Review: Episode 5 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2019 at the Tyne Bridge

Welcome to Episode 5 of Cityscape Artist of the Year. Landscape Artist of the Year is so old hat as are landscapes without buildings!

Five episodes and five really odd buildings and bridges and rather a lot of rain have been the big challenge so far.

In this episode it was yet more bridges and rather a lot of wind.

The pods in Gateshead looking at the Tyne Bridge and Newcastle.

The Location

The Tyne Bridge - and three more bridges beyond that!

This episode the big challenge was

• the Tyne Bridge viewed from the Gateshead side of the Tyne and 
• the fact that Kate Bryan was in London having her baby.  
• So just Tai and Kathleen as Judges this week.

The view was a major challenge because the scale of the Tyne Bridge was HUGE and they were very close to it. Their only real option given the proximity of the pods to the bridge was to crop.

Some artists engaged in compositional studies of how make sense of the scale and the "bittiness" of the background in terms of scale vs detail.

The challenge lay in going bigger to make choices about construction simpler or to go smaller, making it easier to cover the surface while at the same time requiring that you are crystal clear about how to edit and simplify and only suggest detail.

The weather

The day was dry - but the wind was strong and gusting and particularly affecting the Wildcard Artists who were much more exposed - especially those that sat on the footbridge over the Tyne

Episode 5: The Artists

The artists after they had finished and the Judges were in a huddle

Six Professional Artists

• Clare Bowen (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram) - Used to be a ski instructor but is now works as professional landscape painter who frequently works plein air. She was greatly influenced by Carol Marine's book 'Daily Painting' and the confidence she gained through daily painting helped her with her switch to plein air painting while working in oils. She's now one of the artists on the Mall Galleries online 'buy art' website. READ her very informative blog post Sky Landscape Artist of The Year Contestant!
• Leavon Bowman (Instagram) - a studio based artist
• David Fox (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram) - Based in Dublin, he works as an Operations Manager for a bus company. Previously participating in the 2016 series - at Scotney Castle.  Note: David should take a look at this painting!
• Leigh Glover - Inspired by an exhibition of collage work by Matisse to develop his own collage art. Studied at Oxford Brookes University and Heatherley’s School of Fine Art, London. He's exhibited in the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (2008), Royal Society of Portrait Painters (2009), Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize (2010), BP Portrait Award (2011) and the ING Discerning Eye Exhibiton (2014).
• Andrew Halliday (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram) - Born into an artistic family in 1969, he now divides his time between Barnes in South-West London and Lymington in Hampshire. Studied at Bournville Schoolof Art before graduating with a BA honours degree from Wimbledon School of Art in 1991. Heat finalist in 2018 at Inveraray Castle. He's obsessed with high rise architecture and love drawing and painting cityscapes READ his blog post Landscape Artist of the Year 2019: My time on the Toon
• Joanne McAndrew (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram) - an Irish artist based in Dublin who specialises in landscape, still life and figurative painting. Not a cityscape artist. She is currently attending self-directed life drawing Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin

Two Amateur Artists

• Wei Deng - Chartered Landscape Architect who was trained to paint in watercolour in the traditional Chinese way by his father who was a painter.
• David Youds (Twitter | Instagram) - Lives in Hyndburn and works as a site supervisor at Accrington Academy. Has five daughters. Fits in his painting as and when he can. His submission was the view out of his sitting room window painted using a head torch. See Talented school supervisor to appear on Sky for Artist of the Year

Note: Professional vs Amateur

Following my comments about professional vs amateur status in the last review I've been asked to clarify what I mean by those terms. 

In brief I've written previously about these terms in these posts

• How do you define a "professional artist"? - which generated a LOT of interesting comments (comments are now closed on my blog because the spam got boring)
• What is a semi-professional artist? - written after Landscape Artist of the Year last year.
• On my art business website, I've written about how HM Revenue & Custom determine you're in business as an artist in Income Tax: The nine badges of trade and Does your art create a second income?

I'm guessing rather a lot of the artists in the Landscape Artist of the Year are actually semi-professional artists i.e. they also work at another job which may or may not be their main source of income but might well generate enough turnover as an artist to be required to declare it to the taxman (as opposed to using the new hobby allowance - see ​The bonus if you're selling art - but not a lot!)

The Wildcard Artists

The march continues at the beginning of every Wildcard event.

This pic now gets labelled the "Wildcard March" - you have to be able to carry or push all your kit!

However the wildcard artists then tend to split up - this time as before along Gateshead Quays - the Gateshead Millennium Bridge on the left and the Baltic on the right.

Random perspectives from random Wildcard Artists

Here's one of the reasons why one woman took part as a Wildcard Artist ‘He would have been proud’: South Shields mum to appear on Sky’s Landscape Artist of the Year show in tribute to son

Themes and Learning Points

Today, these are:

• Studio Artist vs Plein Air Painter
• How many different ways can you paint the same view
• Where is the sun?
• To shadow or not to shadow
• Don't be twee
• Different tools for different folks
• Learning points from the participants

Review: Episode 4 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2019 at Herstmonceux Castle

This review of Episode 4 of Series 5 Sky Arts Landscape of the Year is rather later than I had planned having been sideswiped by my errant iPad Pro which managed to go missing at Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport when I was flying out to the USA last month. It popped up online and then needed retrieving from Lost Property - and that was the day I'd planned to do this post!

I have to say I found this episode somewhat disappointing. I'm not sure whether it was artists not used to painting plein air or the nature of the day or what - but much of the art produced was actually very disappointing.

However I am even more convinced that one of the key criteria for the shortlist selection is the extent to which the painting produced in the heat have some sort of relationship with the one submitted at the Call for Entries stage.

In other words if the two paintings don't look like they were painted by the same painter, there may be no point in entering!

The Location

Pods in front of Herstmonceux Castle and its moat

Heat 2 of Landscape Artist of the Year at Herstmonceux Castle morphed into Episode 4 of Series 5.

One of the contestants wished that the pods had been pitched further away from the red brick crenellated castle - and I agree.  So did Kathleen - she commented that the view was almost too close.

We had too much full on castle and not enough reflection on a building within a setting - and not a lot of scope to include the water because they were too close to the edge of the moat.

It was clear from the filming from above on a sunny day that it looked very different when there was good light.

I wonder if the person pitching the pods knows anything about how artists size up a view - or what happens to a subject when the light is bad.

The weather

They didn't have the rain of Heat 1/Episode 2 at the nearby observatory. Instead they had 

• a very grey sky with no light arriving to enhance the subject - a lot of brick castle and some greenery 
• and WIND! Paintings were taking off from the easels!

The light issue turned into the key factor that Tai wanted addressed in this heat. How were they going to tackle the fact that the day was grey and the light was no helping them.

The Artists

Artists in their pods - waiting for the start

In the listing of participating artists below you will find links included to :

• the artist's website - embedded in their name - for those wanting to know the standard of work by artists who get selected
• their social media - which follows - should you wish to follow them
• blog posts written about the day - IF they've written one

Seven Professional Artists

• Satdeep Grewal (Facebook | Instagram) - Born and raised in London, Satdeep now lives in Hampshire where she exhibits, produces painting commissions, and delivers art workshops. Describes herself as 'British artist painting chaos/science/nature'. 
• Gary Jeffrey (Facebook | Instagram | Twitter) - Gary seems to live in south west London. he's painted a lot over the course of 15 years - for 10 years after college in the 1980s-90s; then a break of 16 years (four years in retail and 12 as a layout designer in children's publishing) and back to painting in 2015. He always works from life and really enjoys plein air painting. He's a gallery artist at the Riverside Gallery in Barnes and also sells paintings from his website. I'm just really surprised I've not seen his paintings more in the open exhibitions of the FBA societies based at the Mall Galleries. He's a natural for at least three of them! I like the way he holds his brush.
  
• Ian Leaver (Facebook | Instagram | Etsy) - Brighton based mural artist with a penchant for vintage movie posters
• 
  

• Sarah Manolescue (Facebook | Instagram | Twitter) - a plein air painter who works in alla prima direct from the subject in all seasons and weathers. She has a studio at home in Haslemere, Surrey and has exhibited in a number of group art exhibitions at different galleries She's written a blog post about her experience Smile for the Camera: Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year

My nightmares were vivid and frequent.
Terrible weather, no light, impossible subject and worst of all, a disastrous outcome.
Some of my fears were realised, but do you know what? I had a bloody good time on the day and I’d definitely do it all again. Sarah Manolescue

• Fatma Ummanel (Facebook | Instagram | Twitter) - The youngest participant - age 25. Fatima is a Graduate with a BA Fine Art: Painting and Drawing, MA Fine Art and MA Art Psychotherapy (Trainee)
• Colin Watson (Facebook | Courses website) - Colin lives and works in Belfast and teaches painting in Morocco. He uses a home made blend of treated oils - incorporating a wax medium.  He mixes his colours on the canvas. He has held seven solo exhibitions in London, at John Martin Gallery, the Pym’s Gallery and at Simon Dickinson Fine Art, as well as in Dublin, Northern Ireland and Morocco. In October 2008, Colin was invited by HRH The Prince of Wales to accompany him on the Royal Tour of Japan, Brunei and Indonesia, as his official Tour Artist. He has also exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Ulster Academy and the Royal Hibernian Academy, winning awards at the latter two. He's had portrait paintings accepted for the BP Portrait Prize Exhibition, The Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibitions and at the Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries.
• Issy Wingham (Instagram) - Issy is a professional artist based in Norfolk. She graduated with a BA (Hons) Illustration degree from Norwich University of the Arts. She mainly creates drawings of the beautiful North Norfolk coast and surrounding villages - and sells digital prints of her work via Etsy.

One Amateur Artist

• Russell Ashcroft ( Instagram ) - describes himself as a permanent student

the artists - after they had finished

I continue to be surprised as to who gets into which category of artist. 
There again one can debate the label "professional" at length. I think maybe Sky Arts need to provide them with a bit more help in terms of what is an amateur artist and what is a professional artist.  Or why not just call them all artists since the categorisation has become so very meaningless.

Indeed, very often, those painting as wildcard entrants sometimes produce much more interesting paintings than those in the pods.  There again - that's probably because they include quite a few professional painters trying to get noticed!

50 Wildcard Artists

Just look at the amount of stuff which the wildcards bring with them!

Wildcards lugging their gear out to....

....the orchard where the wildcard artists were situated for the duration.
More about trees than castle which can be just be seen peeping out behind the trees in the background

Tip to the Editors of the programme - we can tell who is going to win the wildcard from the beginning!

Themes and Learning Points

Those who are regular readers will know that I offer up my comments on what I see as being the main themes of the episode - and try not to repeat those comments made in previous episodes.  If you want to see a summary of what I came up with last year have a read of Learning Points from Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 - a summary

What to do when it's a grey day with bad lighting

The Best of The Drawing Year

On Friday morning I went to a preview of The Best of the Drawing Year 2018/19 in the Duke Street Gallery - a selling exhibition of over 100 drawings and wrks on paper by contemporary artists and teachers from the Royal Drawing School - at Christies

I've put an album of my photos of the exhibition on my Making A Mark Facebook Page 

preview of the exhibition

Venue: Duke Street Gallery, Christies, 5 King Street in London
Dates: 8 – 12 November 2019
Hours: Monday to Friday 9am–4.30pm, Saturday & Sunday 12pm–5pm
Admission: no appointment necessary / free admission

It's an exhibition which I commend to those interested in

• contemporary drawing 
• and/or interested in the courses held by the Royal Drawing School and in particular their postgraduate level course of The Drawing Year.

Every time I visit it is different - reflecting both the participants on the course that year and who has been teaching them.

This year I saw rather more artworks which were leaning hard towards painting, which I understand are works created as part of the individual's practice outside the course.

I felt on the whole I'd rather see:

• MORE works in the exhibition which are much more about the drawings produced during the year - and which are a reflection of the studies during the course of the year
• their personal practice diverted to other exhibitions - where I frequently see them - given the number of Drawing Year alumni who pop up as selected artists in various art competitions and open exhibitions in London. 

After all there's lots of places to see the work of an artist as they continue on their journey but only a couple of opportunities to see work produced during the drawing year. 

Below you can find out about

• the purpose of the exhibition - and see some images from the exhibition (but see also the album of my photos)
• profiles of three graduates in 2019
• details of The Drawing Year - notably the fact it a year of drawing is offered for free - no tuition fees and studio space for free
• the NEW BOOK "Ways of Drawing: Artists Perspectives and Practices" by the Royal Drawing School.

Purpose of the Exhibition

The exhibition comprises over 100 paintings, drawings, prints and works on paper by the 30 students of The Drawing Year 2019 at The Royal Drawing School - on the Shoreditch/Hoxton boundary - who graduated in 2019.

The Drawing Year is the equivalent of an MA Course of postgraduate study.  These are the best of the over 300 drawings by The Drawing Year which will be on show at the Royal Drawing School in Hoxton between 29 November 2019 and 15 January 2020.

sketchbooks

Three graduates in 2019

I met three of the graduates from the 2019 Year.

Call for Entries: BP Portrait Award (Part2) - How to Enter

This post is about 

• the MAJOR CHANGES to how you enter the BP Portrait Award 2020 at the National Portrait Gallery
• How to enter the BP Portrait Award 2020.

Key info is highlighted in red.

Selected portraits for the 2019 Exhibition
- the winning entry is on the right

Yesterday, in Part 1, I wrote about the key things you need to think about when considering an entry to this competition.

I recommend that you READ THESE POSTS before submitting an entry

• Call for Entries: BP Portrait Award 2020 (Part 1) which explains
• why this exhibition has changed in the last two years - and I'm afraid not for the better
• reasons from the past as to why you should enter this competition for a first prize of £35,000
• my recommendations as to a possible approach for 2020.
• BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2019 (Part 1): Overview critique. I still feel the same way several months after seeing this exhibition.
• BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2019 (Part 2): Analysis - which highlights what has CHANGED about this competition in terms of number of paintings, size and media, type (eg the range between whole body and head study), composition, colour and subject

The GOOD NEWS is that the works exhibited in the Porter Gallery for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Award (which I saw yesterday at the press preview) are all at head height.  

I was advised that the gallery has listened to the comments they received about the hang of the BP Portrait Award 2019 exhibition and additional display walls have been introduced to provide the extra space needed to provide a decent exhibition.

My reservation is that the corridors they create are narrow and I anticipate the complaint in 2020 will be that you cannot get far enough away from the painting to look at it properly. The corridor at the back is particularly narrow.

New display boards in the Porter Gallery
(for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Award)

BP Portrait Award 2020: What are the major changes?

Oh dear! 
The Official Document about the Entry and Judging Process

There really is NO EXCUSE for misleading people who to enter the competition!

Major Change for BPA2020 #1: Deadline for Entries is 11 December 2019

The first major change is that the deadline is 6 weeks earlier than last year - i.e. 11th December 2019  and nearly two months earlier than it has been in the past - with absolutely no prior warning.
Or as one person put it on Facebook...

BP portrait award 2020...closing entry date is 11th December 2019!!!!!!!!!??😳😱

It's rather more instructive that so few people have picked this up because there are almost no comments about it on Facebook of Twitter.

I reckon that's because momentum to think about submitting an entry usually only gets underway in December.  Some think about planning to get their work finished in time while others start thinking about starting so they can get it finished over Christmas and get the digital entry sorted without the oil looking wet before the end of January!

The crucial aspect for portrait painters who use oils is drying times. Not to mention those who are routinely painting right up to the last minute!

So I think the notion of having something else to do over the Christmas New Year period is just beginning to dawn on a few portrait artists. Or maybe more than a few?

I gather the issue has arisen due to the fact that a decision to close the entire gallery has only been taken relatively recently. Hence the lack of notice.

Major Change for BPA2020 #2: A Much Shorter and Earlier Exhibition

EVERY Introduction Page to the BP Portrait Award microsite that I have ever seen has included the dates of the Exhibition

Except the one for 2020.

I conclude the reason is because:

• the dates and length of the exhibition have changed. 
• when the Call For Entries was published last week the NPG had still not announced that the National Portrait Gallery will close for three years as of the end of June 2020.

Thus:

• Instead of it being a three month exhibition between June and September, 
• it's now going to become a five week exhibition ONLY between May and June.

The net result of this is much less exposure than hitherto and probably fewer visitors to the exhibition.

Or alternatively the same number of visitors in a shorter space of time - which will make viewing unpleasant.

Hopefully it will be counterbalanced by longer displays at more provincial galleries - but there's no indication of that at present.

BP Portrait Award 2020:
How to enter for those who don't like lots of small print

First read this paragraph from the website - and then reflect on whether you are sending your very best work.

The BP Portrait Award 2019 received 2,538 entries from 84 countries. Judged anonymously, 44 portraits were selected for the exhibition.

The basics - on the website

Call for Entries: BP Portrait Award 2020 (Part 1)

This is my annual summary of what you need to do to enter the BP Portrait Award - for 2020.
This post is going to be published in two parts and tells you about

Part 1

• why this exhibition has changed in the last two years - and I'm afraid not for the better
• reasons from the past as to why you should enter this competition for a first prize of £35,000
• my recommendations as to a possible approach for 2020.

Part 2 (will follow shortly) 

• how to enter - for those who have mulled over the content of this post and my two previous posts reviewing the 2019 exhibition (see below)
• UPDATE: SEE Call for Entries: BP Portrait Award (Part2) - How to Enter

View of the BP Portrait Award 2019 in The Porter Gallery

But first a preamble

Much of what I am going to say was first aired in June in my posts.

• BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2019 (Part 1): Overview critique. I've had months to reflect - and I haven't changed my mind about my overall critique
• BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2019 (Part 2): Analysis - which highlights what has CHANGED about this competition in terms of number of paintings, size and media, type (eg the range between whole body and head study), composition, colour and subject

I am restating key points here because it appears nothing has changed - and it's now time to take stock.

"the most prestigious painting competition in the world"

I've been calling the BP Portrait Award "a prestigious art competition" for well over a decade.
Indeed I used to always START this "call for entries" blog post with a long list of reasons why it was a great exhibition to enter.

However ONLY the National Portrait Gallery is still calling it "the most prestigious" portrait competition. (i.e.ignoring those who simply reproduce text from press releases)

I'm not sure I am continue to call it "prestigious" going forward - for a number of reasons. Hence why I've changed the order and am now starting with this preamble to avoid any artists being disappointed.

Few others seem to have commented on the points I have identified - at least in print. Maybe those that feel as strongly as me would still like to get into the exhibition - so don't want to ruin their chances through being seen to express negative comments. I certainly wouldn't blame them for behaving like that.

However I personally don't submit work and - for very many years - I have instead focused on enabling artists to succeed. So if anybody is less than impressed by what I have to say I'm not really concerned - so long as the artists understand my perspective. When it needs saying, it needs saying!

Bottom line the key points are that the exhibition:

• is selected by people who have much less expertise in portraiture than hitherto
• is now housed in a much smaller space with less wall space to hang paintings
• hangs fewer paintings - of which many are small head studies
• hangs them badly - because paintings are now skied making it impossible to inspect the work of the artist

This for the exhibition which continues to attract the biggest number of visitors to the National Portrait Gallery - although less than it used to - despite other exhibitions attracting the "blockbuster" label!

If there is a sensible rejoinder I'd very much like to hear it - and provide a blog post in which to publish it....

The gallery space is now much SMALLER

This exhibition was always held in the larger Wolfson Gallery (Room 42) - for very many years. Certainly since I started reviewing it - and I know it was in there when I used to visit it before that.  This is also a space which is a large quadrilateral which makes it easy to bring in extra dividers to increase the hanging space and route people around the exhibition - and still have room for people to manouvre around the exhibition.

It moved.

In 2018 and 2019 it has been in the Porter Gallery (Room 34).  Presumably at the instigation of the new (then) Director who oddly enough is NOT a specialist in portraiture.

• The Porter Gallery has two spaces providing a SMALLER gallery - which does not promote an orderly flow
• Since 2018, works were executed to open up the gallery and make it look more attractive - and this year the space had no dividers. The net effect was that the space looked much better - but the exhibition did not - because there was an EVEN SMALLER HANGING SPACE than in 2018!
• It also completely EXCLUDES the BP Travel Award exhibit which is now hung elsewhere and is probably not seen by the majority of visitors to the exhibition.

Sophie Ploeg - an ex BP Travel Award Winner (2013) wrote a good commentary on the problems with the space and the hang in her review of the 2018 exhibition

It's so small a space that they are unable to hold the announcement of the winners in there and that is now done in the Ondaatje Wing Main Hall (where the tickets are sold and school parties assemble).

As a result of using this gallery - here are some of the consequences......