ARMS are protectively clutching frames of all shapes and sizes as the queue inches closer to the submissions desk.

As hopeful artists fill in forms and pay their entry fee, they leave their work with a silent prayer that it will end up on the walls of the McLellan Galleries.

Now in its 152nd year, the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts annual exhibition is a must-do for artists all across the country and a must-see for the art-loving public.

And never more so than this year when it returns after a decade to the high plaster walls and corniced ceilings of the magnificent Sauchiehall Street galleries.

The pop-up event, which opens on November 10, has cost £100,000 in maintenance and repair works to the lighting, heating, waterworks, painting and cleaning of the landmark building.

If the RGI has its way, this will be the first of many shows breathing a new lease of life into the galleries.

Nearly 2000 submissions have been received from the public for consideration in the exhibition, a significant increase on previous years.

As always, there is also the opportunity to see new work by RGI artists, including Glasgow's Rosalind Lawless, at 35 one of the youngest at RGI.

The graduate of Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen, and the Royal College of Art in London is showing three pieces of work, influenced by a trip to the Champagne region of France won in a previous RGI show.

"Since I graduated, my work has been based around architecture but not a building, more the interior architectural space - a doorway or a window frame - the in-between spaces people usually look through," she says.

"I'm influenced by the big abstract expressionists, when I look at their work they all seem to go through the same kind of process I hope to achieve: they have one element and just turn it around and upside down, maybe change the colour.

"My work is usually about a snapshot of something I see in a building."

Describing the piece she is shown with above, she says: "That was from the top of a roof and there was a window space and I just drew it, and drew it, and drew it in my sketch book and abstracted it as I was going along."

SHE says the show is important for her to get recognition by her peers.

"I won prizes by putting in work a few years ago so that steadily built up to this. Hopefully my work speaks for itself," she says.

This year the RGI has been keen to encourage young artists to exhibit and 25-year-old Glasgow School of Art trained Robin Leishman has been pre-selected to show one piece, a full-size painting of a soldier wearing a gas mask, and submitted another two for consideration. He will find out on Wednesday if his work has been accepted, along with everyone else who has entered.

The recently appointed artist in residence at the Black Watch Museum in Perth said: "All of my work is based on toy soldiers that used to belong to my father.

"I lost him when I was young so I've never really known him. I think if I play with his toys the way he used to I might find some kind of closeness.

"Using the soldier figure instantly portrays a feeling of fragility. This is the same height as me, I wanted it to be quite foreboding. Instead of painting a plastic toy face I wanted to cover it up and it instantly changed it."

The McLellan's suite of galleries allows for architectural models to be restored as a regular feature of the exhibition, alongside painting, drawing, sculpture and prints. Photography is being introduced this year.

The RGI's 50-strong corps of artists will be well represented alongside invited artists including David Mach, Howard Hodgkin, Ken Howard, Sir Robin Philipson and Dr David Donaldson.

l RGI Annual Exhibition runs from November 10 to December 8. www.royalglasgowinstitute.org

angela.mcmanus@eveningtimes.co.uk