- [Frank] Hello, you find us at Wray Castle, overlooking the absolutely beautiful Lake Windermere.

- And we've brought with us eight talented artists, three sometimes contrary judges, and loads of paint, turps and brushes.

- You forgot to mention the two fabulous presenters.

- That's us.

- I know.

- Well, here we are.

- Welcome to Sky Arts "Landscape Artist of the Year".

- [Joyce] Throughout the series, we will see some of Britain's most talented artists being challenged to paint the National Trust's most stunning landscapes.

- [Frank] And today, eight new artists will be taking their paint brushes into battle to impress the judges.

Award-winning artist Tai-Shan Schierenberg, independent curator Kathleen Soriano, and artist historian Kate Bryan.

- If you see us standing over there looking and whispering, just stake calm.

- [Joyce] The artist are competing for a £10,000 commission to paint the beautiful Petworth House, a painting that will become part of the National Trust's permanent collection.

- Will there be a bit of finger employed?

- Oh, yeah, definitely.

- I like it when the artist actually becomes the tool.

- Yeah.

- [Frank] And joining them today at Wray Castle are 50 more artists trying their luck as wildcard hopefuls.

- Oh, I made two for the price of one.

- [Frank] It's very good.

You've done a BOGOFF.

- I've done a BOGOFF, buy one get one free, yeah.

- [Joyce] But with only four hours to impress, who will claim their place in the semi-final?

- You could go and probably stand there, see where those sheep are, those posts.

- For the whole of the day.

Thank you.

(gentle melodic music) - [Frank] Joining us today we have five professional artists, Kieran Ingram, Mike Kirby, Michelle Ives, Jonathan Cassidy, and Gregor Henderson.

- I tend to look for like abandoned urban architecture, so like old kind of factories and warehouses and stuff.

So this is really different for me.

So I'm quite looking forward just to like try and condense it a little bit and work on something a lot more natural and see how it goes.

- [Joyce] Alongside three amateur artists, Alexandra Falade, Susanna Davies, and Roy Carlos.

- I've set myself a target to do the best I can, to not disappoint myself.

And if I achieve that, win or lose, I'm happy.

- [Frank] Before the challenge starts, the judges get to see our artist's submissions in the flesh for the first time.

- We love this.

I love its size.

I love the fact that it's got this lovely sort of post box view.

A lovely little reflection in the lake as well.

I like the way in which you can see the ground coming through.

A lot to love about this one, I think.

- It's got a feeling of having been done out in the outdoors.

It's a nice intimate response to a landscape.

- I'd be worried if they suddenly turned up with a big canvas and thought they were gonna do this but on some other scale, because actually what's wonderful about this is exactly as you say, is that kind of like a view into something through a pillar box.

- Looks like a weird sort of negative of a photograph.

- It's stenciled.

- Oh, okay.

- Okay.

- We really, really like the contemporariness of this and the urban grime, you know, it feels like you're under an underpass and it's got slightly flooded and there's the graffiti on the left hand side.

But then this sort of ugly beauty where they brought the gilding in as well.

So it's elevated it somehow.

- And also the graffiti's realistic.

Like the graffiti is sort of ugly.

It's bad graffiti, isn't it?

Like these horrible big letters, with these delicate color combinations it becomes very elegant.

- Today we're standing in this fantastic landscape, so it's quite interesting how the artists or this artist particularly is going to bring that edge in.

You know, you know that if you walked through that barefoot, you'd get the feeding of the grass and herbs underfoot.

- And it's rare in a landscape to not have a horizon, not have the sky.

You're very confined, but yet you do get the sense of the sun hitting this patch of grass and the way that the leaves are rustling, everything goes outta focus in the background.

- Can I ask you a question?

If someone today did this kind of Google Earth approach to landscape, would you feel that they had somehow not fulfilled the brief?

- It was beautifully done and it opens up new avenues of seeing the landscape, absolutely, it'd be fantastic.

- Part of it's a surprise, you know, we want to be surprised.

- It'd be great though, to stand in front of that incredible thing and just... - One blade of grass.

- Oh, love it.

- This artist is very...

It's an incredible composition and you get a real sense of almost the personality of those trees.

- I can smell the rich undergrowth.

Know what I mean?

- I can.

- Is it hummus?

It's something, it sounds like the stuff that you dip in, but it's something else.

You can smell that slight damp soil.

- This is a fantastic composition, which I haven't seen before.

So that makes it refreshing.

And then again, it opens up things.

You know, I grew up in the landscape and it reintroduces the woods of my youth to me in a new way.

So it's beautiful.

- Oh, well, another day, another masterpiece.

(upbeat string music) - [Joyce] It may look as though Wray Castle has been standing here for centuries, but in fact, it was built as a retirement home for Dr. James Dawson in 1840.

Since then, it's been a youth hostel and even a training college for the merchant navy.

Today, our artists are facing out towards the lake and the Cumbrian skyline.

And they've all come prepared.

- I've got oil paints here and a load of brushes, some brand new, especially for the competition.

And also some old ones brought right back from art school.

- [Frank] Susanna Davies is an amateur artist from London.

Currently on maternity leave after giving birth to her son Isaac 18 months ago, she's using the time to reconnect with her passion for painting.

Her submission piece of the top of May Hill in Gloucestershire is the subject of a poem her mum wrote for Susanna's wedding day, and features an element she is passionate about.

- I just love trees and how they're just everywhere.

So I'm gonna stick to what I know.

This beautiful meadow, I'm gonna try and have that for the foundation of the image.

Hopefully people, when they look at it, want to be drawn through it, into the deep far back of the mountains.

- Artists, I hope you're ready because your challenge is about to begin.

- Best of luck.

Your four hours start now.

(gentle music) When choosing their composition, some artists like to sketch it out or take photographs.

But one artist here today has brought a little frame known as a view catcher.

So Michelle, this will represent the canvas then.

- Yeah.

- So you're just deciding what you want- - Yeah, what I want to crop.

This is a very handy tool because you can change it to whatever format.

- Can I have a look?

Yeah.

- I'm trying to think what I'd put in.

There's a boat, look.

- Oh, it must just stop there now.

It mustn't move.

- Michelle Ives, a professional artist from Glasgow, is an illustrator who likes to paint landscapes with manmade elements in them.

Her submission work is of a factory near Bishopbriggs near Glasgow.

So you've committed to pastel no matter what happens.

- Yeah.

I didn't even bring my paints with, so... - Respect.

Is that your medium of choice then normally?

Or is it specifically for this task?

- I think, well, because we've got a time limit, I decided to go for pastoral because I find it much quicker to work with.

- Will there be a bit of finger employed?

- Oh definitely.

Yeah, definitely.

Kind of smearing and... - I forward to that.

But I do try to do it in a more painterly way.

- I like it when the artist actually becomes the tool.

- Yeah.

- So this is a really lovely board, like your submission in this sort of post box format.

So it makes me think you were gonna do what you submitted, but then at the same time I see this guy over here.

- Yeah, I've got this as a larger piece that I'm intending to build up at the same time as the smaller one.

- Double whammy.

- So this is your experimental... - Basically yeah, so I can be a bit looser with this.

- What happens if this one is you really like this one?

Will you submit the small one?

- Yeah.

I would submit this small one if it was better.

So I have like a... - Okay.

- I have two options.

- [Joyce] Kieran Ingram, originally from Australia, now lives in Cheshire.

Kieran studied classic art in Florence.

His submission piece, Four Winds Farm in Bollington, Cheshire, is somewhere he often walks with his dogs.

- I was feeling a bit sorry for you that you don't work with technology and the clouds are changing and the light changing on the hills, but then I thought that's what you do.

That's part of the excitement of painting en plein air, isn't it?

Is adjusting to what's going on out there, yeah.

- This is just a more comfortable setting to do it than normal.

- [Tai-Shan] No, it's a good start.

- I'm not feeling sorry for anyone today.

Look at this.

This is amazing.

We're all out in the Lake District painting.

No pity from me.

- Is it true you've been up here generally getting the vibe of the area for a few days?

- Well, I like to know a place a little bit before I paint it.

- Okay.

So have you been practicing painting the area?

- Well, I did do one of some mountains, so I'm not too bad.

- [Frank] Okay.

- But I thought we were gonna do the flowers on the way up to the castle.

- [Frank] Oh no, you had your heart set on flowers.

- Had my heart set on flowers.

- I mean there are, there are flowers.

- Yeah, there's a few.

So we've got a few of them in.

- Sorry, I thought they were flowers.

They're sheep.

Jonathan Cassidy is an art teacher in Sligo, Ireland.

Originally he trained and worked as a print maker, then switched to painting and teaching a few years ago.

His submission painting of his neighbor's meadow took nine hours to complete.

I was told that you had one of those inspirational teachers that people talk about that got you into art.

Is that right?

- Yeah, that's true.

- [Frank] What did he do?

He just said to you, I think you're really good and you hadn't realized that.

- No, strangely he had a system whereby everybody in the class, and there were 30 in the class, did a full painting every week.

So by the end of the year, you had 25 paintings.

- [Frank] Wow.

And you teach now, don't you?

- [Jonathan] I teach now, yeah.

- So are you there the inspirational teacher?

- Well, unfortunately I've never reached his level.

I'm still trying though.

- [Joyce] Our eight heat artists aren't the only ones taking in today's spectacular view.

50 more artists have crossed the lake to try their luck as a wild card.

If one of them can impress our judges, they could find themselves in the semifinal.

- Yes, it's the castle.

- I've got me fishing umbrella, got everything ready.

You know, I'm ready for the weather.

So come hail or shine, you know.

- Do you want a cup of tea?

- I'm all right.

You're very sweet.

Thank you.

- They've got very well ahead.

- Trainers off.

Painting with your fingers.

This is a pretty miniaturized painting kit.

- That's pretty much all I'm gonna use as well.

- That's so sweet.

Will this purple make an appearance or not?

- The purple might not.

It was just in the tin when I left in a hurry this morning.

- So in fact, this tin is overpacked.

- Yes, actually.

- Okay, good.

As long as we know.

- [Woman] I'm generally a black and white sort of person.

- Very good.

Well, if you need a hand later carrying this to the car, just let me know.

- I'll let you know.

I'm around.

I'm quite strong.

- Great gate.

Do you know what, I really like this.

What is it?

- A mess.

- So who are you?

Tell me more about your life.

- I paint, I teach.

I'm also a former policeman.

- Right.

I like the idea that the inner life of every police person looks like this.

Well done.

Please don't spoil it.

- I'll try not to.

I'll try not to.

- Oh, so you're doing that view.

Perfect.

- It's about a five, six hour journey yesterday, through all the rain, but yeah, it's worth it.

It's gonna be a great day.

- [Frank] Vying for a guaranteed place in the semi-final, our eight heat artists have been painting and drawing for almost an hour.

- It's so wide.

How come you've ended up going portrait?

- I think because it is so big, it's hard to choose what to paint.

I tend to look for landlines.

- And it helps with perspective.

It starts to give you a sense of taking you back into the landscape.

- I'd like the sun to go away, cause it's difficult to see all the values when the sun's on the canvas.

I should probably take a break and like come back to it in about half an hour, I think.

- I do often make mistakes in my process.

So I'd much rather put too much down to then take back.

- I've been dying to put in flowers.

That's gonna be a problem.

That's gonna be a problem, putting flowers.

But I'd love to try.

(gentle music) - [Frank] Here at Wray Castle in the Lake District, our eight heat artists have been working for over an hour.

- I wanna really produce something which basically I'm happy with.

As long as I'm happy with it, I'm content.

- [Joyce] Mike Kirby is a professional artist from Liverpool.

Mike was a shortlisted artist at Lyme Park last year.

This time he's caught the judge's attention with the submission of a disused bank in Liverpool.

Mike.

- [Mike] Yeah.

- I think you're a man who knows what you're doing because you have spent an hour and there's no paint on here yet.

- Nah.

- So how have you spent the hour?

- Well, I spent a while, cause I had some photos, just working out which aspect I wanted to paint and I've decided on that.

- [Joyce] So you've embraced an enormous amount of that landscape.

You've gone for several of the mountain peaks.

- [Mike] I wanted to get the whole range in.

- [Joyce] Sheep.

Are you going to put sheep in?

A few sheep?

- [Mike] Could do, yeah.

I sometimes like to put figures in to give it an idea of scale.

- What about a little red coat?

- You could go and probably stand there, stand out.

You know where those sheep are, those posts.

That'd be nice wouldn't it?

If you go and stand there for me.

- For the whole of the day.

Thank you.

- These are just color charts, just so that I know what paint I've got.

And just so I can think about the combinations that I'm gonna have.

It's just nice to have as well.

- [Frank] Professional artists Gregor Henderson lives in Glasgow.

He's also a youth worker who teaches life skills and runs art projects for secondary school pupils.

His submission is of the underpass beneath the M8 motorway in central Glasgow.

- Okay, Gregor, you're going to have to explain the process to me.

So you take a photograph, and then you draw it onto here.

- [Gregor] No, just print it off.

- Oh, so you printed it.

Oh, I see.

Okay, and now you're cutting them out.

- [Gregor] Uh-huh.

- [Katherine] So you're making a stencil stencil basically.

- [Gregor] Uh-huh.

- Okay.

But, so you'll do about how many versions of this?

- I'm hoping to do about four.

This is the first layer that I've cut out.

So that's basically your cut out horizon line.

- Oh, I see.

- So it'll be kinda like that.

- [Katherine] Oh wow.

Okay.

- And this would be the last one.

So this is kind of the tree line.

- So the layers, the layers aren't all of the same scene.

They're of different bits of the scene.

- And there'll be bits that overlap and there'll be bits that kind of don't match up.

But hopefully it all comes together to make an image, a kind of coherent image at the end.

- Right.

I'll let you get on with your little carving.

- Cheers.

- Tai, I think that this is perhaps the hardest landscape we've had on this show.

- It's one of the most beautiful landscapes we've been in.

- [Frank] It's beautiful but I think this is really tough.

There's no structures, hardly.

- There's two obvious compositional views that I think our artists have picked.

One is across the lake, cause that gives them a break in this endless green, and those twin peaks, which keep changing in the light.

There's something about the way the light bounces off the textures.

It's about textures, isn't it really?

- Mm.

- So you've got the very fine grass.

And then you've got the trees and the light bounces off them in different ways.

- Forgive me an analogy, but I had a friend, he was a vegetarian chef and I said, "But how do you make that interesting when it's..." It's like this, it's too many greens.

And he said, "It's all about texture.

You have to make it feel different."

And I think this is the same dilemma of somehow you have to find something in this which feels different, which gives you contrast.

- Which also can be done by leaving stuff out.

So maybe it's not only about editing the composition, but is editing out stuff that makes it too busy.

- When I speak to artists that have been on these shows previously, they say to me afterwards, they've really thought about their process.

That's why some people have left this show and said to me, "I'm a better artist now."

- That's really nice to hear, isn't it?

- It is.

(gentle music) - [Joyce] I noticed you were painting with two brushes at once.

What were you doing?

- I was just trying to blend before it dried.

- Oh, I see.

If you work with two brushes, you can do more painting.

- Yeah.

- Amateur artist Alexandra Falade, originally from Nigeria, moved to Liverpool with her family when she was six years old.

She's studying for a fine art degree at the University of the Arts in London.

Her submission of Snowdonia in North Wales was inspired by photographs she took when undertaking voluntary work there.

Where are you going to focus in the painting itself?

- Probably where the lake is.

I really like that top valley part where it's quite dark underneath the shadows of the clouds.

- [Joyce] Will you use the colors that you can see?

- Yeah probably the colors I can see and maybe the ochers on the other mountains and hills over there.

- So that'll put your mark on it.

We'll know it's one of yours.

- [Alexandra] Yeah.

(gentle melodic music) - My wife always says you only paint trees, damn trees and more damn trees.

But no, that's not really.

No, I paint all sorts.

- [Frank] Amateur artists Roy Carlos from Hartlepool was an art teacher for 39 years and retired in 2008.

His submission work is of Castle Eden Dene on the outskirts of Harlepool.

- There's a mysterious tree that you've used, that you've introduced from over there, as a framing device.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- Do you move stuff around when you're working outdoors?

- Sometimes.

I mean, I saw the lovely vista.

Seen one tree that side and they're all pretty much the same that side.

So I looked for something to bring a foreground right forward and let the space go back a bit.

- And you like painting trees, Roy, don't you?

They're good to paint.

- I like trees.

- Yes, I can tell.

- I mean, whatever you look at, you look for tone and texture and form and color and space and things like that and try and bring it out.

- Are you still trying to always surprise yourself?

You haven't quite come up with this fits all formula?

- I'm not good enough yet.

- Oh, right, I see.

You're still in the pursuit of something.

- Yes.

- Yeah, it looks like you're plenty good, Roy.

We'll let you get on.

Looking beautiful.

- To try and win a possible place in the semi-final, not all the wild cards are going for a traditional approach.

Now this is unconventional, cause it's maps.

- It's maps.

- So these are Scottish maps.

- Well, no they're of Cumbria and they're of the Lake District.

They're of here.

I think we're actually round about here somewhere, and here and here and here.

- It's a very original way to work and I love maps too.

- So if I was gonna make a painting, which I think we should all be grateful for the fact that I'm not, you've picked exactly what I would paint.

So why did you come here?

- One of the reasons was cause no one else was and who can resist that tree?

- [Joyce] Pink, pink, pink.

- Yes.

- I'm keen on color myself, as you can tell.

- So this is the sun kissing the fells.

- This is actually half of a painting.

This is the bottom half here, and it wasn't working as a whole painting.

So I thought right, okay, I'm gonna chop it in half.

- Oh, you've chopped it in half.

You scoundrel.

- I have.

- Made two for the price of one.

I'm Scottish.

- It's very good.

You've done a BOGOF.

- I've done a BOGOF, buy one get one free, yeah.

- I think this is my favorite bunch of wild card painters ever.

- Okay, all right.

Because we've got the lovely festival atmosphere.

We've got people doing, you know, lovely sweet landscape paintings, but we've also got some really good artists who are prepared to move things around and have got different styles.

- I'm not surprised that it's one of your best wild card places because there's just so much to paint here.

- Our eight heat artists are nearly halfway through the competition.

- My hands are getting a wee bit sore, but other than that I'm kinda starting to enjoy it and kinda think it might be all right.

So nah, no massive difficulties just now.

We'll wait and see what pops up.

- I was a bit slow in the first hour and then sped up through the second.

And then I feel kind of comfortable where I'm at with the painting.

So I don't wanna do anything too drastic.

- I guess that if there's just always the concern that when you get to the end, it doesn't quite hang together.

Just hoping I'm gonna get to the end and I actually go, yeah, actually that works.

- Just trying to pull it all together.

It's all a bit of a bloody mess, to be honest.

I need to just calm down a bit.

(gentle music) - [Frank] In the heart of the breathtaking Lake District, our eight heat artists are feeling encouragement from loved ones.

- I can't paint lions, Izy.

Can you hop like a bunny?

Bop bop bop.

- [Frank] And from each other.

- Patches of color are amazing.

- Aye.

Bit jealous, eh?

- [Jonathan] Yeah, I know.

- Why are you working with paint?

- [Jonathan] She'll have about three done by the end of it.

- [Joyce] But it's the judges' opinion that counts, and today it may not be so easy.

- I'm really a bit worried about how we're gonna choose between all of them.

They've tackled this incredible landscape on their own terms.

- They've all responded well, whereas it could have been intimidating to have so much.

- Yeah.

I think there's at least three or four people that have taken on the full panorama of what they're looking at.

- Kieran is at home with the landscape, don't you think?

- Yeah, I love Kieran's beginning.

I think it's full of promise right now.

- It's quite interesting because he said he was gonna use a small one as a place to sort of experiment, but actually he's just put a few colors down and actually he's concentrating on the big one.

- There's a fantastic smooth quality to it as well.

It's just appearing.

It almost looks really effortless.

- Susanna's one of those that sort of brought the landscape right up close and she talks about how, you know, she sees it like a giant piece of cake that she wants to take a big bite of and throw herself into.

- And you could tell early this morning, cause she started with the distant hills, the colors she was using, they were just so beautiful.

I had a feeling already that it was gonna be a good painting.

It just felt right.

- I think Michelle has done the same.

And I think part of that is subconsciously about how you deal with the enormity and the scale of this landscape.

So I think a lot of it's about control.

It's on their terms.

- And also where we are as viewers, if you want that magnitude of the mountains, you know, the there's no...

The horizon's very high and we're very low, so you get that vertical sense of space.

- A lot of them are looking at this bowl, the fantastic bowl that we've got between the mountains, and Gregor's done the same.

He's taken that bowl shape and turned it into a circle.

So what we are going to see is almost this sort of window into that fantastic central landscape.

- I think what learned from all of them is how to look better.

- Mm.

- How to make my own eyes see more than I naturally do see by saying, oh, what a lovely landscape.

- And that's why we enjoy these days, because you know, we're standing here, we think we're seeing everything, but we're seeing different versions of it which we would never imagine ourselves.

Gregor, when we walk along the line of artists, we see all these paintings evolving.

And what we can see of you is a very muscular back and an aching right arm.

Explain.

You're cutting a stencil which is in itself very beautiful.

So as you spray the acrylic spray paint onto here, it won't damage the paper.

- They really fine bits like this, this kinda bit, it's gonna get wet and dry again.

So they'll warp slightly and little bits may tear and the paint will be sticky.

- How many shots are you gonna get at this?

- One will hopefully be good.

If I have to do it again then it's a little bit kinda hit and miss, I think.

- We're really confident about it.

We'll let you get on with it.

- We're really confident.

It's gonna be fantastic.

- Thank you very much.

- We're really confident, but if you see us standing over there looking and whispering, just stay calm.

- Thank you.

Cheers.

- [Frank] In the summer of 1882, Wray Castle was the setting for a holiday for a 16 year old daughter and her family.

It was the first trip for a young woman whose name would become emblematic of the area.

Beatrix Potter.

Her first encounter with Wray not only introduced her to the beauty of the Lake District, but also to Hardwicke Rawnsley, a minister at Wray Church.

Rawnsley was an avid conservationist and one of three founders of the National Trust, whose ideal was to protect the countryside from damaging development.

And his friendship with Beatrix was the beginning of a legend.

- He inspired her with the notion that this land needed to be protected.

And she took that message to heart.

- [Frank] In 1905, Beatrix decided to put roots down in what she felt to be her spiritual home, when she moved to near Hawkshead, just a few miles from Wray.

It also sparked her own passion for conservation.

- So we are at Hill Top, which was the first property Beatrix bought in the Lake District.

And she bought it with the profits from her first few books.

- [Frank] Hill Top wasn't just a home and a place to write, it was a working farm.

- So she immediately became a farmer and had to learn the ropes very quickly.

- [Frank] She even became a prize winning sheep breeder.

But the vision she shared with Rawnsley was bigger than just the day to day running of a farm.

She wanted to preserve the land of the Lake District and as a successful writer, she had the money to do so.

So she kept buying more land.

- Beatrix Potter's legacy for the National Trust is huge.

She chose to leave all her property to the National Trust, so that amounted to 15 farms and over 4,000 acres of land.

- [Frank] The properties and land Beatrix bequeathed are among the most important gifts the National Trust has ever received.

And without her, the Lake District of today would look very different.

- [Joyce] After a day of an eclectic mix of mediums and styles, the judges have to decide who will be today's wild card winner.

- Someone I liked was the young guy in the stripy top whose girlfriend entered him into the competition.

He's got the big black band at the bottom of the painting.

Quite a slight rendition of the castle with the pallet knife.

- And the guy with the tree.

He was going to put it completely into silhouette and then he decided he was going to pay attention to the wonderful marks on the bark.

And he's really got a strong, good sense of that tree, I think.

- He's got a strange narrative, a rather sort of eerie narrative.

It's kind of spooky in an interesting way, yeah.

- What about the girl who sat down?

She's just using her finger to create the sky.

It's all black and white, it's sort of Gothic.

- That was nice.

- Interesting.

I mean, it's an interesting castle, but it's not the most picturesque or sort of painterly castle, and she's found a way of doing something with that.

So yeah, no, I think she's okay.

- But we've gotta pick one.

- We've gotta pick one.

- Hello.

- Hi.

- Sitting there unobtrusively on the floor.

- Yeah.

- Well my co judges and I have decided that we'd very much like to nominate you as the wild card today.

(applause) Congratulations.

It's lovely to see an artist who can make so much with so little.

The color and everything.

It's just marvelous.

We've really enjoyed it.

- Can I have a hug?

- Yay.

- [Joyce] Rachel Carter from Newcastle upon Tyne will now join a pool of other successful wildcard artists from across the heat, from which one will be selected to go through to the semifinal.

- [Frank] As the end of the challenge draws closer, Gregor is finally ready to put paint to canvas.

- Feel a little bit of pressure, cause this is kinda the important part now.

But if it doesn't work, then it's a bit pointless innit?

Just need to wait for a minute just to let it kinda dry in so the next level doesn't stick and smudge it.

(gentle music) - [Frank] There are just 20 minutes remaining.

- Oh, I'm nibbling on some nuts here.

For stamina.

I have struggled with the sky.

It's sort of a composition of several skies, I suppose.

- So it's all coming right, Kieran.

- Yeah, fairly happy with how it's coming together at the moment I think.

I might put some sheep, I think, as well.

Occasionally get attacked by sheep when I'm painting outside.

- Attacked by sheep?

- Get mugged by them.

They come and ask for a nuzzle.

- I don't think we can organize that.

- No.

- [Tai-Shan] Michelle, this looks pretty much done.

- Well, I'm not happy with these trees here.

It's all just gone into a big blurgh.

So I think I need to work a little bit more in that area.

- It's looking fantastic.

- I'm starting to get a little bit anxious now.

I've really got to just settle down and just consolidate what I've done and not panic that it's not good enough.

- Here at Wray Castle, overlooking Lake Windermere, our eight artists are in the final moments of their challenge.

Artists, you have five minutes left.

- [Tai-Shan] So Gregor, you've put, how many layers, how many colors?

- Four down and I've got a fifth.

- So this is the final bit of action.

- [Gregor] It is, aye.

- [Tai-Shan] Have you just put all the shadows in all the trees now?

- Aye.

That was one of the good ones.

- [Tai-Shan] It's magical.

- [Gregor] I'm glad you like it.

- Thank you.

- Cheers.

- Three more minutes.

- Okay, thank you.

- Are you gonna be all right?

- Yeah, thank you.

- [Kathleen] No overworking.

- [Jonathan] I am fiddling at the minute.

- Fiddling at the edges.

Okay, well, good luck.

We'll come back at the end.

- Artists, your time is up.

- [Frank] Please put down your equipment and step away from your work.

(applause) - Smashing.

Really good.

- Cheers.

I need to have a look at yours.

I haven't gone that far back.

- I actually prefer yours to mine.

- [Frank] Before the judges make their expert assessment of the works, some of today's spectators share their opinions.

- The clouds are reflecting on the top of the mountain.

- Yeah, that looks pretty nice.

- Well, he's moved the tree, hasn't he?

- Kind of like a touch of imagination.

- Yeah, smartly done.

- [Joyce] To help the judges decide who will win a place in the semifinal, they first whittle the eight artists down to three.

- It's just such a clever way of painting a big monumental landscape, to just make it so smooth.

It's almost as if it's painted on glass or something.

What I really love about it is almost he's captured this pool of light between the earth and the sky.

- That landscape there is very, very quiet and still, and has got a strange Nordic feel to it.

- [Kate] Yeah.

- I don't like the sheep.

Don't like the sheep.

- I think it's quite amusing.

He's trying to create a sense of distance between the big sheep in the front and the little sheep in the back.

I think it's a very interesting painting.

- The best moment of the day was probably an hour in or so, I kind of started to get into a rhythm with the piece.

So I enjoyed that.

And then I painted some sheep right at the end.

That was fun cause sheep are always fun to paint into something.

- I have to admit that I didn't like this for most of the day.

And then for the last part of the day, I really love the way that she's played around with these different brush strokes to capture different effects.

And they actually do manage to sit together quite well.

And I like her use of color.

- And the idea of using a tree as your main character in the drama in front of you, I think is a very clever device.

- I preferred it before this area went in and I think it takes away from that lovely section up there.

And the tree.

- I'm really surprised with how much I was able to achieve today.

I feel that the adrenaline, if anything, clearly helped me not time waste and rise to the challenge.

- I thought he was really gonna struggle with the landscape today.

And yet somehow there's a refinement that is beautiful.

- At the beginning I was a bit doubtful about the unfinishedness of the view and actually that broken circle works fantastically, as does the gold, which gives you the sense of the sparkling lake perfectly.

- It's amazing because you come to the end of the day and it's like a new character's entered the scene.

- Yeah.

- I have a tiny, tiny, tiny question mark on my mind, which is if you gave someone like this a major commission of a big monumental landscape, could they give you that oomph?

It's just so difficult, isn't it, to compare this to painting sometimes.

- I hope the judges are addressing like the level of detail in it.

I hope that the layers I've built up bring the right things forward, make it a proper landscape.

- I like this brilliant slice of landscape.

It's so horizontal.

And she just sliced through it that way, bringing us right underneath the mountain.

It's really, really effective.

- And the light, the way it's sort of coming and going on the distant hills is believable.

I just noticed the yachts in the harbor, which I didn't see before.

- [Kate] You don't like those.

- [Tai-Shan] No.

Holiday amateur painters down in Poole Harbor.

- It's not that though.

It's just it scares us slightly cause they're there as a little whisper of tourist painting.

- I think when you start a painting, you're never entirely sure how it's gonna end up.

But in the end I think it did come together more or less.

- That one for me is a bit of a no brainer.

- There's a similarity in the simplification, but I think that one's stronger, don't you?

- The leaders are so far out ahead for me.

I think it's quite easy.

I think it's quite a clear three today.

- [Frank] But who has made their shortlist?

- And the first artist is Gregor Henderson.

(applause) - And the second is Michelle Ives.

(applause) - And the third is Kieran Ingram.

(applause) - But condolences to the rest of you.

It was a really enjoyable day.

You all did great stuff.

Thank you so much for your contribution.

- I'm so happy to have had this moment, really for people to look at my work and see me as an artist.

It's been a really special thing for me.

- What is so amazing is to stand here, looking at these pictures with the landscape immediately behind.

It's quite incredible, isn't it?

It's marvelous.

- So should we take them one at a time?

What about Kieran?

- I think he's surpassed the painting he'd entered with.

This painting is much more interesting.

He's done something with a simplification.

There's a silence in the landscape.

There's a space and air.

Kathleen has a problem with the big sheep closest to us, and I would agree possibly that it would be even a bit better without it.

- It's really difficult because, you know, if the sheep is really there, which it was, how do you avoid putting it in?

I think he almost gets away with it.

- There's a really brilliant sketchy quality to the submission, which makes it feel very lively.

And this maybe is just a bit too filled in.

- Obviously it would be nice to win, but I think it's a big ask when you're against lots of really, really great artists.

So yeah, I'm happy that I've made it this far.

- Okay, so Michelle.

- What a brilliant pair of pastels.

I mean like that she can give us such a brilliant slice of composition and tell such a good story.

For me, hers were the best mountains today, those colors and with those dark passages, just make it so evocative.

- And we loved the submission for that industrial grittiness in the urban environment.

But I was a bit worried looking at the colors that they were very brown and that she wouldn't have an understanding of color.

It was really about drawing.

But today, I mean it's a completely different set of colors and she's really a master of her drawing skills.

She's very good at what she does.

- What it's done for me, it's really sold the idea of pastels.

I've always associated them with pictures of people in court.

(laughing) I wouldn't have even recognized this as pastel.

- What about Paula Rego?

She's made an absolute genius.

- Oh, your endless name dropping, Joan.

It's really getting on my nerves.

- It's an art program.

- I've been dabbling with the idea of becoming a full-time painter.

So going through is a big affirmation for me that yes, I'm going in the right direction.

- So what about Gregor?

- Well, I was just so pleasantly surprised.

I sort of thought he would struggle more with this landscape.

I thought it would be too pastoral, but he hasn't.

And the thing I love the most is that he responded to that lovely bowl.

- I felt worried for him this morning.

I thought, wow, that's a really good artist.

This is gonna present lots of problems for him.

I like this even more than the submission.

- But you feel if he'd completed the whole circle, we might just see the top of Mount Fuji.

There's something fabulously oriental about it.

And yet it still brilliantly works.

I get the feeling you don't know who the winner is at the moment.

- I'm torn between two at the minute.

- Yeah, same here.

- Me too.

- And it won't be the same two.

They never agree.

- This could be a long night.

- No, I mean, I think- - Shall I send out for wine?

- Kieran, Gregor, Michelle, this is the moment.

There can only be one winner, and Frank will now make an extremely extended announcement.

- Thank you, Joan.

The artist they have chosen and I quote, "Conveyed the monumental nature of the landscape in an original and inventive way."

And that person is... Gregor Anderson.

(applause) - Congratulations.

- Thank you very much.

- Well done, well done.

- I was dead cool actually up to it and then they went to call her names out and kinda I got like a bit excited, a bit nervous.

Didn't really believe it when they called name out.

- You've been the best ambassador for pastels.

- Gregor really had to be the winner.

It's not often you find someone who's bringing gritty edginess to landscape painting.

You know, the stencils, the use of graffiti in his submission, but then to still produce something that was quintessentially elegant and still beautiful at the same time.

I'm really excited to see what he's gonna do in the semis.

- No, I'm absolutely ecstatic.

It's been a great experience.

I'm chuffed to bits.

A little bit flabbergasted, but here we are.

So I'm looking forward to semi final now.

(gentle music) (melodic music)