With the January issue of Leisure Painter comes the launch of this year’s Open Competition (see pages 10 and 11). There is over £17,000 worth of prizes to be won and the opportunity to show your work to a wider audience, with an exhibition of 70 shortlisted paintings at Patchings Art Centre (opening on the first day of the festival on 11 July), which will also be shown on our website, PaintersOnline, along with 50 highly commended work, and the award-winners featured in the October issue of Leisure Painter. So if you can’t visit the festival and exhibition, you will still be able to view the work within our pages and online.
With a deadline for submissions of 12 April, you have plenty of time to consider how to showcase your talent and skills. We are looking for original drawings and paintings from amateur artists that illustrate individual interpretations of chosen subjects – and offer the viewer a little something extra, whether it’s an unusual viewpoint, a narrative, or simply that your response to your subject while painting shows in every brushstroke. Above all, enjoy this competition. Painting should be fun!