(lively bright music) - This is it.

After seven weeks traveling the country, we've reached our final destination, the stunning Stourhead in Wiltshire.

It's home to a world-class art collection and for one day only, three very talented landscape artists.

- [Joan] Our finalists have beaten off stiff competition to make it here today.

In the past seven weeks, National Trust properties up and down the country have been host to our talented artists.

We've seen some remarkable work from etching to sketching, from linocut to collage.

- Yeah, exciting.

- [Frank] They've all been competing for the chance to win a 10,000 pound commission to paint Flatford in Suffolk, made famous by John Constable.

- It's fresh cow manure from this morning.

- Where did you get the cow?

- But only three have made the final.

Jamie Hageman.

(spectators clapping) Sam Taylor.

- Nerine McIntyre.

And today they take on their biggest challenge yet, capturing the breath-taking scenery here at Stourhead.

- Have you been and looked at what they've done?

- No, 'cause I'm just freaking out that I won't get finished.

- Are you worried?

- Very worried.

- Which one am I looking at?

- But there can only be one winner.

- And with a 10,000 pounds commission from the National Trust at stake, the pressure is on.

Without further ado, let's find out who will be crowned the very first "Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year."

- Oh wow.

They are incredible.

(bright music) (gentle music) - [Joan] Among today's three finalists, two are professional artists, Jamie Hageman and Nerine McIntyre.

And there's one art student, Sam Taylor.

Today, the judges have brought them to Stourhead, one of the National Trust's most visited properties.

Artists have captured this world-famous garden for centuries.

And today, it's the turn of our three.

- Sweets.

- Bloody hell.

If you're working on paper, it's gonna get soaked.

- We've got three fabulous artists.

They work in very different ways, so I'm really looking forward to see how they approach this beautiful scenery here.

Unfortunately, you might have noticed it's raining.

- At the moment, I'm panicking 'cause I don't wanna get anything wet.

I don't wanna get my workspace wet.

Acrylics, you know, they're gonna, if they get wet, they're just gonna run and I like my paintings to be pristine and it won't help.

- The atmosphere today at the final, I'd love to say that it's really, sort of palpably energetic, but actually, I think it's really quite nervy.

I'm nervous for the artists, but I'm also nervous for us as to how we're going to make this decision.

- I'm fine now, like, I see, but I'm stressing later.

I don't know yet.

I'm quite calm about it all.

- This place feels quite Gothic in the rain.

It's got this amazing landscape and all these wonderful, old buildings, but with this kind of rainy, gray day and the greens seeming to be almost like acid green and stark, it's like a very atmospheric movie set.

So I really hope we get some great paintings that tell a good story.

(gentle bright music) - [Nerine] I'm just gonna stick my music on and just try and enjoy it, 'cause I'm here anyway, so.

- Artists, it's now time to start your final piece.

You have four hours to paint the stunning view in front of you.

- You'll be judged on your ideas, your creativity and your capacity to approach the task in the most imaginative way possible.

The judges want to feel the full force of your imaginations.

Good luck.

Your time starts now.

(gentle dramatic music) - [Frank] For their final challenge, the judges want to see more of the artists process, so I've encouraged them to explore the gardens to help inform their composition.

- Oh yuck, oh dear.

Find somewhere dry, I say.

- [Frank] It's entirely up to them what they choose to include and how they choose to include it.

- Oh, yeah, this is nice.

I've found this little hut shelter under here.

It's dry, that's the most important thing.

The angle of the bridge here is a bit nicer than from the pod.

It's straight through the arches, whereas here at an angle, you've got the perspective of the arches, which is quite nice actually.

- [Joan] Professional artist, Jamie Hageman lives in Fort William.

He specializes in painting mountains in a style he calls Romantic Realism.

His work normally takes months to complete, but for the heat at Lyme Park, he had to adapt his usual methods to create a piece within the four-hour time limit.

- I think he's created something quite fabulous.

- [Kate] It's sort of David Lynch meets Tim Burton by way of surrealism.

- When it worked, it suddenly took me with it.

I think it's a phenomenal piece of painting.

- [Joan] In the semi-final, he was one of the few artists to tackle the whole of Tower Bridge, and his new, faster technique continued to impress.

- Jamie's an artist who's incredibly confident with this quite hyper-realist style.

He likes to have a real sense of finesse to his finished works.

The style that he's created in order to compete with us at the heats is a sort of a hybrid between what he wants to be and what he has to be on the day, and actually, we love that style.

It's got this wonderful sense of the sublime and of the sort of foreboding atmosphere.

It's almost like the artist that he is and the artist that he's wrestling with during the competition.

Will the weather affect the way that you paint today at all?

- If it was bright and sunny, I wouldn't necessarily paint it bright and sunny, but at least then I've got the option of light and shade.

And in weather like this, there's no bright colors.

It's all a sort of monotone, monochrome.

And also, with the rain, it's lending some aerial perspective to the scene, so I can really set back those far trees with the blues and purples, which maybe wouldn't appear if it was bright and sunny day.

So, that's nice, that's nice.

(rain pattering) - [Nerine] I'm just taking images of different parts of the landscape 'cause I was thinking about doing in different parts of the buildings, maybe different angles of them and trying to work it into the composition.

- [Frank] Professional artist, Nerine McIntyre is from Fife.

Before this competition, the main focus of her work was in seascapes.

The judges thought her heat painting of Waddesdon Manor was inventive, mysterious and beautiful, even though the manor itself was mainly ignored.

- It's reconciling the built environment with the natural environment, which is what we're doing here today.

- I've fallen for it, I'm afraid.

- Yes!

- I've been seduced by it, completely.

- [Frank] In the semi-final, she was confident enough to reverse the angle of the bridge, something the judges admired.

- Nerine's got this fantastic, magical, mystical style and she tries to get right underneath the sort of essence of the landscape and extract a sort of, I suppose a deeper meaning in a sense, but sort of transports you to another little fairytale place.

Hi, Nerine.

- Hi.

- I know you like to get a sense of the spirit of a place, don't you, and the moodiness of it?

- Yes, so, yeah, I do like, I would get as much information as possible.

So this is perhaps maybe how I would prepare for a piece I was doing for myself.

- Would you normally do it on a tablet?

- [Nerine] I would use my camera and my sketchbook, but I'm just doing everything on this because of the time.

- There's too many options now, I think.

I kind of preferred it a bit before, when they just forced you to do something.

There's loads of different views you could do that would be really interesting, but it's a bit, not overwhelming, but it's like, yeah, I don't know.

You could pick something here, start doing it and then it could be the wrong decision.

- [Joan] Art student, Sam Taylor is studying for his degree at the world-renowned Slade School of Fine Art in London.

For his heat painting, he started on a larger work before abandoning it in favor of distilling the view of the Fowey Estuary into a much smaller piece.

- He was looking to create an abstraction of this landscape.

We all loved that dirty, lake sea that he was creating and all the textures in it.

- [Joan] In the semi-final, Sam struggled when faced with a cityscape, but after a lot of experimentation, he created a piece that won the judges over.

- It sounds very interesting that he's our youngest finalist and he's also just started at the Slade School of Arts, and his work is really interesting in that way that I've never seen anything like it before.

Although the format always seems the same, he does approach the subject matter in different ways and he's very inventive in what he does, and he produces these little, beautiful miniatures that have so much light and magic in them.

And I think that's quite, I think it's fascinating.

Do you have an idea in your mind?

- [Sam] I really don't.

I think I need to do something wrong, go over it and then find something right in it.

- That sounds like you're in a working process.

- Yeah, it's not something I see.

It's something I've done as a reaction to it.

Then, that I'll examine, then I'll do something.

- No, no, but that is, I mean, that is a very organic working process.

So you're finding out about the landscape and what you want from it by actually doing it.

- Once I've done that, obviously, there'll be something good, you know, something I want to try from what I've just done.

Then that gets brought into it.

- Well, I'm looking forward to it.

- [Frank] But there's only so much prep that can be done before the painting must start.

(gentle bright music) - [Sam] All right.

- Oh, bother.

I've just knelt in a wet bit, which is brilliant.

- I've put the bridge in the wrong place.

It's got to move.

So I'm panicking inside.

(bright music) - [Frank] Here at Stourhead in Wiltshire, our finalists, Nerine, Sam and Jamie are committing to canvas their final painting of the competition.

And each has their own distinctive way of beginning their paintings.

(bright music continues) - It's a familiar situation.

You always start on the floor.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

If I'm using these sorts of materials, if I tilt the canvas up then they'll run uncontrollably and I don't always want that.

- [Joan] And it's got your characteristic line.

- [Nerine] It just helps to focus me to start off with, more than anything else, so.

- [Joan] So it already looks like a Nerine painting, it really does.

- Okay.

- [Joan] What's your biggest worry?

- Always the buildings and always the structures.

I do like to create structure within the landscape, but I use more of the natural elements and I don't just want to ignore the fact that there are obviously, you know, man-made pieces in there as well, so that, and the time as well.

The time's always, always a worry for me.

(playful bright music) - Sam.

- Yeah.

- When I first looked at your sketches, it looked like a Beatles album sleeve.

I thought, "What's he doing?"

I couldn't quite, I was looking for the temple.

You've ignored the temple.

- Yeah.

It's really obvious and it wasn't before.

Do you see the reflection of the circles?

- [Frank] Mm, yeah.

- I've really honed in on those.

- [Frank] Yes, so the arches become ovals in fact.

- [Sam] Yeah, and there's like interesting things going on in them, so yeah.

- I had drawing lessons for a short period.

And one of the things I was told is that I should focus more on negative spaces rather than- - [Sam] No, that's very true.

It's much more interesting, the negative space.

- [Frank] Which is what those arches are.

- And it's complete illusion 'cause there's not really anything below them.

It's their reflection, that they look like four pills or something.

- Yeah, they do.

So is it about stripping the whole thing down to some essential, sensory experience?

- I mean, the importance of me wanting to come here is painting something that is personal, whereas I've found something and I'm providing it, providing that instead of the view.

I'm providing what I've noticed instead of just coming here and providing this postcard view that you could find on the internet.

I always find it funny how people live like on the coast and then in their houses they've got a painting of a coast.

I think it's completely pointless.

Do you know what I mean, like?

- No, it's an interesting point I have never thought about, but yeah, it is very tempting to have photographs and pictures of stuff that's just down the road.

I've got me on the wall.

That's the worst example of that, isn't it?

You know, we have a mirror.

But no, I wanna see me in acrylic.

(bright music) - While Sam takes a minimalist approach to Stourhead, Jamie has a completely different vision.

You know, you're very exact when it comes to the architectural features, very precise.

So you are going to feature on that temple over there, are you?

- Temple, bridge and then this sort of ruined folly or something over in the trees over there.

So, yeah, I'll try and get those recognizable.

Whether they're totally accurate, I'm not sure.

So there's elements I'm going to bring into this, for example, the bridge at a slightly different angle 'cause we're end on here.

So we're looking straight through the arches.

I like the elevated position, so I'm gonna have that, but I'm also gonna have the bridge at an angle.

- You'd be amazed how interesting it is to watch paint dry.

It really, it is absolutely absorbing to see other people absorbed in the task, so get on with it.

- I will, thank you.

- Good luck.

(bright music) (serene music) - [Frank] Described as a living work of art, the garden at Stourhead was designed by Henry Hoare II to be explored as a series of views.

Opened in the 1750s, visitors discovered that Hoare's design was a complete departure from the more customary, regimented garden, with each of the buildings and statues aligned to take you through this living painting.

(gentle bright music) - You get these magnificent framed views, framed within the trees of the landscape below.

You might see one or two arches of a palladium bridge, you see the temple of Apollo in the distance, and then it will disappear.

It will be concealed.

It will be hidden.

So you'd walk around the garden and drop into the grotto, one of the most romantic and beautiful distractions, I think, in a garden in the country.

The reclined nymph, Ariadne there, the water's cascading beneath her, and that is the River Stour, and the banks of the River Stour are protected by the river god and he's ahead of you.

And you leave the grotto behind.

And you see this gorgeous, thatched cottage.

It's there to distract you and it's there to hold your attention.

But then, as you go, you can start exploring the relationship the temples have with each other.

Why choose the temple of Apollo and put him on a hill?

Well, Apollo was god of the sun and he is on the hill where the sun rises and sets.

And without the sunshine, the garden doesn't exist.

Apollo looks across at the temple of Flora.

Without Flora in the garden, you don't have the flora and fauna, so the garden is lifeless.

Framed right in the middle is the Pantheon.

And then you open the doors and who else is gonna welcome you into the Pantheon but Hercules, framed by the other gods, and it's the most rewarding moment.

It is Henry the Magnificent's landscape scene, absolute true success in landscape architecture and landscape gardening.

- Tai, what's the specific challenge of this view?

- It's a fantastic place for the finalists.

I mean, there's just so much to work with and that might be the problem, is there's too much.

It's just so beautiful.

It is, it's stunning.

I mean, thank God it's raining.

(Frank laughs) - Give it a bit of texture.

- [Tai] It's so picturesque and there's so much in it.

It's difficult for an artist to edit this down or choose a view.

- I know if I was trying to take a photograph of that, I'd have to decide whether I'm gonna sharpen the foreground or sharpen that classic temple over there.

When you're painting, is that in any way a dilemma?

- It doesn't really, it's not an issue because as a viewer, when we're looking at things, our eyes focus and, for an artist, unless they were, you know, they were really trying to create atmosphere and create great distance, they'd make that smudgy and gray and the colors would be cool so it would recede into the distance and the bridge would be sharp.

And two of our artists are being very cavalier with the things that they've got in front of them.

One of them is avoiding most of the little temples and follies and concentrating on reflection under the bridge.

And Nerine has decided that she's gonna put the temple in front and the bridge behind.

So I think we've picked some very interesting artists to work with.

They're kind of feeling free about what they're gonna do here.

(gentle bright music) - [Joan] One hour into the final challenge and one artist still hasn't decided on his composition.

- It's all up in the air.

I don't even know if I'm doing it.

I'm just like messing around.

I might do a diptic, like two pieces that kind of work with each other, maybe, yeah.

I think it's silly to think just because the view in front of you is a certain way that you have to conform to that.

Compositions should be something you should think about all the time.

I think people's view is that it's solid and that it's like, you can't kind of play with it a bit because it's an actual view already.

(bright music) - I've not really told many people that I'm in the competition because I don't really tend to do this sort of thing.

I'm kind of just hoping that I do a good piece of work, because I mean, the other two artists are, they're really different from me, I think.

They're really good also.

- I just, I never thought I'd get this far.

Now, I'm here, so yeah, it's just surreal.

I don't really want it to end, actually.

It's just exciting.

The whole process is exciting.

(bright music) - [Joan] For their final challenge, Sam, Nerine and Jamie have been asked to paint the view of the gardens at Stourhead in Wiltshire.

- I'm just using different sections of the landscape that I've taken and I've manipulated the colors and the layout of it, swapped it around, erased some sections to create what I'm doing.

- I always make lots of little errors, and I come back and correct them later.

When you've got four hours to do a painting, you just can't, you can't go back and adjust everything.

So I just don't wanna make any little errors like that that I don't have time to go back and correct.

- [Frank] But it's not only today's paintings our finalists will be judged on.

- [Joan] Before they make their final appraisals, the judges want to know what the artists are capable of when given more time.

- [Frank] So each of them was asked to take on a commission of three very different landscapes for the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland, and they were given two weeks to complete their work.

- [Joan] The judges sent each artist to a place that would play to their artistic strengths.

Sam went to Glencoe in Scotland, Jamie traveled to the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, and Nerine's destination was Plas Newydd in Anglesey.

- Welcome to Plas Newydd, or should I say, Croeso i Plas Newydd?

Shall we have a little look around the house?

- [Nerine] Yeah, that'll be great.

- [Frank] When taking on their commissions, the artists were asked to take into account the criteria given by the commissioners.

- What sort of areas or aspects of the landscape do you think you'd like to have incorporated?

- I think really something that depicts what Plas Newydd is about.

We get lots of different sort of changes of light and atmosphere.

It's quite ethereal at times, and I think it would be nice to create wonderful sort of areas that look like there's dappled sunlight coming through and nice, something nice and atmospheric.

- I do definitely work to an atmosphere.

The paints and enamels should create little bits of magic as well on the canvas hopefully, so that should.

Yeah, that should add to the finish of the piece.

- [Joan] In Glencoe, Sam met with the commissioner, property manager, Scott McCombie.

- So what are you looking for with the picture and the kind of landscape?

- Really some, I was looking for you to convey a sense of how hard the glen is and just to make the place seem as hard and as harsh as possible, really.

- I really wanted to kind of capture a bit more of a dark side, something with a bit more edge, not just a postcard view, more something, something more true to it, you know.

It's so kind of peaceful and tranquil now.

I think it's a very violent kind of place.

- That catches people out, you know, especially on a day like this.

The weather's still and it's not too cold.

It's quite nice, and then people go up there and suddenly realize that it is quite harsh, quite suddenly.

- [Joan] At the Giant's Causeway, Jamie meets Elena Killoch.

- Hi, Jamie, how are you?

- Hello, Elena.

Very well, thank you.

- Welcome to the Giant's Causeway.

- Thank you.

So have you had a think about what sort of size piece you'd like then?

- Obviously we'd like it to be a stand-out piece and really to, I guess, add to the images that we have here.

What kind of colors were you thinking about?

- I think very subtle tones.

So lots of grays and greens and blues that all merge into each other 'cause it's sort of foggy out to sea at the moment.

- I think a lot of people have this perception that the Causeway's columns and the stones themselves are this kind of basalt gray, but actually, the colors can change so quickly down there.

- And there's lichens on the rocks as well.

- There's lichen on the rocks.

Some of those can be white or yellow, so lots of unexpected colors, probably.

- Yeah, okay.

Well, that'll be interesting.

- [Frank] As well as an increased time limit, this challenge offers the finalists the opportunity to explore the landscape and choose their own composition.

- The Causeway comes in three different parts.

We have a small causeway, a middle causeway and a grand causeway, and you can see them marked out here on your map.

- [Jamie] Yeah, okay.

- And that, so there's lots of different viewpoints.

We could be painting what you can see behind you here, which is known as the Giant's Organ.

Or you can go in around the back and take the chimney tops of Finn MacCool's house.

- That's exactly what I want, yeah.

I need things like this in the painting.

- Taking photos is pretty important 'cause I like to get quite a varied number of shots or components within the landscape so that I can start piecing it together.

I found a really lovely tree.

Really sort of old and gnarled, I'd like to probably incorporate that.

I also took some shots beside the fountain.

So I might think about getting some small details in.

- [Scott] What is it you're looking for now?

- Now, I think I'm looking for more of composition.

I want a nice mix of verticals and horizontals, kind of something like a strong foreground and a background, something that's going to keep the eye darting around the picture instead of being one, simple view.

- Okay, I'm sure I can find some of that further out, out here in the glen.

- [Joan] To help the artists form their final composition, they do some preparatory sketches.

(gentle inspirational music) - [Sam] If I do these, it's just to get like a very basic idea of shapes and forms and things that kind of work.

Like, I might do a few of these, just changing the composition, but very kind of loose.

Everything is kind of like green and merging together when you look at it, but when you block it out with different colors, you can really notice the different shapes and everything.

Obviously, catching my eye now is obviously something that it must be important later on.

(gentle bright music) - [Nerine] So I'm just looking at the building from a different aspect, and working out compositionally how I could use it, that sort of scale.

That's something that I wouldn't, I would quite like to do, make the building smaller and secondary to the landscape.

I'm just using pastel, chalk, a little bit of oil bargain just to mix different tones together, but just looking at lights and darks really.

(gentle bright music) - [Jamie] There's so much detail in this landscape, and I love my detail, but I'm gonna have to simplify some of it.

Color-wise, it's quite a flat, dull day but I think that's quite nice actually.

I can add some atmosphere with that, and the cliffs are so impressive here that I think it's something that I've got to include in the painting.

My issue is that it's a long way from the Causeway, so I'm trying to work out how I can include that in the painting.

I'm gonna have to shift everything closer together.

(bright music) - [Frank] Once the artists returned to their studios, they each had two weeks to complete their commission.

- [Nerine] I'm hoping that the judges find the composition quite interesting.

They see what I've tried to achieve.

They've been able to see maybe what I can do with a little bit longer time.

- [Jamie] I hope the judges love the commissioned work, but I think I've captured the landscape, and the atmosphere of the Giant's Causeway, so they'll like it, I'm sure they'll like it.

- [Sam] It took me a few attempts to find what I wanted to do.

I mean, on the same canvas.

I didn't just do a rendition of what was there, kind of much more of an impression.

- [Joan] But before the commissioned works are revealed to the judges, our artists will have to complete today's challenge, painting Stourhead in Wiltshire.

(playful bright music) - Can I ask you, will that be the temple, that, that?

- [Nerine] No.

- Okay, sorry.

Sorry I brought it up.

- No, it's okay.

- [Kathleen] What is it that you're feeling that you've got to do to be successful?

- I'm almost not thinking about that.

I'm almost just thinking, "I want to paint something that I'm happy with," and that's it, really.

And if I'm happy with it, then I've done the best I can do.

- I'm not really sure, I'm still kind of like collaging, but I'm not really sure what the end product's going to be.

I'm just kind of messing around still, like I do.

- It's interesting to see our finalists together at last and find out that they, actually, their approaches to their work is so completely different.

Do you think one of them has got more of an advantage today than the other two?

- No, I think they're all so cool and they're all so confident in what they're doing and I think they're actually benefiting from recognizing that they're all such different styles.

So they're almost not competing with each other.

They're trying to do the best that they can possibly do in their own style.

- I hadn't thought of that.

So it's liberating, actually, that the person next door isn't painting in your way of working, really.

- Absolutely.

The fact that the three of them paint so differently, making a choice between them is going to be about so much more than just technique.

- And part of the competition of course, is you take them to all these fantastic landscapes and we want the artists to be interacting.

At the same time, we want them to bring of, you know, something of themselves.

You're right, it's gonna be very difficult.

- Tricky.

(gentle music) (bright music) (serene music) - [Frank] At Stourhead in Wiltshire, Sam, Nerine and Jamie are nearly two hours into their final challenge, but only one of them can become the overall winner.

(bright music) - I can see here in the photograph that you've got the bridge.

So is that gonna become your focal feature?

- [Nerine] I'm actually, I've got two images in mind to work from.

So, no, the bridge will be in the background and then.

- Will it be a ghostly bridge, like we had a ghostly Waddesdon Manor?

- Yeah, yeah, I was thinking, yeah, that and then maybe bring in some of the other buildings, into the foreground.

- It struck me when I arrived that this landscape suited you quite well.

- Well, there's lots of pieces that I can take from it, so yeah.

- It's a bit like Tower Bridge.

You sort of, like you switched that round, so you're rearranging the follies and outbuildings here as well.

- Yeah, yeah, just to see something else.

- Yeah.

Why not?

So what's this dark that you're putting in now, the accents, the dark accents?

- [Nerine] I like to paint by taking elements away.

- [Tai] Good.

- [Nerine] To form the actual image.

So I put a lot of the dark sections of the tree in the woodland and then bring things back, using the turps.

- And how are you feeling about time?

I mean, you always seem to sort of to just get it, just in the nick of time.

- I'm just thinking, "Oh, can I do it?

Can I manage?"

- But with the elements you've got, you've got it in your mind's eye.

- Oh, I've got it in my mind, yeah, what I want, yeah.

- So that's a very good.

- If I can manage to finish it, yeah.

- We'll let you get on with it.

It's looking very interesting already, although I can't see anything.

(gentle bright music) - Jamie, everyone talks about the terrible strain of only having four hours to paint, including yourself.

Here you are having a sandwich.

- Mm, yeah, what's the rush?

- Is it like in tennis games when you see the professionals sit down and have a banana 'cause they've got to keep their energy levels up?

- Yeah, that's it.

That's it.

This is my banana.

- [Frank] How much hard work is it to paint for four hours, intensely like that?

- [Jamie] It's mentally tough, I think.

Well, for me it is.

- [Frank] And you're a mountaineer.

And you find this mentally tough?

- I think it's just because you're on it for the entire four hours.

You're thinking, there's no space to, if you make a mistake, you've either got to rectify it, which loses time on the other parts to the painting that you need to get on with, or you come back to it at the end and there might not be time.

So it's all this, you've got to keep thinking about.

- Do you keep an eye on your competitors in a, I mean, have you been and had a look to see what they're doing?

- [Jamie] I can see Nerine's, but I haven't been to see Sam's.

I can't see him from here.

I don't really want to have a look.

- One of Sam's methods that he's used in this competition is to paint very small and that's a way of dealing with the four-hour restraint.

And I was just thinking, when I looked at that forestry on your work, it's so beautiful, you could just cut out a four-inch square and present that, and it'd be brilliant.

What do you think?

What do you think of that as an idea?

- No.

Please don't.

- (laughs) Well, you could've given it a bit more chewing over than that.

- All right.

No.

(gentle bright music) - [Kathleen] Which one am I looking at?

- Well, this is like up in the air at the moment.

I'm just kinda playing around with things that might go into this.

- [Kathleen] Might go into it.

You might cut out and collage?

- Yeah, I mean, I'm doing a bit of it now.

I could do a few of these and then it takes me to kind of do something wrong and then look, find what I like in it to then find the thing I want to paint.

- And how important is it to you that people get what you're trying to paint, that you do have a sort of a sense of figuration and people understand it?

- I think it's very hard to kind of break the tide of this traditional landscape painting.

- [Kathleen] So do you feel, you feel like a responsibility?

- Well, I don't, not a responsibility.

I think, now I'm here and I've got this chance, I really want to push a different view and especially being young as well and wanting to find my own language.

- Because that's the freshness that I think you bring to it, is that you don't give us the obvious.

You make us look harder, not just at what you've made, but at the thing we're actually looking at as well.

(soft bright music) - [Joan] In less than two hours, the judges are going to have to make a decision.

- So we're at the halfway stage with our three artists today.

Just generally speaking, have you been surprised by any of them?

- Sam is always a bit surprising.

So his composition is a bit peculiar in an interesting, engaging way, whereas Jamie and Nerine, I think it's very much their work as it usually is.

So I'm a bit worried there because I was hoping for a little bit more.

- We can't ask them to reinvent their style for each- - Yes, not their style but, you know, we've given them a completely different venue and I was hoping for something different already at this stage, but you know, it's only halfway through.

- I think the most we can expect is that we see a perfect distillation of their essence.

That's what I'm really looking for.

- [Frank] I wonder, is this painting just confirming what we already know about them?

- No, 'cause I think there is a sort of sense of confirmation, but someone like Nerine still really interests me and really excites me, and as I watch all those textures come together and the push and the pull between the different paints and materials she's using, I still love it.

And actually, I think she's done it to an even greater degree in this picture.

So everything I liked about the other paintings is there, but better and maybe sometimes, with an artist like Jamie, where I worry that I don't connect enough with his paintings, I find them a bit harder work to get into, the same's happening there for me today.

- And then with Sam, I think he's also found a level of comfort with this landscape.

He's identified, coming round the back and around the side to decide what he wanted to look at.

He's done that much more comfortably than at Trelissick where he felt, "Okay, I've got this landscape.

I need to do what it is in front of me."

So I think he's sort of grown in confidence.

So in a way, it is slightly less expected because he's not painting what he thinks he ought to be painting for us.

- The way they are affected by the surrounding, it's very different.

So that's kind of exciting as well.

- But that's what makes it so difficult, trying to decide who's going to be the winner.

- So what are your criteria for separating that one sheep from the goats?

- I definitely wanna see someone who has progressed over the course of this series 'cause I know that they'll keep moving forward and that they've got, you know, they've got more to give.

- Well, I think that it's gonna be such a subjective view that will be very associated with our own aesthetic connection to the individual styles of the artists, what pleases us individually.

I think actually, what I'm looking forward to is the argument that we're gonna have.

And whether or not I find myself persuaded by one or the other of you to see something in one of the artists that I hadn't understood was there before.

- And I think actually, what's gonna have a huge impact is the commissions, because we genuinely have no idea what they've been up to.

To see them just have full throttle, be their own master of their own painting, it might be that my least favorite delivers the most spectacular commission that I cannot ignore.

- But to have a commission where they're given more time to really explore different avenues, that's gonna be really illuminating.

- Okay, so the commission could be a very crucial element.

- Really important and this duck agrees apparently.

(gentle dramatic music) - [Frank] Our artists have just one hour of their final challenge left before one of them will become "Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year."

Do you think you're gonna win?

- No.

- No, really, honestly though.

- No, I don't.

No, I don't.

- Why not?

- I just don't 'cause the other two are really, really good.

- Have you been and looked at what they've done?

- No, 'cause I'm just freaking out that I won't get finished.

- Oh okay, sorry, love.

- I need to put time aside for the bridge, so it's in the back of my mind all the time.

So I just need to get these buildings done first, then a bit more trees, a bit more building, a bit more trees, bridge, foreground, done.

Other worries, I don't know really, everything.

(gentle dramatic music) (inspirational music) (gentle bright music) - [Joan] There is just over one hour left before either Jamie, Nerine or Sam will win the 10,000 pound commission and claim the title of Landscape Artist of the Year.

How their work develops now could be critical.

- There's not looking like a lot of color in it at the moment, I might keep it that way actually.

It's that kind of a day.

It's really, really dark and moody.

So I think it might end up being quite a subdued painting.

(gentle bright music) - [Frank] Nerine.

- Yeah?

- [Frank] Oh God, it's bridge time.

- Yeah, I've not done much more to it than that.

- So this is quite a big moment, isn't it, because the bridge is gonna be obviously a very crucial element?

(both laughing) - Well, it is gonna be there, but I'm not gonna, I am gonna do much more.

I want to put something else down here and maybe over here, so.

- [Frank] Do you know what those something elses might be?

- Yeah, the fountain there.

- [Frank] Okay.

- I won't do too much more to the bridge.

- Oh, okay.

- I'm sorry.

- No, no, it's fine, you must do what you feel.

It's your vision that counts, not mine.

What I see there is a bridge and then, in brackets, some trees.

What you see is some trees and then, in brackets, a bridge?

- [Kate] Great color.

This is a bit of a signature, would you say, this kind of bold orange?

- Yeah, I think it just really was working.

I want it to be so, I want this to be so cool and cold.

I was thinking about doing loads of things and I think I'm just gonna have to be brave and just literally be like, I'm gonna stick to my guns.

Do you know what I mean?

- [Kate] How have you found it today?

- Personally I found it really fun, really exciting.

I don't know if that shows in the work at all, but I want to do something new every time.

So, I was really, I'm really struggling to, like.

- We love that because we always try to catch up to work out where you're headed and what you're doing.

- I might have gone, I don't know if it's gonna be, I might have gone a step too far, but I am really enjoying painting this.

(gentle bright music) - [Frank] Choosing the Landscape Artist of the Year is a matter for our expert judges, but what if it was up to the public?

We put our artists' submission, heat and semi-final paintings on display for all to see and then listened in.

- Do you have a favorite?

'Cause immediately, I think that one strikes me, just 'cause I like green palettes.

- [Woman] I absolutely love that, that kind of green-y light coming through the trees, that's lovely.

- [Woman] It feels like it should have, like if you run your finger over it, it should have a texture.

Do you know what I mean?

- [Woman] Which is your favorite?

- That one there.

- [Woman] Why do you like that one particularly?

- [Man] It's a bit more detailed.

- It's more detailed.

You see, I like this one sort of, I don't know, sort of canvas.

And this one, to me, is just unfinished, isn't it?

- I mean Tower Bridge is Tower Bridge, isn't it?

You know, it's quite iconic, but to see it in a woodland setting.

- I like the, it's like a metallic-y feel about it as well, and I think, if you were putting it into a lounge, you've got a lot of scope for your colors, you know, for furnishings and what have you.

- And this is lovely.

I presume that's, is that a bit of gold leaf in there?

But actually, I like that.

- [Woman] Very small, aren't they?

- [Woman] Mm, I'm afraid.

- Do you not like any of them?

You're not really- - I don't like any of them.

- I'd like to see these this big.

- It reminds me of that mug I bought in Shaftesbury with the beach scene.

- [Man] But the joy is in all these beautiful textures within that very simple design.

- To me it's much more about an interpretation of what you're looking at rather than a reproduction of what you're looking at.

- It looks like a photograph, doesn't it?

It's so good?

- But do you like it?

- Yeah.

- [Woman] Yeah, it's fabulous, is that one.

- I like the middle one, but I think I prefer the abstract ones, 'cause these are perfect, but there's not really much feeling to them.

It's very intricate the constructive.

- [Woman] Do you like the style?

- It's a bit too photographic for me, really.

- [Woman] Have you found the figures?

- [Man] Figures, are there figures?

- Should be figures in there, somewhere.

Ah, there we are.

- I have to admit, the longer I look at that, that is quite amazing.

- Be interesting to see who wins.

- Yeah, yeah, gonna hang around for that one.

(gentle bright music) - [Joan] Behind each of our artists is a great family support team and some of them have been there from the beginning.

- [Jane] Jamie could draw before he could talk.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- And when did he start to develop the style that we now recognize as his?

- Quite early on.

He was always very sort of precise and then he took to mountains because Pete took him off mountaineering.

- I think climbers buy some of his pictures because they can see the routes they have climbed sort of rock by rock.

- [Joan] Well, of course, he stands to win 10,000 pound commission.

How do you feel about that?

- I'm nerve-wracked.

- Are you really?

- I am.

(all laughing) - Take them out, don't worry about the wetness.

- Yeah, I don't wanna get cold.

- He's more of a wild card, I feel, isn't he?

- He is, yeah.

- [Roz] We'd be ecstatic if he won.

- Yeah, it'd be great if he does.

Yeah, you probably won't be able to tell.

- Yeah, if Sam wins or loses, his reaction probably would.

- It'd be the same.

- It would be the same.

- [Frank] How long have you known Nerine?

- [Andrew] Since school.

- [Frank] And was she a painter at school?

- Yeah, I sat next to her in art class.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

- [Frank] I mean, she tells me she gets very anxious before these heats.

Is that true 'cause I can never tell with Nerine whether she's being modest?

She's quite a modest person.

- She does get quite nervous about it.

I think having the music in probably helps her to sort of stay relaxed and focused.

- [Frank] And it's country and western she listens to, is that right?

- Some of the time.

Yeah, I think that's what she's got on today, yeah.

- I had a friend who was a probation officer, and she said the one common denominator amongst the criminal classes is they all like country and western music.

So I'll leave that to you to.

- Have you told her that?

- I haven't told her that.

She might not take it well.

(bright music) There are just 30 minutes remaining.

- [Joan] You've not got much time left.

- [Sam] No, I know.

- [Joan] How are you feeling, my friend?

- I'm feeling all right.

I think just because I'm exploring with myself, I've got a bit too into it and lost, I don't know.

I find it hard to paint if it's not something that's new and I'm excited about.

- [Joan] Is it nearly there?

- I'm not sure yet.

I'm just gonna play around with a few things, but it could be almost nearly there.

- Can you play around quite quickly?

- My hands are shaking a little bit, just trying to get finished, but it's exciting.

So I'm just worried that I've gone a bit slow again and I haven't managed to get everything in and, yeah, I just, I don't know.

The final's got to me and I'm a bit delirious.

I don't know.

(laughing) - [Joan] Right, Jamie, you've not got long.

- No, I know.

- Are you worried?

- [Jamie] Very worried.

- You racing against the clock?

- Yeah, I am, I am.

- [Joan] So you've got to focus on exactly what you have to do next.

- Well, I think it's just finishing off all the details, all the little bits that are unfinished, so it's just.

- [Joan] I think you'll get it in.

- You think so?

- Good luck, yep.

- Thank you.

(gentle bright music) - [Joan] In the closing minutes of the final challenge of "Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year," the tension is palpable.

- I'm frantic.

I'm like dying on the inside.

- I took on board a lot of the things the judges said last round about it being a bit too pretty mounting on the white paper.

So I kind of wanted to take it a bit more seriously as a painting.

So I kind of made it more of a traditional painting by mounting it onto the board, you know, not just like a drawing you could rip out of a sketchbook.

Now, it's more of an object.

(gentle suspenseful music) - Artists, you have just one minute left.

- Oh my God, it's nearly over.

- Artists, your time is up.

- [Joan] Put down your brushes and step back from your work.

(crowd clapping) - Can I just have another ten minutes?

(gentle bright music) - [Frank] The artists have done all they can and now they can only wait while the judges hold a private viewing to appraise today's paintings of Stourhead.

- [Joan] And alongside them, the judges finally get to see the commission landscapes of Glencoe, Plas Newydd and the Giant's Causeway, before they decide who will win the 10,000 pound commission to paint Flatford in Suffolk.

- (giggling) Oh.

Oh.

- Oh, my God.

- Oh wow.

It's so exciting.

- Easy, I don't know what to look at first.

- All of them are beautiful.

- This is astonishing.

- They are incredible.

- Wow, this is amazing.

I mean, this is Glencoe's scene from a completely unique perspective, isn't it?

It's just Sam's mark on the place entirely.

- [Kathleen] It's almost like he's above it.

- [Tai] The color of the sky and that sort of amazing sort of height he's got up there.

- He sort of applies this mashing up of techniques and history on top of it.

- Exactly, yeah, but it feels very expressionistic to me as well, like I'm getting so much of his personality and his experience of the place.

- And he's obviously worked and struggled, and you see the journey and the clever use of that detail of the branch in front gives us this space.

- [Kathleen] Isn't it great that it's elevated onto a larger scale and it still works?

- [Kate] I think what I love is the top band there, it almost looks like a cave painting.

- [Tai] You've got the top branches, which should be silhouetted, he's colored gold.

So you're always fighting with the composition as a flat, two-dimensional thing and the space through it.

- But they're made to spend hours with.

I mean, I've just discovered that chasm which sits at the bottom, I mean, or the little house that sits in the middle, you know, and the textures on the surfaces.

- What is so phenomenal about this one is the interpretation of space.

You get the sense of scale and a responded to what was in front of me.

Funnily enough today, I don't think he has responded to this view or the light in it.

- He had left the top half really kind of cool and sparse and then he started sort of putting in that muddier tone and I don't think it needed it.

I think there was a really kind of clever distinction between the foreground and the background and he's lost it.

- I know what you mean about that.

I was really excited about how he was going to treat this negative space and these oval, circular spaces and it isn't quite resolved, is it?

But also, like all good artists, I think, he just, he doesn't go like that, he goes like that.

And that's why there's wonderful surprises that happen.

- [Tai] And maybe also sometimes it comes off very well and sometimes it sort of goes a bit awry, yeah.

(gentle dramatic music) - I think the commission shows the breadth of painting that I can paint, and I think the one I did today shows that I'm trying to think outside the box and it's about a vision, not technical skill, definitely an interpretation.

- Nerine's always got this fantastical, mysterious light and she breaks it up with her undergrowth and trees and here, in the commission, it comes together.

So you get not only the mysterious light but you go through the painting.

It's just all, I think it's come together fantastically.

Even the gold touches are like light breaking through and capturing bits of branches.

- She's just gone beyond my expectations of what was possible there because actually, by continuing to carry on working, she hasn't lost any of that very strange, sort of mystical quality.

It's still very much there.

- What I feel she might have loathed is actually to leave a bit of space.

Even though that's been worked up beautifully, there are elements that are more ghost-like, that are more suggestive.

I mean, look at that fantastic tree that's almost just an outline in the far right-hand corner, and the bit that drops beneath the line of the section, you know, and today she's picked up on that notion of skeletal lines.

And she's played around with, I don't know, the golden proportions, the architectural proportions in the landscape, the different follies.

She's sort of mashed them all up together, beautifully.

- This for me, is so much about the feeling of walking around.

You know, it's much more about my sort of, this piecing together of one's view of things.

- [Kathleen] But she's also doing something with layering, as well.

So in a way, we're taking the elements from this landscape.

It's almost like there's a layering of history.

There's a layering of the story of the landscape that we're sitting in.

- I've always found her device of the top and bottom left out, I've always found a bit artificial, but in the commission, she's used that space, so the tree blends in the top and then you get this fragmentation at the bottom.

This invention, as you say, of how can I paint a tree, and there's five different ways of painting a tree there and it comes altogether, and the colors are much more subtle.

It's just phenomenal.

- Out of all the challenges, this has been the hardest, the most intense, the most nerve-wracking.

If I win, it would make a big impact on my practice because that's what I want to do.

I want to focus more on painting.

I've been doing it for so long now.

So it would change my life in a really large way.

- There's only one artist out of these three that could have taken on something as monumental as the Giant's Causeway and he hasn't disappointed.

Look, even God is in the sky shining down.

It's just incredible.

- Well, it's interesting to see how he's developed from that very first entry of that hyper-realist mountain, and then he's been working with us and he's found his new speedy way.

This does feel like he's found a ground in-between.

- Well, there's a softness to this that I think is absent from the mountain.

I think it's a softer version of that extraordinary kind of craftsmanship.

I actually really like what he did today.

I wasn't anticipating liking this as much when I saw the composition that he's chosen, I thought it might be sort of too Pyrenees-y, too pretty, too traditional, and actually, I mean, look at those sort of, are they clouds?

Are they mountains?

Is it the trees?

I mean, it's so, so beautifully rendered.

There's so much detail.

I love the background of that painting.

- I think that's what we liked about it.

It's almost 18th century, but dragged into the 21st century with those weird colors, but that really grabbed me as soon as he put in the trees and the background.

It really drew your eyes through and you get immense space and atmosphere.

- The background's phenomenal, but it is like flicking through a book of 18th century landscape engravings.

You do feel that.

- [Kate] I don't like it when he has this much time to do the sky 'cause he takes something out of the sort of the soulfulness of the landscape, but there's something about it.

It's just so polished.

- If you sat down with that or, you know, on your knees, you'd spend hours combing up and down those hills and looking at those fantastic different greens as well.

- But he has got a great sense of rhythm and here, the Giant's Causeway, okay, I don't know where he was asked to do it from, but it's a fantastic, dynamic composition.

- [Kathleen] I just don't know what we're gonna do.

- I think we should just let Frank and Joan choose this year, I can't do it.

- If I can win, then I'll be staggered.

If I lose, I'll be disappointed to say the least.

- After seven weeks of analysis and debate, it's now time for the judges to choose just one winner.

When I spoke to you earlier, you suggested that the commission pieces would make quite a significant difference potentially because they're so close, these artists.

Did that turn out to be the case?

- Yeah, absolutely, 100%, 100%.

And I think the other thing we were looking for is understand the way in which their work had changed or developed as they went through the process of the competition.

And I think all three of them have shown that they've really adapted, developed, evolved their own practice, I think, in reaching the work not only they produced today, but also the commission.

- It's been fantastic watching all the artists involved produce fantastic work and our finalists, they really have evolved, but it has been a very strange four hours they've been given each time.

And that's what's so nice about the commissions that were last.

Having evolved, we've given them a bit more time and their true personality has come out.

- So, have you, do you need more time to think about it?

- No, we don't.

- You don't?

- No, I think we've decided.

- So you've made a decision.

- We have.

- They have a decision.

- Wow, I'm terrified.

- It could go any way.

- It was so difficult.

I don't envy you today.

- It has been very difficult.

- It has been, but I mean, it's been an amazing day.

- Okay, I think the show should end now, and the people at home should never find out what their decision was.

(rain pattering) (soft suspenseful music) - Artists, congratulations on being our three great finalists.

Your brilliant talents have enthralled us for the past seven weeks and we've really enjoyed getting to know you over that time.

- Yes, but this is the hard bit.

The judges have made their decision.

The person they have chosen has constantly impressed, from submission to commission, and today has demonstrated the imaginative approach to the brief.

The "Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year" is Nerine McIntyre.

(crowd clapping) (crowd cheering) Well done, well done.

- Well done, well done.

The boys will be so proud.

- I feel in complete shock.

I'm really, really, really happy.

I didn't think my name was gonna be called, so I was just really, really happy.

Yeah, really pleased.

I can't stop saying that.

(gentle bright music) - Nerine's work is really inspiring.

She's got all these wonderful colors and quality of light.

I'm gonna take that away with me, I think, and use it as inspiration to try and get some more atmosphere into my paintings.

Yeah, she's a perfect winner.

(gentle bright music continues) - Yeah, no, I've taken loads of things away, just the challenge of doing things in four hours, you know.

That style of painting is completely new.

- She hasn't disappointed in any of the paintings she's produced, and in the commission, she just sort of cranked it up to the highest level possible.

It was so beautiful.

- [Nerine] Thank you.

- I'm so pleased.

Your commission is so beautiful.

- Thank you.

- I think Nerine's a worthy winner because she's always pushing at the edges of it.

On the one hand, I thought it was always the same, but every painting has got a subtle difference, and she's always trying to find more.

- I think she lives and breathes landscape.

It's practically in her blood, and you feel it coming through the canvas.

- I never thought I would be Landscape Artist of the Year.

I never thought I would get through the first heat, so it's amazing, yeah, I'm just really happy.

(bright music) - [Frank] Next time, winner of Landscape Artist of the Year, Nerine McIntyre travels to Flatford to paint her prized commission.

- It is quintessentially the soul of England.

- [Frank] And follows in the footsteps of Constable.

- I never thought I would be able to come somewhere like this.

- [Frank] As she makes her own mark on one of the world's most iconic views.

- I really hope that they like it when they see it.

- Okay, here we go.

- Okay.

(gentle dramatic music) (bright music)