Iam delighted to present the awardwinning work of this year’s Leisure Painter Open Competition on pages 66 to 71, along with painting tips, ideas and comments from two of our judges, professional artists David Curtis and John Sprakes. As both David and John mention, the exhibition develops and grows in stature each year as it showcases the best of amateur painting in the UK and abroad. I hope you have also seen the 50 highly-commended paintings on our website (at www.painters-online.co.uk/gallery/PatchingsGallery.htm) and voted for your favourite image for our final award of the year, the Leisure Painter People’s Choice Award. The closing date is 14 September and we will feature the winning work in our December issue – along with first details of next year’s competition! If you haven’t entered our open competition before, why not consider it for 2019? The number of exhibitors and highlycommended artists who tell us how shocked they are to be chosen grows over the years. Although we respect your modesty, we also encourage you to show off a little and send in your best original work.
Many thanks to everyone who entered this year’s competition, and congratulations to the exhibitors, award-winners and highlycommended artists. Huge thanks go to the sponsors of our valuable prizes (see page 71 for details), to Liz and Chas Wood and their team at Patchings Art Centre for hanging such a memorable exhibition each year, and to my fellow judges, who make the serious task of judging this important competition into such an enjoyable and celebratory event.