It was a grey day in February when I got a missed call from Storyvault Productions. The call was completely unexpected but I immediately called them back. Eventually, after a little phone tennis I got through and was told I'd been accepted onto Portrait Artist of the Year 2025!!

Rewind a couple of months. I hadn't been expecting to enter PAOTY. I'd always been in awe of those participating in the competition and I didn't expect to ever get onto the show.

In order to apply applicants need to submit a self-portrait. So one evening I thought I'd at least see what I could create, just to check in case I felt I could get away with entering. I love painting portraits. I hate painting self-portraits. I don't consider myself vain but something about analysing my own face for so long makes me frustrated. Possibly in the same way that it is harder to capture your loved ones or someone you know well - because you know them so well you never feel like you've got it right.

There was a lot of frustration in my painting and in the end I was very dissatisfied with it. It went on a shelf to dry and I didn't come back to it until the day of the PAOTY application deadline. "What the heck," I thought to myself as I found a sunny position in the studio and took a photo.

In the time after finding out I'd be in the show I analysed that portrait so many times. What had the judges seen in this painting? How had this struck a chord? Was it the colour palette? Was it the textured background (which by the way wasn't intentional but just because I'd painted over a failed painting)? Was it the expression? I think I figured it out but only the day after the filming of my heat.

I'm glad I hadn't figured it out earlier though. And I'll explain why in the next in this series of stories about my experience of PAOTY 2025.