Review: Episode 5 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 - Broadstairs Beach

muonnhatnews
15 Nov, 2018
The heat for Episode 5 of the Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 was held at Broadstairs Beach in Kent. This time there was no rain. Instead it was a brilliant sunny day with lots and lots of people in the landscape. It was broadcast on Tuesday night - and this is my review.

The pods on Broadstairs Beach
This is the Heat that I very nearly visited (see Heats of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2018) - but then remembered I don't do too well out in the sun all day and have got arthritis and joints that require a flat stable surface - so a sandy beach wasn't a great idea!

The Location

One end of Broadstairs Beach
The beach is described on one website as
A quintessentially British beach with beach huts, fish & chips, a rock pool, ice creams and sand castles.
As the visitors poured on to the beach and it got busier and busier - never mind the presence of a film crew and 8 very large studio pods and 50 wildcard artists - some of the artists (and the Judges) began to wonder about how they should tackle all those people! (Of which more later)

The Artists


Links to websites are embedded in their name and links to their social media sites follow their name.

Six Professional Artists


There were six professional artists - alphabetically as follows
  • Stewart Beckett (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram) -  a professional Oil Painter and Tutor with an established student base, teaching regular workshops and classes throughout Hampshire. He aims to aims to combine the abstract with his realist works
  • Jen Gash (Facebook | Twitter ) - Jen is from Gloucestershire, has worked as an Occupational Therapists and Coach and recently enrolled for an MA Degree in Fine Art. She is a life-long artist, exploring physical and psychological landscapes. She likes to have several canvases on the go at once and confesses to be better at starting than finishing. Originally a wildcard artist for the very first heat of Landscape Artist of the Year at Trellisick, Cornwell in 2015.
  • Michelle Heron (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram)  - born in Norwich in 1980; graduated from the University of Hertfordshire BA Fine Art (Hons) in 2002. Works as a reprographic officer. She says she has always been interested in the spaces that are unused or forgotten and the traces where people have been.  Her paintings have been exhibited at The Mall Galleries, London, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, Hampton Court Palace, London and The Royal Academy, London. In 2016 Michelle’s work was shortlisted for The Lynn ​Painter-Stainers' Prize, The John Ruskin Prize and The National Open Art Competition and in 2017 was selected for the prestigious Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. 
  • Yellon Huang (Facebook | Twitter) -  born in China and came to the UK 18 years ago. In 1995 she left nursing and took up a full-time art course in Singapore, where she was trained in a variety of subjects including traditional Chinese landscape painting. She graduated graduating from Roehampton University with a 1st class BA degree in Art for Public Spaces. She paints busy street scenes in the UK in a style used by Chinese landscape painters. Her artwork is produced using Chinese ink and brushes on rice paper - and her work is in effect a fusion between east and west. Her cityscape paintings have been selected for the annual open exhibitions at the  Royal Academy of Arts, National Open Exhibition and Society of Women Artists

  • Jain McKay (Facebook | Twitter) - a printmaker who is not a landscape artist. She lives and works in the Midlands where she also exhibits and teaches art.  Her submission was a monochrome print in drypoint. She likes introducing textures into her printing press to make the fine art print more interesting.
  • Martin Taylor (Facebook | Twitter) - Michael does photorealist landscapes in oil and sells them for a lot of money! This is his page of hyperrealist landscapes in watercolour.  His tree observations take a month to complete. His way of working demonstrates for me why this competition is not best suited to those who take a long time in the studio even if they create impressive landscapes when they do.  He has written several articles for The Artist magazine and has also had his paintings featured on the cover.
Martin Taylor working on this painting


Reading for those who aspire to taking part next year


Jenn, Michelle and Jain have all written about taking part in this heat
The pods are sheltered and have electricity and you get cups of tea and food etc, whereas as a Wild Card artist you are pretty much on your own. Having now been an actual heat artist, I do feel very privileged. The crew look after you really well and the cuppas are most welcome. Saying that, the painting stays the same.
I turned up at Broadstairs earlier this summer with one thing on my mind – to just enjoy the day, make a painting that had legs and not look too daft on telly (first one is easy, second one you can decide, third one… who knows!) Now that isn’t to say that I didn’t prepare for the day. For a non-competitive person, something took over me once I learned I had won a place. I practiced the whole 4-hour thing, researched Broadstairs and put together a game plan.
​I was approached to apply for the show but dismissed it for months thinking it would be too big a challenge for someone used to painting indoors and taking 2 weeks to complete a painting! But then at the very last moment something made me change my mind and just thought it'll be good exposure and might push me forward. When I found out I was a pod artist I was in a bit of denial. I then began watching the previous series and made notes of the key words the judges were using to give me an idea of the kind of artist that does well. One thing that stood out for me was choosing an idiosyncratic view. 
In my defence I am not a landscape artist, I made one landscape as part of a project, I entered with it because I did think it was quite good and it got me on the show. If It hadn’t been a print I don’t think I would have got on, each program has an alternative to a painter just to make it more interesting.
Artists can set up their pods any way they like and work out of any angle

Two Amateur Artists


The two Amateur artists were:
  • Peter John Robert Thompson - paints bouncy castles and lives in Leicester a- a very long way from the seaside. His very comtemporary urban painting took him some 200 hours to complete.
  • Lorna Wheele (Instagram| Vimeo) - Recently graduated with a First Class Degree in Illustration. She is an Freelance Illustrator / Animator / Designer from Cornwall and based in Brighton. She likes working with watercolour and coloured pencils freeform in a panoramic format - and loves the coast. She has a fabulous animated website which I imagine will get her a lot of clients for her Illustration work. She prefers Instagram and Vimeo to Facebook and Twitter. IMO she needs to sort out a Facebook Page for her work PDQ (as in yesterday!)

There are then the 50 Wildcard Artists who were up one end of the beach but painting the same view

Some of the 50 Broadstairs WildCard Artists

Themes and Learning Points


The themes this week are:
  • People in a landscape
  • Editing a complex scene / landscape
  • Of the now or of the past?
  • What you submit might be what you get
  • The importance of being true to YOU!
READ MORE......>>
Next Post Previous Post
No Comment
Add Comment
comment url