Review: Episode 4 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 - Studley Royal Water Garden

Episode 4 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 was held at Studley Royal Water Garden - a Georgian landscaped water garden situated in the wild and wooded valley of the river Skell in Yorkshire.

It was the third heat to be both wet and a grey day which took some time to improve - which is somewhat ironic given we had such a hot and very sunny summer this year.

It also threw up an interesting conclusion - which is discussed below. I'd love to hear your views too... (which you can add on my Facebook Page)

Wildcard artists walking over the lake to their location for painting

The Location: Studley Royal Water Garden

Studley Royal Water Garden from way up high above it
The bridge that the wildcard artists (above) are walking over is at the end of the straight canal.

The problem with the Water Garden is it looks great from above, but when viewed from the lakeside - which is where the pods were - it mainly just looks like flat water. (I know I've been there and was greatly underwhelmed by it - until I got some way above it!)

The View FROM ABOVE the Pods
Look at how flat it is - and how much flatter it will be for the artists

The Artists

This week there were five women and three men - and seven painters and one printmaker.

Six professional artists

I'm never very sure why the artists get ordered on-screen. I prefer to be neutral and list them in alphabetical order by surname - links to their websites are embedded in their names and other social media accounts are also listed if self-evident in Google.

It's always interesting when doing these profiles to see which of the professional artists are media and event savvy and have found ways to raise their profile off the back of their television appearance.

• Bridget Collin (Facebook Page | Twitter | Instagram) - Lives and works in Manchester. Graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University, School of Art in 2014 with a 1st class honours in Illustration with Animation. On graduation, she was awarded the Fine Art MAFA award. This was her submission painting. 
• Greg Mason (Facebook Page | Twitter | Instagram) - graduated from St Martin’s School of Art in London and is a South West Academician. He lives and paints in Devon and focuses on traditional figurative art subject matter - portraiture, the nude and landscape. He used to work as an art director working for some of the UK’s top fashion clients. This is an interview he did when he was a semi-finalist in Portrait Artist of the Year in 2017.  He is also the CASS Art Professional Ambassador for Oil Painting.

Tomorrow (Tuesday 6th) on Sky Arts at 8.00pm... So excited to see my landscape heat air. Shot on location in North Yorkshire at Studley Royal Water Garden with @JDBakewell @StephenMangan pic.twitter.com/hXXvFwyky2

— Greg Mason (@gregorymasonart) November 5, 2018

• Dorothy Morris (Facebook Page | Twitter) - Lives and works in Carmarthenshire in South West Wales. She has a degree in Fashion and Textiles, an MA in Fine Art and is a part time Art Teacher (1979 to present). She works in a wide range of materials including textiles, ceramics, mixed media and more traditional mediums such as watercolours and acrylics. She also runs the Greenspace Gallery and Tea Shop in Carmarthen - which also supports charitable endeavours.
• Alexander Pemberton - Graduated from Chelsea School of Art in 1981. Paints from life mainly by the Thames in Greenwich and also in the streets and areas of London he has lived – previously the East End, now Greenwich and Deptford. He's had solo exhibitions of his landscape paintings at two reputable galleries Abbott & Holder and Chappel Galleries. This is the painting he submitted. Given his experience of painting from life I was somewhat puzzled by his apparent lack of confidence on the programme - and use of a 'prop' which is obviously not the way he normally paints landscapes.

Anthony Eyton has called Pemberton’s paintings ‘deliberate and distilled’.

• Jessica Rose (Facebook Page | Twitter | Instagram) - a painter printmaker who lives in Ealing and paints in watercolours and oils and makes hand-pulled original prints using techniques including linocut and etching. She also runs classes in Hanwell several times a week teaching drawing and painting skills. 
• Lucy Smallbone (Facebook) - Specialises in modern landscape painting and prefers to tends to work with oil paint on board as it makes for more interesting marks. She did her foundation diploma in Art and Design at Falmouth; graduated with a 1st class degree in painting from City and Guilds of London Art School and then did a Master Degree at the Slade School of Art where she won several awards for her work, including the 2015 Duveen Travel Prize - which she used to travel to Chernobyl and paint the landscape there. For those interested in learning about oil painting, She's currently delivering a course on Introduction to Oil Painting this term at the Art Acdemy. She's also got two solo art exhibitions
• Edgelands at Fiumano Clase (25 October - 15 December 2018)
• an exhibition at HSBC, London, December 2018 

We loved hearing Lucy Smallbone in conversation with Francesca Fiumano and @jobaringart at @FiumanoClase this morning. The talk included an in-depth chat about 'Edgelands' (currently on show), Smallbone's artistic practices & how the gallery is championing emerging art talent pic.twitter.com/8y1bG0bChq

— The National Student (@NationalStudent) 7 November 2018

Two amateur artists

Oddly after a week when we had three amateur artists with well developed websites, this week we have two artists who I can't find online.

• Giles Woodward - a full time Art Teacher in a state secondary school who is also an urban landscape painter who sells his work. This is his blog post about his submission and experience
• Anne Goh - not sure if I've got the spelling correct. 

Commentary

It was good to see that at least two of the artists (Lucy and Jessica) used a sketchbook to work out potential subjects. I'm always surprised not to see more of the artists use sketchbooks to work out cropping, tonal patterns, colour palettes etc.  I loved the look of Lucy' sketchbook - and she had followed the advice from last week - to research the area and look at what it looks like via online pics in advance of the Heat.

Much of my commentary comes below in relation to the themes and the outcome of the heat.

Learning Points | Themes for this episode

As with all my other blog posts, I tried to detect some learning points within this episode

Be different

I've got people who participated this year corresponding with me behind the scenes. One of the more recent comments was to make sure you do something different for the digital submission - so you stand out and aren't one of the green English landscapes

I did hear Kathleen say that they liked it when urban landscapes are submitted - as landscape painting is not just about the rural perpective.

The submission by Bridget also had a slightly fantasy aspect to it - it certainly looked very different to a conventional landscape - although had recognisable features within it. It reminded me of Peter Doig.

The colours used by Lucy were vivid and unreal - which fits with her style of landscape painting and also of the place she was painting - and they certainly made her painting stand out and get noticed.

Get out of your pod!

One of the things I've not seen a lot of before is artists getting out of their pod and going off looking for a more inspiring view / perspective.

However this time they did!

I'm not in the least bit surprised, given the perspective on a very flat lake, that some of the artists decided to get out of the pod and walk some distance to find something more interesting. Some took a camera / cameraphone with them and at least one (Jessica) took a sketchbook.

This inevitably means that the artists who took phones are then working from digital images which also means they don't have to cope with the changing light, weather etc etc etc.

Speaking personally I'm somebody who simply could not do a competition like this because I have to work on something that 'speaks' to me. That's not to say you can't find an angle - but if it doesn't grab you from the off, the usual result is what feels like a second-rate drawing/painting.

What to do when you don't know what to do

We had some artists with major attacks of nerves in this episode resulting in a lot of nervous activity at one extreme and what seemed to be a lot of pondering at the other.  That's nothing to be ashamed of - in fact, it's entirely normal. The issue is how do you then work your way through the nerves to achieve an outcome that is positive. Essentially the same issue that actors face before going on stage or in front of a camera - or a sportsmen faces before a major challenge where they need to perform NOW!

One of the effects of being nervous is you can lose confidence in your decision-making abilities and don't know what to do for the best.

Techniques used by the artists in this heat to confront their nerves and enable them to paint included:

• Keep ladling the paint on to the support. I'm not quite sure why Bridget's painting looks nothing like the ones on her website, but I'm prepared to speculate that "keep on painting" was at the back of her mind in terms of how to meet the challenge of painting in front of a camera. (See last week - re 'Knowing when to stop')
• Give yourself something you can paint. Sometimes you need to limber up and start painting by painting something completely different. Portrait painters are well known for producing small still life studies.  Was this why Alexander decided to introduce a vase into the landscape? I could find no rhyme nor reason behind it.
• Produce more than one painting.  It's always wise to turn up for an event like this with a choice of supports given you've no idea what the subject is going to be. It's also a good idea to try out different options if nothing grabs you to start with - and then decide which you think will work best. This is the strategy that Lucy seemed to adopt. However if you keep going like this all the way through the heat, you can find yourself with very limited options as you approach the deadline.....

Visual "trickery"

We had three who took an unconventional approach to a landscape

• Greg Mason created two paintings of alternative perspectives on the garden - one of a completely symmetrical part of the garden and the other looking out from the temple at the garden. I thought it was rather odd but very effective. I just wished it was a little less 'colour neutral'
• Alexander Pemberton put a rectangular vase on the table. I couldn't work out why. Until I saw his painting at the end and realised it looked like his other paintings which included tower blocks
• Lucy Smallbone ignored all the grandeur and artifice of the Georgian watergarden and after a number of false starts, she cropped one of the statues to essentially a small bust view and added green into the background. It took nerve to think this might be OK as a landscape.

When is a landscape a landscape?

I was intrigued by what Sjy Arts and/or the Judges think a landscape is. 
Is it anything which isn't a portrait, still life, fantasy art, etc etc?

• One of the submissions is, as one of the Judges pointed out, strictly speaking an Interior. 
• One of the Heat Paintings I would describe as a 'still life'. 
• Another of the artists actively introduced a still life object into his painting.

After last week's heat, I came away thinking a landscape was something that gave a proper sense of place - as experienced by the artist - but that it actually needed to include something we recognised as a landscape - and that place.

So what's the definition of a landscape - and do the guidelines need to be a bit clearer on this topic?

According to the Tate

Landscape is one of the principal types or genres of subject in Western art

According to the Encylopedia Britiannica

Landscape painting, the depiction of natural scenery in art. Landscape paintings may capture mountains, valleys, bodies of water, fields, forests, and coasts and may or may not include man-made structures as well as people. Although paintings from the earliest ancient and Classical periods included natural scenic elements, landscape as an independent genre did not emerge in the Western tradition until the Renaissance in the 16th century. In the Eastern tradition, the genre can be traced back to 4th-century-CE China.

According to Visual Arts Cork (who I really rate) - on their Landscape Painting (1500-present) page they have this....

DefinitionIn fine art, the term 'landscape' - from the Dutch word 'landschap', a patch of ground - describes any painting or drawing whose "principal subject" is the portrayal of a scenic view. Such scenery encompasses meadows, hills, mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, forests, coastal views and seascapes. The view depicted may be that of a real place, or it may be an imaginary or idealized scene.

So what's the Sky Arts definition of Landscape? 

The Results

This was the line up of Heat Paintings....

Paintings from the Heat
By: (left to right) Lucy Smallbone, Greg Mason, Jessica Rose, Bridget Collins, Giles Woodward, Anne Goh, Alexander Pemberton andDorothy Morris

.....and this was the line up of artists participating in the Heat at Studley Royal for Episode 4.

(Left to right) Lucy Smallbone, Bridget Collins, Giles Woodward, Greg Mason, Alexander Pemberton, Jessica Rose, Dorothy Morris and Anne Goh

Episode 4 Shortlist

Shortlisted artists' paintings - submission and the Studley Royal Painting

The artists shortlisted were (in the order they were called)

• Lucy Smallbone
• Greg Mason
• Anne Goh

The Shortlisted Artists
(left to right: Anne Goh, Greg Mason and Lucy Smallbone)

The Shortlisted artists with their heat painting

Here are the line-ups of submission painting plus plein air painting for each artist - and below are the same paintings in the order they are lined up in the above photo.

I'm going to quote what they said re. the artists and their paintings to try and explain their eventual selection of who would go forward to the semi-final.

Submission and Heat Painting by Lucy Smallbone

The Judges said:

• Tai liked "Lucy's solution to this vast landscape" He loved the painting. (Maybe because he loves that sort of painting?)
• Kathleen said "She's identified a mood within this landscape by revealing this sculpture, this torso" and also commented that she's walked through this landscape - even if that's in her mind - and this is what she has pulled out.
• Kate considered it was her unique take on the place - due have a very expressive response to the place. (Does that actually say anything? I think one could actually say that about ANY of the Pod or wildcard artists!)

I think Lucy is a good artist - and I make that judgement having looked at her website. However I'm not sure her painting on the day is a landscape painting.

However I noted how well the two paintings looked next to one another given the very striking use of orange.

While I understand that this is a painting produced by an artist experiencing a place, for me it suggests rather more that it fits with her Chernobyl paintings. I was also puzzled as to why an artist who can very clearly paint landscapes couldn't on this occasion.

More comments below.....

Submission and Heat Paintings by Anne Goh

The Judges said:

• Kate felt her painting was very traditional and very well conceived. She liked the bronze coming through from the background and also the slightly less finished feel of the heat painting
• Tai commented that she had a great sense of the mood of the place i.e. what it would look like after everybody had left. He thought he understanding of how to create an atmosphere through light was extraordinary.

Submission and Heat Paintings by Greg Mason

The Judges said:

• (Kathleen) I totally applaud Greg's ambition today. He's very cleverly fooled me. I wasn't expecting him to peel away something (the tape) at the end to reveal the two paintings. She also made a very astute comment that his paintings are all about moving from one place into another
• Kate liked the fact the painting on the left goes to nothing at end of the perspective - in contrast to the painting on the right which focuses in on a sculpture at the equivalent place
• Tai said It feels very intelligent and intellectual and I like that about it.

For me these two paintings were by far the most thoughtful of the shortlisted artists.

For me there was no doubt he was my Heat Winner - however I had a sneaking suspicion that Lucy might just edge him because her way of painting is liked more by Tai and Kate.

This was how Greg painted his two paintings

Episode 4 Winners - Overall and Wildcard

In a Landscape Artist of the Year, the Judges opted to choose two artists.

The winners of Episode 3 were Lucy Smallbone AND Greg Mason.

Bottom line, IMO the painting produced in the heat by Lucy Smallbone, while very accomplished is NOT a landscape painting. It tells me nothing about the place. I believe that

• the Judges liked it because it was a good piece of contemporary painting - period.  
• the reason they ALSO chose a second artist who had produced two much more conventional landscape paintings "in one" was to avoid being howled down by the public (and the sponsors?)! (i.e. they wanted to put her through and had to come up with a rationale!)

Regular readers will know I am no fan of Judges who change the rules to suit their personal tastes - or of competitions that fail to provide adequate guidelines and leave it all up to the Judges. It's all just down to personal taste then.

I think Greg was a worthy winner and that Lucy has a great future in front of her.

The Twitterati were not impressed......

The Wildcard Winner

Amanda Bradbury being told she's won the Wildcard Entry

The Wildcard winner was Amanda Bradbury (Facebook Page) who is a Wildlife Artist and Illustrator based in Gloucestershire. Her wildlife paintings contain illustrative landscapes of natural habitats.

This is the painting which included a strong sense of the rhythm of the weather and the place.

As Amanda commented, they'd been drenched and battered and some canvases ended up in the lake!  One has to admire what the wildcard artists come up without the benefit of the shelter of a pod!

The Wildcard winner - painted from the other end of the lake.

Next week

Next week, the team are back in Broadstairs in Kent and the pods are turned 90 degrees to give different views of the beach and town.

Subscribe by email

Subscribe and receive every post from Making A Mark via email. 

Your subscription is only activated after you verify the link in the email you will receive

More about Landscape Artist of the Year on MAM

2018

• Review: Episode 3 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 at Loch Fyne (Loch Fyne, Scotland)
• Review: Episode 2 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 (Viking Bay, Kent) 
• Review: Episode 1 of Landscape Artist of the Year (Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire)
• Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 starts tonight (October 2018)
• Heats of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 (June 2018)
• Frank has gone and Sky still wants more Landscape Artists (April 2018)

Previous Years

• Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2017 - call for entries (February 2017)
• Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2016 - Heat Winners & Finalists(December
• 2016)
• Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2015 - Call for entries (February 2015)

London Art Galleries and Museums: Membership Scheme costs compared

The cost of seeing an art exhibition in London is not cheap. Enrolling for one or more Friends / Membership schemes can seem like a sensible thing to do if you like viewing art. 

Certainly, I planned on visiting art exhibitions a lot when I retired and one of the very first things I did when I retired was to take out memberships at a number of the national art galleries and museums in London - and I've never regretted it - until now.

The reality is Annual Membership fees for Art Galleries and Museums keep on rising 

• by more than the cost of inflation (as government funding has been cut) over the course of the recession 
• some rises have also been pretty steep and less than transparent for those addressing some pretty ambitious development plans!  I use direct debits for my memberships and got a major shock when I realised how much I was now paying for my RA membership!

Given memberships are often gifted at Christmas I thought I'd do a review of:

• what each membership scheme costs
• my conclusions as to which is best for what
• the best value art membership scheme of all - and it's maybe a scheme you're not aware of

Some of you who have enrolled and, like me, have not looked at your direct debits lately may get a SHOCK!

National Gallery from Trafalgar Square on a late winter afternoon

Art Galleries and Museums - The cost of membership

Membership fees have changed and come museums have got very cute at working out what makes a difference to people eg

• some are very family friendly with free access for more than two kids (see Tate and V&A)
• some are kind to young people eg V&A
• some are well suited to those who like taking their friends and guests to an exhibition
• some do decent discounts on books and items in shops eg NPG and Tate
• some do decent discounts on restaurant meals and throw in great views eg National Portrait Gallery (one of the main reasons members go to to the NPG!)

Art Gallery / Museum	2017/18 Million visitors	Benefits Summary	Annual / Life Membership
British Museum	5.8	Free unlimited entry to exhibitions, special events, members room & other benefits	£64 single £86 joint £44 under 26 single
Dulwich Picture Gallery	?	Free unlimited entry to all visiting exhibitions and Collection + Friends' Private Views; Friends Rates on tickets for lectures, art classes, talks & events; InView magazine (3 editions per year); Friends monthly e-news; opportunity to get involved with the work of the	£43 single £61 single + family guest £25 under 30 single Year 1 payment covers 14 months for direct debit
National Gallery	5.0	Free unlimited entry to exhibitions + private views of exhibitions, exclusive Members' events including concerts, cinema screenings, talks, and more	£68 single £94 joint (household) £107 single + guest Nothing for young people
National Portrait Gallery	1.7	Free unlimited entry to ticketed exhibitions + members' only private views and previews; 10% discount in Gallery Shop, Portrait Café & Restaurant	£55 single (direct debit) £80 single + guest £90 joint (same address)
Royal Academy of Arts	1.1 (2016/17)	Free entry to exhibitions for you and a family guest (but you have to book first for some) + Previews to exhibitions before they open to the public; Priority booking to all RA events. Private views and exclusive Friends events; all-day access to the Keeper's House; RA Magazine and a weekly email newsletter; 10% discount in the RA shop (but not on everything)	£125 standard friend + guest £60 16-25 single + family guest [Note: NO SINGLE MEMBERSHIP]
Tate Group (Tates Modern, Britain,  St Ives and Liverpool)	8.2	Free unlimited entry to all four Tate galleries and any exhibitions, plus member talks, events and viewing hours. Unlimited free exhibition entry at all four art galleries (No need to book, just turn up) +; Exclusive Members Hours away from the crowds; Access to Members Room; 10% Tate Shop discount. Free admission for up to six children	£76 single (direct debit) £120 single + guest (direct debit) Year 1 (Direct Debit) = 15 months for the price of 12
Victoria & Albert Museum	4.4	Free unlimited entry to all exhibitions (no need to book) +  exclusive previews; priority booking for evening talks and access to specially curated Members-only events; Members' Room; V&A Magazine (three times a year); quarterly newsletter & monthly emails; free access to exhibitions for up to four children (under-18)	£70 single £95 single + guest £145 joint + 2 guests £45 single under 25
Wallace Collection	0.5	Free unlimited entry to all exhibitions + exclusive events (Lectures / tours / exhibition previews); Concession rates on public events including concerts, Friday Lates, lectures and art classes; 10% discount in our Museum Shop and The Wallace Restaurant*	£45 single £65 joint £30 Single under 25

1. Most of the above also do Joint Membership schemes + guests but I've not included them above as I think the cost will have limited appeal to all but the most sociable and well endowed.
2. The Courtauld Gallery closed in September 2018 for at leas two years for renovations. Meanwhile you can see the Impressionist Paintings from the Coutauld at the National Gallery.

Some of the world famous Courtauld Impressionist paintings at the National Gallery

My conclusions

• For those who like blockbuster exhibitions - consider 
• the British Museum (if you like historical / cultural aspects of art)
• the National Gallery (for once in a lifetime exhibitions of art loaned by other national museums)
• the V&A (if you like design, fashion and/or contemporary culture)
• the RA - for "once in a while" blockbusters. (They certainly don't have them every year.)
• If you have a young family the Tate and V&A are your best bet - both provide free admission for children under 18 (6 and 4 respectively). Others provide free access for under 12s and discounted prices for 13-18 year olds.
• If you want to see exhibitions when they are less crowded, choose less busy hours of the day or extended hours which are also open to the public. 
• Members previews at some galleries are if anything MORE crowded than when the public are in!  
• Only galleries who are making a very serious effort to make the galleries less crowded for viewing by members should get your money.
• If you enjoy somewhere to relax after seeing an exhibition, consider the Tate. Best view in London (across the Thames) and some comfy seats at Tate Modern. HOWEVER
• most galleries forget that a lot of their membership patrons are pensioners who like to have decent sit down at some point during the day, especially after seeing an exhibition. 
• The leather Chesterfields in the Friend Room at the RA (sadly now gone for good) kept me as a member for a very long time!  Hard seats have very little appeal....
• If you want a stunning view - and a discount - with your lunch, consider the National Portrait Gallery Restaurant - which looks out at Parliament and the London Eye over the top of the National Galley. The 10% discount is a bonus!
• Think very long and hard before signing up for a Royal Academy of Arts Friends subscription
• there is NO SINGLE MEMBERSHIP for those of us who like visiting exhibitions on our own -and/or not having to pay through the nose for the odd times we take a friend as well.
• as a result, it's TWICE the cost of most of memberships (ie equivalent to Friend + Guest subscriptions elsewhere) - and creeps up each year without being signalled loudly. 
• Plus having a membership card no longer means free access whenever you want (i.e. the main reason I have a card) as you still need to book entry for members previews and some popular exhibitions - which means less spontaneity and you don't eliminate booking!). 
• It's much much cheaper to just book for the exhibitions you want to see and pay for tickets online.

The Best Value Membership Scheme - by a long way!

Episode 3 LAOTY: The Winner's Perspective - and Story

Following on from Review: Episode 3 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 at Loch Fyne I had a nice email chat with the winner Brian Ramsay who read my piece.

Brian Ramsay sketching at Loch Fyne
at the beginning of Episode 3 of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year

He's done a great blog post Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 Episode #3 Loch Fyne. 

This is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for all those thinking of applying for next year's competition. It covers:

• what the experience is like from the perspective of a pod artist
• how he prepared for his location - once he knew where he would be - IN ADVANCE

My preparation was to watch all the previous LAOTY series to focus on what the judges were looking for, a lot of en plein air drawing & painting and a lot of Google imaging of Inveraray & Loch Fyne.

Loch Fyne practice piece by Brian Ramsay
- a visual "limbering up" executed in advance of the Heat(now listed for sale under Current Work on his website)

• how long you are away from home
• how long the day is in reality (a 5.30am start for Brian)

From start to finish in painting terms is about six hours with breaks from filming for camera pieces and interviews.

• how much got left out 
• and his sketchbook start - which is very close to his final piece but wasn't really seen in the programme apart from a tiny clip of Brian sketching.

His preliminary pen and ink and watercolour sketch in his sketchbook.

What's not in the blog post - but I've now heard from a few people - is that although it looks on film like everybody is working for the whole four hours, there are always some who know when to stop - and do in fact stop early.  Brian was one of them.

In other words, everything that is filmed happened - but after editing it's not necessarily in the order it happened - and you don't always see what is "not happening" if that makes sense!

Brian had also noticed - as I had - that some pod artists don't get a lot of coverage in the programme and very often they're the ones who don't make it to the final three. 

Given the chances of making it to the final and winning the competition are fairly remote, I absolutely endorse Brian's aim of making it to the shortlist as a really good way of raising your profile and sharing your art online/onscreen both at the time of the programme - and when everybody watches the reruns online!

Materials

Brian Ramsay used:

Sketch

• a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook 
• "my trusty Kaweco fountain pen" (I've asked him which version and will report back!) - but does not use waterproof ink

I have several Kaweco Sports in various barrel colours. They're small, but they fit in my pocket easily and I use them posted. I use the Kaweco ink in the pens, the come in a range of fabulous colours. I'm reluctant to mess about with waterfast inks in the pens in case they block up. Besides I like the effect of water on the soluble inks, different colours react differently to the water. I have the obligatory Lamy Safaris, but I like the cachet of using a pen which is a lot less prolific.

• Tai talked about Brian using finelines so I asked him about those too

I can't step away from my Uni Pin drawing fineliners. I go through 0.05 amd 0.1 mm pens very quickly, but I don't throw them away until they cannot make any marks at all. I also use 0.5 and 0.8mm pens for emphasis. 

Final Painting

• Arches Watercolour paper for the final piece. He normally uses Saunders Waterford 140lb rough paper, but for Inveraray he used Arches 300lb 

rough, beautiful paper, no buckling and made my painting better than I think I am. Eyewateringly expensive though.

• his sky was painted with a mix of Payne’s Grey and Indigo and a one inch brush
• I asked him which watercolour paints he prefers

I use Winsor and Newton Artist Quality pans and tubes and I'm trying out some Daniel Smith colours. My absolute favourite paints at the moment are my Kremer Pigments Gray Watercolour Palette, 14 pigments ranging from Titanium White to Furnace Black. Simone Ridyard, my heroine, put me, and everyone else, on to this fantastic palette. Suffice to say, I haven't used it to the same effect as Simone.

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! ;)

Review: Society of Wildlife Artists 55th Annual Exhibition

The Natural Eye 2018 - Feature wall of the Annual Exhibition of Society of Wildlife Artists

I hate it when I've downloaded my thoughts about an exhibition onto paper - and then start to write the review and can't find the notes!  Written in the exhibition they're fresh and spontaneous. Trying to resurrect the thoughts after I've written them down does not always work...

Duh!

However I have now found my notes of my visit to the SWLA Exhibition last Friday - in my shopping bag in among the receipts and the evening paper from last Friday!  So that's the end of notes on paper and next time my formal red Exhibition Notes Moleskine is back in action as the repository of all my thoughts on an exhibition!

So what did I think?

View of the SWLA Exhibition in the Threadneedle gallery 
featuring Old Man of the Woods, Bronze by Nick Bibby

Well first of all, the 2018 annual exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists at the Mall Galleries is emphatically not an exhibition of photorealistic artwork.

That's not to say detail is not observed or that technique is confined to the gestural as opposed to the precise.

Instead the emphasis is very much on seeing, observing over time and portraying the vitality of the wildlife in their natural habitat.

There is LOTS of emphasis on movement - particularly of sea birds. Indeed there are lots of very vigorous paintings in the Threadneedle space.

Paintings created from studies of birds at visits to Bass Rock and St Abb's Head
Threadneedle Space

There's also a lot of emphasis on colour - although the works in the Threadneedle Space tended more towards the blue/grey cold end of the colour spectrum (see above) with warmer tones prevailing in the main gallery.  I like the fact that there is both complete truth about colour from some artists while others like to push the boundaries and make their art "pop" off the wall!

View of the Main Gallery

This year I particularly enjoyed the two very colourful collages produced by Carry Ackroyd - (Fox on the Prowl and Swans on the River) - on the end wall of the main gallery. (see top image)

Smaller prints in the North Gallery

There is a huge emphasis on wildlife found in the UK and Europe rather than "wildlife if Africa and Asia". the latter while present does not take over the show - with big cats and elephants everywhere.

Indeed where the wildlife from other countries is included this year I found it somewhat unusual. Hence the major exhibition of the Urban Black Kites of Delhi - which was very impressive.