Landscape Artist of the Year

A Personal Reflection

I wanted to share a little about my experience on Landscape Artist of the Year.

As many of you will know, being an artist is not easy. To give a bit of context, I received a message on Instagram asking if I would like to submit a work for the show. I remember thinking to myself, “What do I have to lose?”

I had painted outdoors often in the past — at one point, almost every day — but that was primarily in watercolour on watercolour paper. At the time of receiving this message, however, I had stopped painting outdoors, believing ink marbling to be my chosen path. I decided to take a punt with the ink marbling and submitted my painting Ethqara.

They wrote back fairly quickly, saying they loved it and would be happy to accept me on the show.

This left me in a bit of a pickle. I had to decide whether to continue in the direction of my submission (ink marbling) or return to painting outdoors in watercolour, which I had plenty of experience with. At that moment, though, I didn’t feel confident in my watercolour practice, so I decided to try my luck with ink marbling en plein air.

I had no idea what was going to happen or how it was going to turn out.

My submission, Ethqara, at the Port of Dover.

The Day at Dover

On the day, I felt quite blissful. I usually start my mornings with a meditation, and I had a particularly good experience that morning. For some reason, I just felt that things would work out.

We were placed on the White Cliffs of Dover, and before taking us to our pods, they brought us further down for some interviews. I caught a glimpse of the cliffs from where we were standing and immediately knew this was the view I wanted to paint. It had a beautiful diagonal composition, with a path leading the viewer’s eye through the scene and plenty of natural shapes that I felt would work well with the marbling.

I began with a sketch, reversing the image because I knew that once I laid the paper onto the marbling bath, I would get a reversed image. Once the sketch was complete, I knew what I needed to do with the marbling: concentrate the patterns towards the bottom left and leave the top right area more open.

Then came the biggest challenge of the day — navigating the windy conditions on the cliffs with such a delicate process. I had four sheets of paper to work with.

I said my silent prayers and began the first attempt, which went everywhere because of the wind. Try number two was no better, and try number three failed miserably.

Holding my final sheet of paper, I thought to myself: forget the prayers — just be quick, place the ink where you want it, and catch it without hesitation. And voilà — I managed to get something I could work with. From that point on, I felt a huge sense of relief. The hardest part was over, and I had given myself the best possible chance.

The view I managed to photograph

I had no real interest in the ferry port, all I wanted was a view of the white cliffs which would say much more about the place than any boats or ports could!

A quick composition sketch

You can see me thinking in terms of blobs of ink, dark shapes in the bottom right corner which when caught with paper we’d see the reverse of.

Finding Confidence

As the day went on, I felt a calm confidence growing. I knew I was giving the painting my best shot and that my state of mind was good. Looking at some of the other contestants’ work, I was quite impressed and knew I had to step up if I was going to go through.

I worked with more intensity, blocking in washes of watercolour and then refining the piece with pastels. Towards the end, I began to look more closely at the reference, noticing bold, saturated reds, yellows, and greens, which I worked into the painting with the pastels.

I was particularly proud of the white cliffs, where I felt I had managed to capture the atmosphere I could see on the day. The tree shape in the centre became quite opaque as I continued to naturalise the ink-marbling forms, trying to bring them closer to the tree I was observing. In hindsight, I definitely overworked it — but it’s always easy to say what you could or should have done after the fact.

Final Heat painting

Reflections

I really enjoyed the day and meeting my fellow contestants. When I was selected to go through, I felt thrilled and quietly emotional. Years of working away and trying to improve seemed to have accumulated in that moment, and I felt deeply grateful.

At the same time, I felt a slight sadness for the other artists, who had all worked incredibly hard to get to that point. Art is completely subjective, and everyone there had earned their place.

I wanted to share this experience to offer a more personal perspective on what aired on television.

The next episode — the semi-finals — airs on 22 February, and I’ll keep you posted.

Till then thanks for your support!

Limited Edition Print

I’ve made a very limited edition of 7 prints of this piece, Ethqara.

You can click on the image to view more info.