2024/25 MONTHLY ART COMPETITIONS - scroll down for information.
Page edited by Sarah Miles
THEMED COMPETITIons
We now have our themes for our themed competitions, and they are: 'Stories' and 'Climate/ Weather'. Information below:
'Stories' themed competition will close on: Friday 7th March 2025, and the winners will be picked at the meeting on Thursday 13th March 2025. You can interpret this theme however you like. It could be inspired by books you've read, or your own personal stories in your own life, or based on the story of a famous person... whatever you think! We would also LOVE you to send a short story in with it; just a brief summary that we can put on the website with your artwork. Three or four lines would be ample.
'Climate/ Weather' themed competition will close on: Friday 6th June 2025, and the winners will be picked at the meeting on Thursday 12th June 2025. Can you come up with some fabulous art, inspired by the climate or weather around the world? This could also be a great opportunity to explore bigger topics, like Climate Change.
2024/25 MONTHLY COMPETITION RULES
TAKE NOTE OF A FEW CHANGES
This year, we will be having two winners each month, both winning £40 in gift vouchers from Picturesque! Now you have an even bigger incentive to get involved!
We will also continue the themed competitions, and this time they are: 'Stories' which closes on Friday 7th March and 'Climate Change/ Weather' which closes on Friday 6th June, ready for the following Thursday meetings.
Another new rule: Please only submit one entry each month, and remember, an entry cannot be re-entered into another monthly competition until the following SAS year.
To enter, please submit work by emailing Sarah Miles at: smiles-art@outlook.com
You must remember to attach the image, tell Sarah the title, the medium, and the dimensions of the piece. Please also advise Sarah whether it is for the Monthly Competition or the Themed Competition.
Sarah will load your submissions onto this website. By entering the competition, you are agreeing that the society may use your picture on this website, and the Society's Facebook and Instagram pages.
Three judges from the committee will select five art works each and the overall top 5 artworks will be available for members to vote on. Members must attend the meeting in person to vote, and because of this, please only enter an artwork if you can bring it to the meeting. If you cannot bring the art work yourself, you must nominate a proxy to take it for you. If the art work is not at the meeting, you forfeit your chance of winning. Art works cannot be re-entered in the following month's competitions. The meeting that it needs to be brought to is listed in the information introducing the next competition. When voting is over, the winner will be shared on this page.
All pictures will be eligible for the President's Prize and are also additional entries into the 2025 Annual Summer Exhibition on the 'Wall of Fame'.
We want more members to enter the competition and for more members to vote, so please do come to meetings and get involved!
june themed 'weather/climate' competition, open!
closes: friday 6th june, noon
The June THEMED Monthly Competition is now open! This month's theme is 'Weather/ Climate'. Please send your weather/ climate inspired entries to Sarah Miles at: smiles-art@outlook.com, and, since writing a few short sentences about your piece went down so well with the previous competition, you may include a few short lines about your artwork (just keep your anonymity in the text!) Make sure you include the usual details too: title of the piece, the medium(s) used, the dimensions, and your name (so we know who to contact if you get through to the next round).
If your work is selected by the judges for the next round, please bring your piece to our next meeting at on Thursday 12th June!
Title: Arctic Aurora
Medium: Acrylics and Oils
Size: 20x16 inches
"I have a painting which I have just finished which shows the Northern Lights which are very visible in the USA, especially Alaska.
The lights are a beautiful display of different colours which are absolutely beautiful to see. There are only a number of places across the world where they are clearly.
They are a unique display of colour which is a unique part of the climate/weather."
Title: So Much Rain!
Medium: Oil
Size: 104 x 84 cm (with frame)
“I was cycling around the park earlier this year when I came to a point where suddenly the path was submerged in water! The river had burst its banks and the flood water completely covered the field beyond. I've seen the park flooded before, but never quite so comprehensively, nor in this light! It was just before the driest spring for over 50 years. What is happening to our weather??”
Title: FLOOD
Medium: Watercolour
Size: 24x20 inches
“A field lies drowned beneath rising floodwaters,
as nature surges forward without pause or pity,
reclaiming the land with unstoppable force.”
Title: Edmonton Tornado
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 16.5 x 11.7 inches
“In July 31 1987 I was living in Edmonton Alberta when one of the worst series of Tornados in Canadian history hit. After a week of very humid hot weather and storms (including Tornadoes mostly in rural areas) this thing finally hit.
A few moments after the photo I based this on was taken, all the buildings, trees vehicles etc. were gone.
The strength of it was F5 which is highest rating and means winds of 260 to 316 mph. There were at least 8 funnels that touched down over a wide area, (they tend to cause damage, lift of then touch down again even stronger and repeat the process) moving freight trains and fully loaded box cars hundreds of yards and stacking trailer trucks like toys in a toy box. 27 people were killed and 300 injured and the damage was 760 million dollars in today's money. There's a lot more to tell but that gives the viewer a feel.”
Title: Raining Again!
Medium: Oil
Size: 30x40cm
“Raining Again but little Jack does not mind as he loves to splash in the Puddles!”

Title: The Lench Meadows, Stratford, in Summer
Medium: Mixed Media
Size: 32x55cm
Title: Eye of the Storm
Medium: Pen and Watercolour
Size: 11x14 inches
“‘Eye of the Storm’ captures a moment of haunting calm at the centre of chaos. Fine pen lines carve a swirling wall of cloud and turbulence, while soft watercolour washes introduce light and serenity, highlighting the quiet stillness within. At the heart of the storm, a lone bird drifts through the eye—an emblem of resilience and grace amid nature’s fury.”
Title: Climbing above the mist into the sunshine on Broadway Hill
Medium: Soft Pastel
Size: 245mm x 280mm
Title: Sea Spray
Medium: Mixed Media
Size: 20x20cm
“I enjoyed experimenting with mark making and texture to evoke an atmosphere of a windy day at the coast. The clouds are coming in, casting shadows over the distant fields, and the wind has stirred up the waves, filling the air with sea spray.”

Title: Brooding Skies Over Brailes Hill
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 60 X 60 cms
Title: Heatwave
Medium: Mixed Media
Size: 30 x 30cm
“I created this canvas during a very hot period of weather last summer. I really don’t cope well with extreme heat and we are experiencing more of this weather as the planet warms up.”
Title: Storm Passing Through
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 30x60cm
“I love the effect of light on the landscape, and the brightness of greenery against the forbidding sky made an irresistible subject.”
Title: Occluded Front
Medium:
Size: 20x16 inches
“A trip to the Isle of Skye in our camper van in May several years ago resulted in us approaching the Cuillin Mountains with the sky getting blacker and blacker. We were soon in the midst of an unseasonable blizzard with snow settling on the mountains and the road. it was very pretty when the sun came out but a bit scary at the time. The painting depicts our approach to the gathering storm.”
Title: FutureNow lens technology brought to you by AIphone
Medium: Soft Pastel
Size: 28 x 38cm
“This painting exploits our fears both about AI and climate change, imagining an AI lens technology that will show you the future whatever you point it at- here it shows the year 2075 after another 50 years of climate change showing continuous rainstorms and a risen sea level.”

Title: It’s Getting ‘otter and Otter
Medium: Oil
Size: 12x16 inches
Title: The Fragility of the Somerset Levels
Medium: Textile
Size: 960mm x 240mm
“I created this piece in response to the effects of climate change on an already vulnerable area. The ‘Summerlands’ (Somerset) were under water and marshy for much of the year before the 17th Century Dutch engineers designed and built a drainage system of ‘Rhynes’. Communities evolved, roads and bridges linked them and in the 1970s the M5 tore across the landscape.
Climate change sees it under threat once more; hence my fragile final lattice-like free motion embroidery and stormy waves of muslin.”
Title: Cod Fish On Newspaper - Climate change? A human or natural paradox…
Medium: Mixed Media
Size: A3
“Cod fish on newspaper represents our traditional fish supper -
how climate change has increased human turmoil and altered the way we are living.
The cod fish represents tradition and the food we eat and the newspaper headlines show the climate and environmental issues we are suffering. By concentrating on the scientific aspects of climate change and therefore failing to recognise our own part in the destruction of our planet is leading us to enter a new age of extinction. Is the planet fighting back through earthquakes, volcanoes and droughts? Or are we contributing to its slow death. A human or natural paradox?”
Title: After the Rain
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 12x16 inches
Title: Beneath the Brooding Skies
Medium: Oil
Size: 10x8 inches
“This painting captures the quintessential British landscape—stormy skies looming over vibrant green fields. It shows the beauty of our traditional weather, where rain nourishes the land, bringing freshness and life. As climate change alters environments globally, I hope the UK's natural charm endures, allowing future generations to experience its timeless serenity.”
2024/2025 monthly and themed compeition
winners and entries - congratulations!
Winner of the May Competition:
Artist: Angela Davison
Title: John
Medium: Oil
Size: 8 x10 inches
Winner of the May Competition:
Artist: Diana Chambers
Title: Lily pond at Batsford Arboritum
Medium: Alcoholic ink on Nara paper
Size: 48 cms x 53 cms
There were mysterious dark depths in the pond which I tried to capture.
Winner of the April Competition:
Artist: Sheila Davis
Title: Gates at Hidcote
Medium: Watercolour and Ink
Size: A4
“One of my favourite places, painting done from a photo taken on a recent visit.
Learning to use ink to protect watercolour background.”
Winner of the April Competition:
Artist: Tony Mawbey
Title: Feeding Frenzy
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 50x50cm
Winner of the March Themed Competition 'Stories':
Artist: Haidee Smith
Title: The Fox and the Hound
Medium: Mixed Media
This is a 3D mixed media sculpture depicting the Fox and the Hound book. With a watercolour painting of the pups and a 3D page curling visual of the book and Tod. There is an abundance of page turning moral dilemmas throughout in the original story by Daniel. P. Mannix. Loosely based around the life of Tod whose up and downs are firmly connected to survival within human company and in the wild, an anti hunting story that was sadly lost in the Disney version.
Please see two more pictures below:
Winner of the March Themed Competition 'Stories':
Artist: Linda Hodierne
Title: The Chicken Whisperer
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 20 inches square
The Story
Molly adores her chickens and they always follow her around.
She feeds them, plays and cuddles with them and delights in collecting and sharing their eggs with her friends.
Winner of the 'Month 5/ February' Monthly Competition:
Artist: Isabel Cooper
Title: The Studio at Shottery
Medium: Oil
Size: 46x60cm
Winner of the 'Month 5/ February' Monthly Competition:
Artist: Paulette Moore
Title: Northumbrian Sunset
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 40x50cm
Winner of the 'Month 4/ January' Monthly Competition:
Artist: Penelope Fetherston

Title: Rose "My Mum"
Medium: Watercolour
Size: 12x16 inches
Winner of the 'Month 4/ January' Monthly Competition:
Artist: Diana Chambers
Title: Sennen Beach Cornwall
Medium: Mixed Media
Size: 69 x 51cms
Winner of the 'Month 3/ November' Monthly Competition:
Artist: Jo Bonnett
Title: The Jewellery Quarter
Medium: Watercolour and Ink
Size: 11x15 inches
Winner of the 'Month 3/ November' Monthly Competition:

Artist: Julie Swinsco
Title: Nocturn Intersection II
Medium: Oil
Size: 51x68cm
Winner of the 'Month 2/ October' Monthly Competition:
Artist: Sarah Jemmet
Title: Once Upon a Time
Medium: Oils
Size: 20x20 inches
Winner of the 'Month 1/ September' Monthly Competition:
Artist: Viv Scholes
Title: Flossie
Medium: Chalk pastels
Size: 20x19.5cm
all monthly competition entries are shown on the slideshow below:
Winner of the 'Month 1/ September' Monthly Competition:
Artist: Gillian Shadbolt
Title: Oil
Medium: Abandoned
Size: 600x600 cm