Portrait artist of the year

[neverhadnooneever]

I'm not sure he was a worthy winner considering the beautiful portrait the other semi finalist did of her sister. His portrait of Andy Serkis and Lorraine Ashbourne looked like a cartoon. Best actress award goes to Lorraine Kelly when her portrait was revealed

It was a travesty. Their portrait of their partner was good but everything else was not, and the Serkis/Ashbourne portrait was actively awful.

Jennifer should have won, Paul as runner up. Brogan blatantly can't paint a likeness.



Agree, really odd choice, some of the pictures were embarrassingly bad. I sometimes think the art experts choose the pieces we don’t expect to prove they know something we don’t. When people go to look at a portrait of a celebrity. They want to be able to recognise that celebrity, otherwise it may as well be Jane from next door or something.

I think the winner is a very good painter but wasn't quite ready to be winner. The likenesses are just too far off.

It was inevitable, sadly. DH and I predicted the eventual winner from the start. But congratulations to the 'real' winner - the one who painted the excellent, sensitive double portrait.

Lorraine and Andy

The "judges" so often chose the worst portrait as the winner. There can be a couple that are brilliant and odds are they choose the one that looks nothing like the person they are painting,

I would have thought the main criteria for a portrait is that it looks like the sitter. The judges seem to think they are being so clever or edgy choosing the awful likenesses

I think the production team need to decide whether the show is about promoting new young artists/raw talent, or rewarding the best portrait. I haven’t yet seen the commission episode so haven’t seen the LK portrait, but I liked his self-portrait and the portrait of his girlfriend, though I wasn’t at all keen on the final double portrait, which was dauby and caricaturish. But it does seem a bit mad to hand a commission to someone very inexperienced over someone who has established she can do an excellent job, and takes professional commissions, while doing beautiful, sensitive work. I think BB may have won because neither Jennifer nor Paul’s final commission was great, and his was good? I thought Paul was a likely winner from his self-portrait and his Saskia Reeves portrait, but I didn’t think any of his subsequent paintings were anywhere near as interesting…?

I have seen the portrait of Lorraine Kelly and thought it was awful. If I were her I would not be happy.

It's a full length portrait and, for some reason, he has given her big fat legs. I am no fan of hers but she really does not have fat legs

neither Jennifer nor Paul’s final commission was great

Did you really think that? I thought Jennifer's portrait of her sister was a fantastic piece.

Yes, I did. I think she’s an astonishingly gifted artist, but usually those final commissions represent a huge leap in terms of achievement compared to what they manage in four hours in the heats and I thought this wasn’t. I preferred all the paintings she did in four hours. I thought the portrait of her sister was just less interesting to look at.

I just got round to watching the final and was so disappointed. I thought the winner's portrait of Lorraine Kelly was awful. His portraits of Andy Serkis and Lorraine Ashbourne were horrific. I'm glad the couple chose Jennifer's work to take home so she got a win of sorts.