Royal Academy opens its doors to art for Summer Exhibition

Up to 12,000 works of art are expected at the London gallery, in the world's largest open-submission contemporary show

People arrive at The Royal Academy of Arts in London to hand in work for the 244th Summer Exhibition. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

The Royal Academy opened its doors to a deluge of art today as the first works were submitted for its annual Summer Exhibition. Between 11,000 and 12,000 pieces, ranging from pencil drawings to vast oil paintings, are expected to be brought to the London gallery, which is currently hosting David Hockney's blockbuster show.

"This is the first time I've submitted a piece," said Rowena Ardern, a former primary school teacher, now fabric designer and artist from Lancaster. She was carrying an embroidered drawing called Blackbird and Allium Cernuum into the gallery, where she unwrapped it and handed it over to gallery staff. "I've been to the exhibition before and saw things where I thought, 'I could do as good as that', so I thought I might as well give it a go." She hopes to sell the work for £400 – artists set the prices. "I don't know whether that's too much," she fretted. "It's so difficult to judge."

Now in its 244th year, the Summer Exhibition is the world's largest open-submission contemporary art show. Anyone is allowed to enter work, which is judged by a panel of Royal Academicians – the eminent artists who make up the 80-strong membership of the RA. After looking at every work, in any medium (sculptures are viewed by photograph) they will whittle it down to a shortlist of 1,000 to 2,000. These are then taken into the gallery, where they are sifted again into a coherent exhibition. Only on the final day of the hang are the artists contacted to be told whether their work will be included.

"It's only then we can start cataloguing everything because [the panel] have always got the option of going back to the works they didn't originally select," said Edith Devaney, the RA's head of summer Exhibition and curator. "They might wake up in the middle of the night and say 'I had this recollection of this fantastic oil', give a description and we try and find it – that happens, and it's rather wonderful when it does."

This year's panel is headed by Tess Jaray, the artist who taught at Slade school of art from 1968 to 1999. "She's been encouraging people she's taught over the past decade to enter," said Devaney. "She'll be celebrating the more modestly sized work, but also supporting emerging artists. It's going to have a slightly different feel this year – that's a great thing about having a different co-ordinator every year. They take it in slightly different directions."

At least two of the artists in the queue to submit pictures had had work in previous Summer Exhibitions. Lyndon Douglas, a commercial photographer from London, had an art photograph purchased last year by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, the head of the Royal Academy. "It was great to be able to express my own ideas through my own personal work and for it to be received like that," he said. This year he is submitting a mixed-media piece called Vessel, which commemorates his late mother and includes a real, dried, Jamaican "doctor fish", priced at £3,500.

Greg Genestine-Charlton, also from London, sold a work for £700 two years ago, though he failed to make the cut last year. He was carrying a small painting called Blue, which depicts a mother and child, taken from a newspaper clipping. "The first year when I got in I was over the moon," he said.

Almost all the work will be for sale – the RA takes a 30% cut, much less than a commercial gallerist would take, which is ploughed into the Royal Academy Schools. Prices range from around £100 for a print to hundreds of thousands for work by academicians, which does not need to go through the selection process. Last year's show included work by Anish Kapoor, Martin Creed and Tracey Emin.

Barbara Raimondo, from Milan, unwrapped two photographs, Looking For Myself and Noah, for £350 and £250 respectively, in the hope that the exhibition would mark her London debut.

Clare Caulfield had taken the train from Saltaire in Yorkshire with a large pen and watercolour of Caffe Florian in Venice under her arm, priced £650. She said that getting in to the show would be "a great achievement – I'd love to come down and see it hanging there".

"It's very exciting for us to see the line of work coming through and there's something really special. You haven't seen anything quite like it before and then you think 'that's going ito get in, it will sell in the first week', and they usually do," said Devaney, adding that buyers at the show stretch from complete beginners to hardened collectors.

Though the Summer Exhibition is sometimes lampooned by art critics as the place where amateur watercolourists from the Shires can get their works onto the RA's hallowed walls, Devaney said that most of the artists are professionals. "Artists can be struggling for years, but if they get in, their work will be seen by 250,000 people. Having your name published in a catalogue means people may offer you a show in commercial galleries – it can make a huge difference."