We’re running a live, free to enter, portrait painting competition with over £3,000 of prizes in June 2026 and you could be one of the participants.
Want to pit your artistic skills against the best of your peers in a live paint-off at our studios in Stroud?
On Friday 26th June 2026, ten artists will gather at our studios in Stroud and paint a portrait from life for 6 hours. At the end of the session, a panel of three professional artists (Lizet Dingemans, Luca Indraccolo and Andrew James) will judge the portraits and award a winner. The winner will get a £2,500 cash prize and feature in a future issue of Artists and Illustrators Magazine.
I had a great time: it felt just like painting with old and new friends. With no cameras, and the day organised around the artists, we could all focus on observational painting.Anastasia Pollard, 2024 participant
In addition, there will be an online, public vote after the event and the winner of that will win a £500 cash prize and a £250 gift voucher from our friends at Cass Art
Entry is open to anybody. To be considered as one of the ten artists, simply fill in your details below and submit an image of a portrait you’ve painted from life. The deadline for entrants in 12 noon UK time, 18th May 2026.
More information and FAQs
As artists ourselves, we’re running the sort of competition we’d like to be part of:
It’s a live painting competition, open to anybody.
It’s run by artists, for artists.
The 10 entrants, and the ultimate winner, will be chosen solely on artistic merit.
The judges are professional artists who we admire
The judges will prioritise accuracy of likeness, technical skill and emotional power in the painting
It will feature professional models, with professional lighting.
You will be working from life - no photographing the model.
Entries close at 12 noon on 18th May 2026. The competion is completely free to enter.
Note that you may paint in oil paint or acrylics only.
We have three professional artists as judges. In alphabetical order, they are:
Lizet Dingemans is Head of Art at Raw Umber Studios. She was born in Helmond, the Netherlands. Unsatisfied with the art education there, she went to Florence in the summer of 2011 to study Fine Art at Angel Academy which gave her the inspiration to continue her art career in London as a student at the London Atelier of Representational Art (LARA).
After graduating she decided to stay, and is now a full-time artist and teacher. Her work has sold in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. In 2016 her work was acquired for the MEAM Museum in Barcelona, Spain.
Andrew James began his artistic life at 17. He worked as a self-directed student for 10 years before winning the prestigious Carroll Foundation Award, awarded by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters - RP - in 1998. Andrew went on to win the Changing Faces as well as the Ondaatje Award, also awarded by the RP. Andrew was elected a member of the RP and NEAC in 2002 and 2017, respectively.
Entries close at 12 noon UK time on 18th May 2026. The 10 participants will be notified by 25th May 2026. The competition itself will be held on 26th June 2026, from 10am - 5pm.
The competition is being held at Raw Umber Studios in Stroud. You can get directions here.
On the day, all ten artists will paint a model from life for 4 hours. There will be two models, so 5 artists per model, and the models will be professionally lit. The day will start at 10am and finish by 5pm.
On the day, you will be painting from life. This presents its own advantages and challenges. For this reason, you will not be allowed to photograph the model.
We will be filming the competition day, so you might appear on YouTube, social media etc.
To enter, simply fill in your details below and submit an image of a portrait you’ve painted from life. The deadline for entrants is 12 noon, 18th May 2026.
We’d like to thank our supporters. In alphabetical order, they are:
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