Elisha Enfield wins Landscape Artist of the Year 2022

This is about the Final of Series 7 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2022 at Levens Hall in Cumbria - which was won by Elisha Enfield.

The Final

The Prize

The prizes are:

• a £10,000 commission for the Manchester Art Gallery to create an artwork celebrating the heritage of the North West of England.
• £500 of materials from Cass Art.

The location

The location of the Final of Landscape Artist of the Year 2022 was Levens Hall - an Elizabethan Manor in Cumbria, which is privately owned but open to the public during the summer months. It also markets itself as a location for filming purposes.

Levens Hall, the Topiary Garden and the pods

The subject for the final paintings was the Topiary Garden which is over 300 years old. (There's a World Topiary Day on 12th May!)

Topiary is the shaping and cutting of small-leaved trees and bushes into geometric shapes and forms which resemble common objects and people.

The Pods set up looking east towards the Topiary Garden

The pods were set up between the Hall and the Topiary Garden.  Although I think somebody forgot that since this particular perspective faced east, the artists would be painting into the sun all morning! Just look at those shadows - and where the sun is!

Not so much "contrejour" as "blinded by the light"
- and they wondered why Elisha took her time getting started!

Below is a view of very nearly the same bit of garden on a more overcast day. 

The Topiary Garden

In addition, there are times when I think there needs to be a serious discussion about what landscape painting is really about. We haven't had one single naturalistic landscape in the entire series - which in my view is simply appalling. The Location Manager really needs to work harder!

Landscaped to the max ☝️😂 #LAOTY pic.twitter.com/hQsSbWlDwa

— Storyvault Films (@StoryvaultFilms) February 26, 2022

The Weather

They were extremely lucky with the weather - in the sense that it was blue skies, warm and sunny all day long.

Although whether the artists welcomed that sunshine in the morning is debatable!

Here's a tweet from somebody who caught the film crew filming! Hiding in the shade behind the vegetation so they didn't get the sun in the lens of the camera!

Catching up with @SkyArts #laoty as we were at @LevensHall on the day. The garden was beautiful pic.twitter.com/cnch8jlAv1

— Peter in 2m space (@AViewAt2Metres) February 26, 2022

The Artists

The artists in the final were:

• Elisha Enfield  [Instagram] a figurative and landscape painter working between London and Berlin. She graduated from the University of Brighton in 2011 with First Class Honours in Fine Art Painting. Some very impressive paintings on her website. Born in Milton Keynes and comes from High Wickham.
• Thomas Macgregor (Instagram) - a painter and printmaker living and working in East London
• Afsheen Nasir [Instagram] - Comes from Karachi in Pakistan and now lives in Surrey. She is self taught and works as a civil servant. She paints landscapes in oil and loves skies - but this was her first time painting 'en plein air'. She exhibited at the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2019 and previously appeared in "Show me the Monet". This is her submission.

Afsheen did an interview with BBC Radio Surrey in which she talks about what reaching the final meant to her

Elisa Enfield, Thomas McGregro and Afsheen Nasir

The Final

The Final programme comprised:

• pod painting within 4 hours at Levens Hall
• commissions - of three locations - within London
• followed by the announcement of the winner.

Line-up waiting for the announcement....

I'll deal with each in turn.

Pod Paintings

The Athenaeum is back!

 It appears that The Athenaum database of artworks is finally back online.

Many readers will recall I've been a big fan of this HUGE art history resource of public domain images in the past and frequently referenced it when writing about various artists of the past. 

It started back in 2001 and sadly went offline in April(?) 2020. 

I then wrote Goodbye to the Athenaeum Art Database? after it seemed to have disappeared and was only available via the Internet Archive. 

Thanks to Debra Levie for alerting me to the fact that it was back online.

The Athenaeum is a free, user-built online portal for art and the humanities. You can browse over 100,000 artworks by thousands of artists, or join us and help improve the site!

 

Home Page of The Athenaeum

Looking at the Internet Archive it appears as if it came back late last year.

However due to the fact that the website does not have a security certificate - and is prefixed by http rather than https - some people (including me) will have problems accessing it via the  Google Chrome browser as this browser basically stops access to sites which are not secure. It's part of their process of keeping people safe on the Internet. 

(PS If you're not using a security certificate and the https prefix for your website you need to!)

I found it much easier to access using my Apple Safari browser. I've not tried others but my experience is that if a website is not accessible via Chrome - or only very slowly.

We still don't know what happened to The Atheneaum in 2020. I think most of us assumed that the owner was ill and/or preoccupied with other matters and/or ran foul of an allegation of copyright infringement and/or just got very tired of technical problems and spammers (it happens a lot to big sites which have been up for some time).

Somebody who wrote to me following my blog past knew the email addresses of the owner but said that neither were getting a response.

I'm going to suggest that if the owner ran into financial problems hosting it - or just got very tired of technical problems - that they should maybe consider:

• having a digital donations box on the site (but this needs a security certificate!) I know a lot of people very much value the site and would like to keep it going....
• asking / looking for support in terms of both volunteers for forum moderation and technical aspects of the site

I know I'm very pleased to see it back - and I know a lot of other artists and those interested in art history will be too.

PS I still want to know who rocsdad is!! His contributions over the years have been amazing!

Pastel Society 123rd Annual Exhibition 2022

The Pastel Society's Annual Exhibition for 2022 opened to the public at the Mall Galleries last Thursday.

The 123rd Annual Exhibition has a theme of ‘Fresh Eyes’.

Cover of the Catalogue for the Pastel Society Exhibition 2022

One of the major regrets of my current post-surgery status (mobilising on one leg only for 12 weeks!) is that I can't visit any art exhibitions - and this is one I always very much look forward to visiting.

However, if like me you can't view in person, you can view digital versions of the artworks selected for and hung in the exhibition.

This is an informative introduction to the exhibition by the new President - in which he highlights how the East Gallery which, as well as being a gallery, will also be a studio space where people can learn about pastels and how to use them during the course of the exhibition. This is a listing of the full events programme

You can see all the artworks on:

• the 2022 Exhibition Gallery on the Pastel Society website - which is new and fabulous!
• the dedicated page on the Mall Galleries website

You can also view 

• the award-winning images on a dedicated link
• the exhibition catalogue on Issuu which includes images of some of the members' artwork and the listing for all artworks in the exhibition by artists' name (in alphabetical order). Use the icon bottom right to make the catalogue full size and readable. This provides
• title
• media used
• framed and unframed size
• price

Plus artworks in the exhibition are being posted on:

• the Pastel Society Twitter account
• the Pastel Society Facebook Account

Well done to my friend Felicity House for her wonderful photos of the exhibition. She knew I wouldn't be there!

Plus the Mall Galleries are also using their Twitter account and Facebook Page to promote the exhibition.

For those who can visit, there are series of events

A buzz of activity in our Studio Workshops at @mallgalleries this week! Join #PastelSociety Vice President Simon Hodges today for ‘Sketchbooks, Questions & Exploration’, 11am-1pm and 2-4pm. The events continue throughout the #exhibition until 26th Feb🎨https://t.co/EJapCVyhr5 pic.twitter.com/ksRuZ6dzk4

— Pastel Society (@PastelSociety) February 20, 2022

More posts about the Pastel Society

You can review previous posts about Pastel Society exhibitions - from my archives. As you can see I've reviewed this exhibition every year since 2006!

• Review: 122nd Annual Exhibition of the Pastel Society (2021)
• Pastel Society 122nd Annual Exhibition now on view - for real!
• Pricing a Pastel and Pastel Society Annual Exhibition Metrics
• 121st Annual Exhibition of The Pastel Society (2019)
• 120th Pastel Society Annual Exhibition - Prizewinners
• 119th Annual Exhibition of the Pastel Society 2018
• 118th Annual Exhibition of the Pastel Society 2017
• 117th Annual Exhibition of the Pastel Society 25 February 2016
• 116th Annual Exhibition of The Pastel Society 24 February 2015
• 115th Annual Exhibition - Making a Mark 21 Jun 2014
• The Pastel Society - Annual Exhibition 2013 12 Jun 2013
• "Love Pastels" - The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 14 Feb 2012
• The Pastel Society's Annual Exhibition - Colour 2011 25 Apr 2011
• The Pastel Society - Annual Exhibition 2010 14 Apr 2010
• Exhibition review: The Pastel Society's 110th Annual Exhibition 10 Jun 2009
• The Pastel Society UK - 109th Annual Exhibition 17 Mar 2008
• "Pastels Today": The Pastel Society Exhibition (#2) 04 Mar 2007
• The Pastel Society - Annual Exhibition 2006 - Making a Mark 03 Mar 2006

Review: Semi Finals of Landscape Artist of the Year 2022 - Forth Bridge

The finalists for Landscape Artist of the Year 2022 have been selected. Below is my review of the semi-final programme broadcast on Sky Arts - and some thoughts about who the winner might be.

Judgement time in the Semi Finals of Landscape Artist of the Year 2022

Before I start - apologies to those who have subscribed to this blog using Mailerlite who seem to keep getting repeat mailings of the same post if I do a correction (eg re. spelling of people's names). I'll try and find out why this is happening - and, more importantly, how to stop it!

LAOTY Series 7 Semi-Finals: Forth Bridge

The Location - the Forth Bridge

"It is the semi-finals - we have to give them a challenge"

The venue for the Semi Final pods was on the north banks of the River Forth at North Queensferry overlooking the Forth Bridge crossing the Firth of Forth (Estuary) between Fife and Lothian in Scotland. 

The Forth Bridge is an important emblem of Scotland. Some facts about the Forth Bridge:

• It opened in 1890 and is 2.6km / 1.5 miles from shore to shore
• it's built from 53,000 tonnes of steel and 6.5 million rivets!
• At the time it was built, its cantilevered structure was groundbreaking in design materials and scale. It was the first major structure anywhere in world made entirely in steel
• 4.5k people worked on the bridge at the peak of its construction
• The Forth Bridge was designated a world heritage site in 2015.

If you want to have a go at the view, I've concluded they were located at the North Queensferry Boat Club.

"It's the semifinals, we have to give them a challenge!"

The odd thing is that Tai - who hates boats - absolutely loved the location - even the boats! Mostly because there were so many different ways of tackling it.

Personally I was not impressed with the choice of view for the semi-finals. This is because this is a very unusual and divisive subject. 

• It won't suit those who lean towards greenery, vegetation and a more natural environment. 
• By the same token it may well suit those who like structures but who are awful at vegetation

Possibly it counterbalances the location for the Final - see the end of this post - except that is also highly structured. There again there's been nothing very natural about the locations in this series.

Do the Judges know something we don't know as to what subject locations Manchester Art Gallery has in mind in relation to the prize of the £10,000 commission for the winning artist? 

The Gallery's Commission for the 2022 prize is intended to celebrate two key features of the landscape of the North West - BOTH the:

• natural beauty of the landscape 
• AND the structures associated with its industrial heritage 

i.e. half of it is about structure - but the other half is about the beauty of the natural landscape which has been very sadly neglected by this series.

 

The Weather

This was an episode of two halves weather wise.

Morning

It was a very grey gloomy day to start - with very flat light. 

Then at midday the Scottish Mist began to burn off and the light improved and it went on to become very sunny with a clear blue sky. Or as my father used to say "typical Scottish weather!"

Afternoon

The change in light was a challenge for the artists in terms of thinking how it would impact on their composition, colour palette and the degree of detail they included - and what it did to the shadows and reflections.

The Artists

Before we start, this is the Cass Arts "LAOTY Series 7: Meet the Artists" blog post which they produce each year as part of their association/sponsorship of the series.

Professional Artists

There were three professional artists from the Heats

What did we think of 'Watercolour Challenge' 2022?

After four weeks of daily episodes on weekdays, the new version of Watercolour Challenge on Channel 5 came to an end last Friday.

• I started off hopeful, 
• was disappointed at the beginning by the technical cock-up, and 
• then it started to irritate me as the series went on.

I decided to do a review, however I decided it might be wise to see if others were feeling in the same way. 

So I asked this question on my Facebook - and received LOTS of very detailed responses!  Extracts are provided below.

I'm writing a review of the Channel 5 Watercolour Challenge Series. What did you think of it?
* What did they do well?
* What could be improved?

I've also been keeping an eye on the responses online to the programme - and people have been quite outspoken on the topic of the mentor/Judges.  Digital Spy | Watercolour Challenge Channel 5 started with lots looking forward to the return and quickly began to spot deficits and problems. For example - most wanted to see much more of the artists painting - and explaining what they were doing and why.

This post summarises both my thoughts and those of others - with quotes!

Note the series is available - on demand and online on Channel 5  

PLUS The series of 20 episodes is also available on Sky TV!

The real Watercolour Challenge contest 

Channel 5 (2022) versus Channel 4 (1998-2001)

Of course you have to be old enough to be able to compare the two! However for those of us who do remember both, the overwhelming consensus is that the new version is a pale imitation of the original - and needs to get its act together.

• The positives of the programme reduced for me as the series went on.
• Aspects which I put down to just being "different" began to grate as the series progressed
• Many people commented that they didn't watch all the programmes despite having intended to do so.

Here are some summary views

Glad to have an art programme to watch, but felt it could have been so much better! (VG)

A poor copy of the original series, sadly. (SG)

5/10. Could do better! (PF)

Very disappointing, to put it mildly. (NS)

Too much repetition , out of sync editing , poor standard of judges except Peter, everyone gets a win. The good artists on here and there were a few had their efforts demeaned being beaten by someone with no ability whatsoever. (DP)

I used to love this show but for me the presenter was a major let down and some of the professional artists, lacked how can i put it "professionalism". I stopped watching. (KH)

Despite numerous aspects that people felt were unsatisfactory, it was interesting to see it prompted people to get their paints out! I guess it was a case of "I can do better than that!"

Still enjoyed watching though - I was inspired to get my watercolours out after a few months of not using them.

How do the the different series compare on different aspects?

I'm going to review different aspects of the Channel 5 programmes below - sometimes with reference to the Channel 4 series - and with suggestions for how any future series could be improved.

Review comments cover:

• the artists
• the mentor/Judges
• the presenter
• the programme format
• technical aspects

The artists from Devon