plinths 
and one sat on the floor - which is very easy to miss entirely

Note to Mall Galleries: Get a LOT more decent sized plinths so we see less sculpture on the floor or very near the floor.

You can also explore the exhibition online and see ALL the artwork in the show as follows:

• on the Mall Galleries website - where you can list artworks in
• alphabetical order by artist's surname (or reverse alpha order) - this is the way to view if you want to see all the artworks by one artist in the show.
• by price - ascending or descending
• my photos of the show - which I've placed in Facebook Albums as follows
• East Gallery
• West Gallery
• North Gallery

However I was very disappointed at the performance of the website - I got absolutely zero results when entering:

• the title of a works 
• the name of an artist from the open entry, it came 

That's just NOT good enough! It also does not promote sales by those who know the artists in the open entry!

Note to Mall Galleries: make sure people can search for titles of ALL the artwork and ALL exhibiting artists on the new website!!!

Plus Mick Davies, President of the Royal Society of British Artists introduces the artwork in the exhibition in the video below. (The "background" music is a bit too strident for my liking!)

I'm going to adopt the same approach I used in 2021 for the first exhibition which reopened the Mall Galleries. The focus is on artwork I liked. It's one which works well with such a diverse set of paintings, drawings, fine art prints and sculpture about diverse subject matter.

Artwork I liked

These aren't going to be the artworks judged best in show. For those you need to read
Award Winners | RBA Annual Exhibition 2024

These are the artworks which appealed to me.

Best Portrait

For me this portrait by Aelfred Hillman had it all. I loved this painting - which demonstrates a great eye for design, brilliant painting of skin tones and an equally wonderful treatment of the natural landscape in terms of both water and vegetation.VERY impressive.

It won the Ronald Morgan Memorial Award - which had not been announced when I was there - and I'm not surprised! Last year he was one of the "Rising Stars" of the RBA and was shortlisted for the RBA Rome Scholarship.

This painting is more sophisticated than the painting at the exhibition last year.

Monica Popham wins Landscape Artist of the Year 2024

This review is about the Final of Series 9 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2024 at Covent Garden in London - which was won by Monica Popham.

Landscape Artist of the Year 2024:
Commissions and Final Paintings by the three finalists

Below you can read about

• Artists in the Final
• Venue: Where/when the Final was held - which was a bit different
• Observations about the subject
• Themes and Tips
• Decision Time:
• The Commissions
• The Final Paintings
• The final decision
• The Winner

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 

I'll spend a little bit more time focusing on Monica since she won the series.

You can find all my reviews of previous programmes in this series at the end of this post. Plus how to apply for the next series which will be filmed this summer in six heats in three places around the UK.

The Final

The Artists in the Final

(Left to right) Kristina Chen, Denise Fisk and Monica Popham

The three artists in the Final were - in order of the heats they won:

• HEAT 1: Kristina Chan (Instagram) is a Canadian mixed media artist and printmaker who has studied in London. She uses narrative and specific facts about a site to create a sense of place. She is very she is very used to doing commissions for prestigious clients and public art installations - but not a lot that resembles painting. Her work is in the collections of V&A Museum (2016, 2017), Ingram Collection of British and Modern Art (2020) and Royal Collection, Clarence House (2018), Royal College of Art (2018, 2016)
• HEAT 5: Monica Popham (Facebook | Instagram | tiktok) is a digital media manager and landscape artist and illustrator from Gibraltar. Currently based in Guildford. She studied Fine Art at Loughborough University and graduated in 2021. The main body of her work focuses on the tangible quality of sunlight, and how it interacts with the architecture in Gibraltar and other Mediterranean towns. She has worked on a variety of projects such as large scale murals, book covers and private commissions. 
• HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READ This is her LAOTY article about applying for LAOTY and then appearing in the series. in which you can see a lot more paintings of Liverpool which she produced while waiting to know which location her pod would be in.
• HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READ Her LAOTY article about her participation in the semi finals is The Semi-Finals of Landscape Artist of the Year: Bucklers Hard - which reveals how different the semi-final is to the Heats.

I went into the semi-finals wanting to prove that I could do more than extremely cropped landscapes and paint a scene outside of my comfort zone. At this point in the competition, we have no idea the location of the commission but I knew if I wanted to progress to the finals I had to prove that I had more flexibility as an artist.

• HEAT 6: Denise Fisk (Instagram) - a landscape oil painter from East Sussex. Denise has BA (Hons) Degree in textile design which led to a career as a colourist and designer in the furnishing industry. She now exhibits in art fairs in South East England. She particularly likes autumn colours.

Location and Timing

The rear of the Royal Opera House and the Covent Garden Piazza
The Terrace is the top floor on the left - with the open gaps

The venue for the Final of Landscape Artist of the Year 2024 was the Piazza Terrace of the Royal Opera House - where I've been and sketched myself. (It's actually a restaurant - and while not cheap it's also not expensive! Which you need to know if you want to try it out for yourself.)

So NOT in the Pods for the first time in LAOTY History! However still undercover - with protective covers also for the nice wood floor!