(inspirational music) - Hello, and welcome to the beautiful Scotney Castle in Kent, where the British, where the British weather is being particularly British.

- So we're expecting paintings that depict rain, sleet, and if we're lucky, hail.

- You know what I think it's brightening up a bit.

Welcome to Sky Art's "Landscape Artist of the Year."

- Today, eight more artists have traveled from all over Britain and Ireland to put brush to canvas.

- No matter if they spray paint or drizzle paint, they all want to impress the judges.

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

- Is it alright if I quit my job as a judge and just go lie down in the grass and paint, because I've never wanted to more in my entire life.

- [Joan] All for the chance to win a 10,000 pound commission to paint Petworth House, made famous by Tamar, and the painting will become part of the National Trust Permanent Collection.

- This is giving it a sort of man looking out of a prison cell.

But they're not the only artist hoping to catch the judge's eye.

50 more have descended upon Scotland to try their luck as wild cards.

- You're a graffiti artist?

- I do some street art.

- You're not Banksy are you by any chance?

But with just four hours to make their mark- - My brain is squirming like a toad.

- [Frank] Who will win today's place in the semi-final?

- It's mostly brown.

- Yeah.

- Out there it's mostly green, what's going on?

(inspirational music) Painting at Scotney Castle today are seven professional artists.

Ann Makowski, Titus Agbara, Gordon Hunt, Renata Fernandez, David Fox, Paul Robinson, and William Stanton.

- Got enough sleep, I think, about four hours worth before the night terrors kicked in.

So we'll be fine, I think, yeah.

(bright music) - [Frank] And joining them is just one amateur artist, Mark Davison.

- I'm apprehensive, slightly apprehensive.

Like a coil spring, as soon as I get that paint brush in my hand, and I'll be off, I'll be in the zone, hopefully.

- [Joan] All of today's artists were chosen on the strength of a digital submission of their work.

So the judge's day begins with a close inspection of the original paintings.

- I like this because we don't often get a of snow scape, first of all.

But I thought the other thing that was really interesting about it was this combination of using the textures, whether it's wallpaper or printing, I'm not sure.

It was a nice combination.

- It's kind of urban and contemporary, and then it has got this very decorative under stenciling.

So it's a nice, it's an interesting balance.

(bright music) - How inventive to think about going up on the top deck of a bus and framing of you like that.

- Which we all know and of all experienced, but I've never consciously seen as a landscape.

- I'm really, really excited, because I liked the image as a submission, but I really like it in the flesh.

I think this is excellent.

(bright music) (birds tweeting) - I love the composition in that big sky.

- You really do feel like you're rushing through this landscape, which is why I think the unpainted passages work really well.

The sky is not necessarily naturalistic.

It's almost that you've got this star formations happening.

(whimsical music) - It's brave of you to have selected that from something that was submitted, because in a sense it's hardly there, which is its charm.

It must have been very difficult to decide.

- I think the attention to detail and the level of observation is so loud in such a small space.

- We always like a good bit of drawing.

And you know, the idea of landscape is quite interesting.

It throws that into question, you know, where is your focus?

How wide do you focus?

How close do you focus?

- [Frank] Today our artists have been challenged to paint Scotney Old Castle and it's surrounding moat.

Dating back to the Middle Ages, the castle was deliberately ruined in the 19th century as part of the picturesque movement.

For one artist, it's a bit of a surprise.

- The other viewers I've seen of it were from the other side, so this is totally different angle.

In a way I was expecting to paint a lot of water today, but there's not a right lot in there.

- [Joan] Amateur artist, Mark Davison gave up his career as a top chef seven years ago due to arthritis.

Since then, he's devoted himself to his first love, which is painting.

His submitted entry is of a sunny winter's day in Smeely Woods, a small area of woodland near his home in Sheffield.

- Today it would've been quite dark and dingy.

It's great because you can do something really atmospheric, 'cause this place has probably been painted to death in the sun, and it's like the hey we're in that zone, hasn't it?

So it's a nice chance to actually have a play today as well.

And you know, just throw it about a bit.

(whimsical music) - Artists, your challenge is about to begin.

- You have four hours to complete your picture.

Good luck everyone.

Your time starts now.

(whimsical music) - [Frank] An artists tool kit is filled with all kinds of utensils, but there's often a particular favorite.

- Yeah, I love my palette knife, and I want that freedom of flow when I'm using the knife.

I don't want to be stiff.

No.

(imitates knife scraping) - [Joan] Professional artist Titus Agbara is no stranger to painting under pressure.

He's previously taken part in Portrait Artist of the Year.

And in last year's Landscape Artist Competition, he reached the final three of his heat.

His submission is of the view from the top of a London bus, and includes motifs from his Nigerian heritage.

Even though he's never been to Scotland before, today's view looks familiar to him.

- There's a village back home called Ososo.

And there are some houses that looks like very old and the same bricks layout.

- Oh really?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So as I'm looking it out, I just feel like I'm still back home.

I'm still doing what I'm used to do.

- That's pretty interesting.

So you'll be able to layer a different place onto this place.

So when we look at your painting, we'll be thinking about this today, but we understand that it's also got a resonance of another place.

- Yeah.

(whimsical music) - Pattern can feature in artist's work in all sorts of surprising ways.

(tape ripping) Paul, this looks like a fun bit.

So this is giving it a sort of a man looking out of a prison cell.

- I was thinking more like wallpaper stripes.

- Oh, okay.

It's not a thing that many landscape artists are striving for, that wallpaper feel.

(both laughing) Professional artist Paul Robinson lives in Hackney in London, where he divides his time between his studio and his job in digital media.

His submission is of a snowy street in Waltham Stowe London and was made by building up layers of screen printing, spray paint, and stencils.

I'm getting a sense of two worlds colliding today, because I was watching you doing the spray paint thing, looking quite street and urban, and then you are looking at what I would call in terms of landscape painting the Full English.

- Yeah.

- So what's the secret to that.

When you look at this, how do you make it you?

- So I'm gonna still be kind of working on it as a classical composition, but then I'll be breaking it down into like textures and looking at plants, kind of trying to recreate that texture in the pattern, in the painting.

- [Frank] Okay.

(whimsical music) - So David, we loved the sky and your submission.

I can see how you work it.

It's a lot of accidents in mixing the paint on the canvas.

- Yeah, it's a lot of happy accents, as we say.

- I'm interested in the idea of accidents and control.

- Yeah, there's a bit of control, and more (indistinct) accidental.

- [Joan] From Belfast, David Fox paints professionally, but supplements his living by working as a driving instructor, two activities, he manages to combine into his submission painting of a stretch of the M1 Motorway between Belfast and Dublin.

- [Tai Shan] So you're working down the canvas and using the drips as you work down?

- Yeah, using the drips, yeah.

- When it comes to the building, can you use that kind of technique as well?

I mean it's a bit more fixed, isn't it?

- Yeah, I think I'm just gonna approach it more like a line drawing I think, and go from there.

A couple of washes, I want the underpainting, the blues that are streaking down through it to come through.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

So it'll make it work rather than just blocking it in with color, you know?

(whimsical music) - [Frank] Our eight competitors aren't the only ones painting here at Scotney Castle today.

50 more artists of all ages and abilities have arrived bringing paints, easels, and of course an essential for any outdoor artist, brollies.

(whimsical music) (laughing) They've come to try their lockers wild card artists.

And if one of them impresses the judges, they could find themselves in the semi-final.

(whimsical music) - I'm feeling confident and competent and excited.

I haven't slept all night.

(laughs) - I'm feeling a bit scared and kind of excited as well.

- This is my third time doing landscape.

So (laughs) scary.

- Wow, do you like paint?

- I do.

- And you're putting it on with a kitchen brush, that is just wild.

Fabulous.

In with a definite chance of a place in the semifinal, the eight heat artists are nearly one hour into their challenge.

- I'm just here to play with colors, white lights, vibrant greens.

And yeah, it's gonna be a lovely painting.

Let's see how it goes anyway.

(inspirational music) - You've got a long way to go.

You're going to be able to time yourself okay?

- Yeah, hopefully.

- Hopefully, I'll keep an eye on you.

- It's just that gamble of when you put the paint down, is it gonna sit right or is it not?

So yeah, it really is, it's just as much as a surprise for me as it is for you, I suppose, yeah.

(inspirational music) (whimsical music) - [Joan] Here at Scotney Castle in Kent, our eight artists have been painting for an hour, and are a quarter of the way into their challenge.

- I'm guessing that you are doing this small version and then you'll copy onto the big version.

Is that what's gonna happen?

- I will not copy it, I'm just practicing.

- What about if you really fell in love with this small one, would you just abandon the big feller and go for that?

- Oh yeah, definitely.

- You might get lucky.

You might be finished in 20 minutes.

- That's my strategy.

(both laughing) - Professional artist Renata Fernandez is originally from Venezuela.

She's fascinated by plant life, and for her submission, she presented a minimalist drawing of a leaf that took three hours to complete.

Today Renata's decided not to draw, but to paint in oils, still keeping to her characteristic, oval shaped board, An obvious question here, but I'm good at obvious questions.

Why do you go for the oval rather than the rectangle?

- I just fell in love with the oval, because it has a reference of the curative and- - Sorry of what?

- Of the curative arts.

- Oh, okay.

You see I have this crazy theory that because our eyes are oval, and that's how we see the world.

There's no corners on our eyes, that you might wanna be representing that.

What about that furrow?

- I might write that down.

- Yeah, feel free.

- Add it to my statement.

- Tell the judges that, I won't tell them it was my idea.

- Okay.

(inspirational music) - [Joan] En plein air, or painting outside to you and me, is a long and noble tradition, but working from life in the midst of the beautiful countryside while inspiring, can be challenging.

- Well, I'm not used to painting en plein air.

I'm used to painting from photos to get the detail, but it's too bright today.

So I'm finding that quite difficult.

- [Frank] Originally from San Francisco, professional artist, Ann Makowski moved to the UK seven years ago.

Her submission painting called "The Edit" is a composite of several of her favorite buildings in London.

But rather than working in oils or watercolors, Ann prefers a more stimulating medium.

- We heard this was the place to come for a cup of coffee.

- Yeah.

(laughing) - You got the kettle on?

- No, I'm gonna use it in my painting.

- [Judge] Why not tea?

We're English, so we're used to teabags making stains.

- So I used the coffee because that has a very strong ring around it.

And it interacts with certain pens and different inks in ways that sort of preserve that.

- But it also washes some of the the pen stuff away, doesn't it?

- Yes, exactly.

It makes it bleed.

- Are you worried about time?

Because this is quite a large piece to get done in a short amount of time, have you practiced it?

- I am worried about time, I've practiced.

But the thing is, even if I do a smaller painting, it takes the same amount of time, because the details have to come in so it's- - Yeah, we're gonna go then.

- Okay.

- In that case.

Good luck.

- Thank you.

(inspirational music) - It's steamingly hot, and unfortunately we both took the decision this morning to wear our sweaters because we thought it was gonna rain and be very cold.

- Right, we're basically wearing the same sweater.

Well, it looks like this goes through the sleeve.

- We wanted to meld into the background.

- Fancy my horse sweater.

(laughing) Anyway, what about the view today?

Is it one you'd fancy yourself if you had your brushes?

- From where they are today, there is that opening.

So you've got the tower, that very beautiful tower, and you can see the light coming around it.

So you get that nice three dimensionality.

Then the landscape does open up behind us, so there is that to play with.

But as a sun has come out, it's started to create light and shadow and create patterns.

So there's a lot for the artists to get their teeth into, but you know, we've seen it in the past that we give our artists these views and all beautiful buildings, and they seem to plunk it in the middle.

So I just hope that they've right from the start, they've edited the composition a bit.

(whimsical music) - I'd like to take time, and time's not a luxury I have at the moment.

So it's very challenging.

I think you can really make or break a painting if you get the colors right.

- William Stanton has been painting portraits professionally for two years, and has recently started to explore other genres of art.

His submission was only the second landscape he'd ever painted, and shows the beach on the Isle White, where he won his wife's heart.

Now looking at it Will- - Sure.

- At the stage it is now.

- Yeah.

- It's mostly brown.

- Yeah.

- Out there it's mostly green, what's going on?

- I hope the plan is this is merely tone.

It should look lively and green by the end.

Trouble is, my technique such as it is, I've had to make my bed quite early on and then I have to line it, and so here I am.

Whether I would've chosen something else in the landscape to draw, I don't know.

But it's all right.

There's hope yet, there's hope, you know?

(whimsical music) (can rattling) - [Frank] Whether our artists choose to paint with a restrained palette or with vivid colors, most of them start against a white primed background.

But today one has a completely different approach.

- We'll start with a black canvas, and I build up towards lighter, brighter colors.

The analogy I give is like a dimmer switch, where you start with everything dark and then a light, brighter color, and keep going until you've got the full light.

- [Frank] Retired graphic designer Gordon Hunt decided to pursue his dream of painting full-time after surviving a heart attack in 2010.

His submission painting shows trees silhouette against the estuary in his hometown of Foy in Cornwall.

Thanks to his distinctive style of painting the sun on the sea, he's become known locally as the Sparkly Waterman.

- You work from dark to light, you are kind of working in reverse.

- I simply see it as I'm building up the lighter tone.

For instance, in this here, when you stand up, there is another layer of trees behind, and so if I can paint here and what I'm making is another further back layer of tree.

- No, no, it all makes sense.

But in when I paint, I put it in rather than leave it.

So I find that my brain is squirming like a toed.

(whimsical music) - On the other side of the moat, the wild card artists are in full swing.

You're a graffiti artist.

- I do some street art.

- Excellent.

- Thank you.

- Some of it can be wonderful.

You're not Banksy, are you by any chance?

- No, no, no.

- I love Monet, so as soon as I saw lilies I thought that's what I've gotta do.

So I've come up the bank a bit to try to get a view on.

- It'd be nice to sort of be amongst them doing some work.

It's like a hippie festival, it's great.

- Do you feel a sense of rivalry like watching what other people are up to here?

- No, more of awe.

- Yeah, yeah.

- [Judge] So is this what you do for a living?

- No, not at all.

I'm a police officer.

- Oh, you're a police officer?

- Yeah.

(indistinct) - Oh, okay.

I have to ask this because you're a policeman and an artist.

Are you a constable?

(indistinct) - You are, well, I mean, that's perfect for landscape.

- Very true.

- [Kate] I am totally overwhelmed by how wonderful nearly all our wild cards are today.

- I think we're also seeing an incredible range of media and real variety.

So you've got this young woman working with Marino wool.

- [Kate] Yeah, she's got that little tent.

- Subtle and creative.

Where you've got the guy with his spray paints, that woman making the incredibly detailed beautiful drawing, and a real mixture of professional artists, but also amateurs just having a lovely time.

- I know.

Is it alright if I quit my job as a judge and just go lie down in the grass and paint, because I've never wanted to more in my entire life.

It is so nice.

It's like this big painting picnic.

(whimsical music) - [Frank] It's nearly halfway through the competition.

In just two hours, the judges will select one artist to go through to the semi-final.

- The first half was just in the background textures, and now it's actually pulling it all together and making sense of the scene.

It's just all the fiddly details.

I don't think stressing ever helps.

If I was panicking, I'd probably make more mistakes.

So it's better to be relaxed.

- Now Titus, you always find the time limit very tricky, don't you?

Are you speeding up your technique?

- I just wanna see how I could merge myself with my painting, not really looking at the time.

- I'll feel a bit better after I put down the first layer, 'cause at the moment I can't tell what it's going to look like.

It's a bit of a risk.

- And I'm kind of probably getting ahead for myself.

So I think at this stage, I'm gonna have to take a step back and not overwork the piece, 'cause sometimes you think something's really, really successful, and then you go too far.

You know there is that kind of do I or don't I?

(inspirational music) (whimsical music) - Here at Scotney Castle in Kent, our eight artists have just passed the halfway stage of the competition.

In just under two hours the judges will have to decide who will go through to the semi-final.

So who have they got their eye on?

Okay, so Ann?

- I love what Ann's doing.

- Me too, me too.

- I love it.

- Gotta say I do as well.

- The feeling we got from her submission is already there.

The sense of her and her work.

- She's been very clever with those pens, because the whole purpose of them is that once she puts the coffee on, they start to bleed and disappear.

And I think when you have that randomness alongside the rigidity and formality of the architecture, there's a lovely tension, push me, pull you in that work.

- [Frank] So David?

- [Tai Shan] Yeah, I'm worried.

- I think he's got enough time to really bring that together.

It's very unique.

It's not got too much work on it.

He's thinking before he is putting the marks down.

I think it looks a bit ugly at the moment, but I think he's just in an ugly stage.

- [Kathleen] I agree with Kate.

- What about Titus?

- He's such a good artist that he very quickly, you get the feeling of where we are and what the light is, and it's enough.

- When there's less tightness, when there's less rendering, it means as a viewer, you can get in there a bit and find your way through it.

It's almost if you resolve it too much, then you kind of close people off, because you only offer one particular slice.

And so it's almost that you reduce your audience.

- But it can be a good thing too.

I mean sometimes when it works really tight, it means it's sharp and defined, and finished and final.

- [Frank] What about Paul?

- I thought the layering was fascinating.

I thought what a great surface to build, to work into.

And now he's put the house sort of floating in the middle.

He's got this weird blue sky, and it sort of undermined the whole work.

- [Judge] I'm not mad on the composition.

- Oh, well I was sort of holding out to judge him, because I feel like it's so much about the layers that it's very difficult to make a decision at the stage.

(inspirational music) - [Joan] An artist's individual style can be inspired by the type of brush, their medium, or even a piece of family history.

- This is based on the wallpaper that my mom had up when I was little.

- [Joan] Aw.

- So it's kind of like a reinterpretation, but she had it up for 30 years, and each year she'd put a new color over the top of it.

- Ah, that's wonderful.

So she's going to be thrilled.

- Yeah she keeps asking for a percentage.

(both chuckling) (inspirational music) - [Frank] The residents of Scotney have been a very mixed bunch, including everything from prime ministers to outlaw priests, but their story begins with one of three family dynastys.

(whimsical music) In 1378, Scotney Castle was built by the Ashburnhams, most notably the parliamentarian, Roger.

- It was believed that it was built to help prevent French invasion during the Hundred Year War.

And so the fortified castle at this point would hopefully have been a strategic place to stop the invasion.

- [Frank] The Manor survived the French, but family infighting of the inheritance of the estate led to the sale of the property to another family.

- The Darrow family lived in the old castle for about 350 years.

And obviously over that time they made certain additions.

So there was a 16th century south edition, and then a three story 17th century edition.

- [Frank] They also added a more practical feature, priest holds for Catholic clergy escaping the authorities under Elizabeth I reign.

One such clergy was Father Blount.

He hid for seven years before the castle was raided, but he climbed over the rear walls into the moat escaping their clutches.

In 1778, the castle moved into the hands of the Hussey family, who eventually built new Scotney Castle.

And those who came to stay were subject to the family's eccentricities.

- There's stories that they used to weigh their guests as they came in, and there used to be a set of scales in the halls.

They'd come in and you'd have to be weighed as you entered.

There's also anecdotes of them sitting at opposite ends of quite a large dining room table, even on their own, not with guests, but it's one of those quirky little things.

- [Frank] In the 1970s to help pay for the upkeep of the property, they rented out the servants quarters as flats, and one resident was not for turning.

- One of the famous inhabitants as Scotney Castle was Margaret Thatcher.

Her and her husband, Dennis rented a flat at Scotney about the time that Margaret became prime minister, for security, obviously it's quite secluded up here.

(inspirational music) - [Joan] With the possibility of a place in the semi-final for one of the wild cards, the judges need to decide on which artists to choose.

- We are genuinely (indistinct).

I could easily take three wild cards.

It's really strong, something about the magic of sunshine that we have, which is kind of rare, which is lovely, yeah.

- There were two girls working side by side, one with her box.

Two teachers at art school, and then very close to her was the one making the liner cut, which I think looks fabulous.

- Yeah, it's lovely.

The person I really like is the guy under the tree, just down here, that's very horizontal, quite sort of cinematic.

He's really looked at the landscape.

He's found his own sort of voice in it.

- And the colors have been sort of turned up to 11, and he got these fantastic clouds that go into the distance.

So you're right, He's worked with what he's got here and sort of made it more.

(whimsical music) You've hidden under a tree all day, but you can't escape now.

Well, congratulations, we've chosen you as our wildcard.

- Thank you, amazing.

- It's a great painting and the colors are beautiful.

So it's very atmospheric.

It's very good, so well done.

- [Frank] Chris Holland will now join a pool of other wild card winners, and when all the heats are completed, one will win a place in the semifinal.

- I'm very shocked to have won today.

I wasn't expecting it.

I just came here to have a good day and be a amongst other artists.

So I'm very excited to see my family about today.

Especially my wife came down.

She said she wasn't impressed with it.

So I'm excited.

- Congratulations!

Amazing.

(inspirational music) - Taking part in the competition can be a nerveracking experience, and behind every great artist is the great support of family and friends.

Now tell me, you came over to support David didn't you?

- Yeah.

- Do you give words of advice?

- No, I think he won't listen.

He'll do what he wants to do.

The only thing he ever asks of me or anyone is to tell him when I think it's done.

- It's a very critical moment that, because we often notice people go on working simply 'cause they can't stop.

- That's it.

- So you are going to give the right advice clearly.

- Hopefully, I told them it was done, but we'll see.

He's still painting away there, so we'll have to see.

(whimsical music) - For many people, it would seem that all these spaces are rather empty.

- Yeah, yeah.

- That you've done an outline and suggested the rest.

Is that- - Yeah, they're quite empty, but yet they're quite full, you know it's not blocked in, but if you look through it, you see all the underpainting, the blues and all the kind of the first washes all coming through, and that's the kind of plan.

(whimsical music) - Ann?

- Hi.

- The ink pen, which you were using before has been replaced by a sort of traditional English school boy approach.

- Yeah, yeah.

So that pen that I was using before is bled.

So that's where the bluish color comes from.

- Okay I was worried about the coffee.

To be honest, I thought this just sounds- - Like a gimmick.

- Like a bit of a gimmick.

- [Ann] Yeah, yeah.

- But there was a moment when I walked across here before, when you were hair drying it, when I got the strongest smell of coffee.

- Oh God.

- Wafting over.

I felt a, a surge of energy.

(Ann laughing) (inspirational music) Our artists have just half an hour left to complete their paintings.

- Just panicked that it won't look finished, and it won't do my work justice.

- I think right now it's quite successful.

I'm just not quite there affirming, you know.

(brushes rattling) - I'd love to have more time, but it's one of those things in it.

I'll do what I can, but I'm probably not (indistinct) by now.

There's too much to do really.

(inspirational music) (whimsical music) - [Frank] Here at Scotney Castle, our eight artists are in the final moments of their landscape challenge.

- I've got 10 minutes left.

It's been a bit stressful the last two hours.

I don't think my technique necessarily translates to outdoor that well.

- Titus, you can't stop.

- Huh?

- You can't stop.

We're gonna have to stop, you've got 10 minutes.

- Yeah.

(laughing) - You'd never stop.

I know you'd go on painting throughout the night.

- It won't be finished, but I'll have stop painting.

Perhaps I should sign it.

Make it less valuable.

- Artists, you have just five minutes left.

(dryer blowing) - I'm working very fast trying to get it done.

(paint spraying) - (sighing) Is there anything else I can do?

Not in 10 minutes.

- Artists your time is up.

- Please put down your materials and stand away from your work.

(crowd applauding) - Well done, that was a day.

- Oh my God.

- [Joan] Before the judges assess the finished paintings, some of the days onlookers share their opinions.

- I think the view is better when you stand back.

You can see the water, the reflections in the water better.

(tranquil music) - Interesting how they've focused on one particular part rather than the whole of castle and moat.

- I love that reflection on the bottom.

I think that's really clever.

Hasn't got the wonky chimney though.

The chimney's too straight.

Oh, we'll get to it again, shall we?

- [Frank] To help the judges decide who will go through to the semi-final, they first reduce the eight to a short list of three.

- The bit that I like the best actually is this very ghostlike house.

You know this is the negative space of the house.

- She's done an incredible amount though with very limited palette.

- Yeah, yeah.

You know there's very few colors in there.

And what I really wanted to see was some more of that delicacy that we had on her submission.

I was looking to find that here really, and I don't think it is.

- I do like it's this.

It's got a feeling of what I get there to her touch rather than through color.

- I think I did my best, but of course, once I put the brushes down and step back, I say, I could have done that and that and that, and I didn't do it, so it is what it is.

- I was slightly disappointed David didn't paint more in.

I think that this echo and outline of the house is interesting, but maybe it needs a little bit more to it because at the moment it feels too much like an unfinished painting.

- It starts to deliver on the sense of promise that we had from his submission.

And I want to believe that this would go on to be something even more glorious though.

- I mean, but I do love the sky.

I love the water.

I like the composition.

I like the way you come in both ways.

I think that there's a lot of potential here.

- I think I came here thinking that I'm probably not gonna go home happy with the painting I make, but I don't think I'm as unhappy as I thought I was going to be, to be honest with you.

(inspirational music) - I was so hopeful for Ann at the beginning of the day.

I love the submission.

I love her sort of focus and how serious she was taking it all, but she hasn't quite delivered for me, even though I still love this piece.

And I thought some of it was starting to get a little bit sort of too fussy.

- Having said that you know, it's very evocative and it has that feeling of crumbling, and you can imagine finding this in a manuscript somewhere.

Yeah, absolutely.

- I've been so close to the painting this whole time, but it's difficult for me to say if I'm happy with the piece or not.

(inspirational music) - I really wanted Titus to do well today.

And I'm really pleased with this.

I love the empty space.

It balances out how much is going on in the top half, and I love the pattern making that he promised us, the marks that come from his heritage in Nigeria.

I really like this, I think it's great.

- It's really sort of juicy vegetation, and it goes on and on.

And I think the pallette knife suggests it very well, the just endless foliage.

My only problem is the building itself.

- I think the building is a bit of a problem, but I love this duality that you got in the picture, the sort of the clarity, the way he's left the canvas.

I mean, it really is water, and what I love is that we, you know, it is just a plain canvas, but we as the viewer are sort of making that water for him.

- Very satisfied with the painting, and everything worked walk out with the way my emotion is.

And hopefully let's just keep our finger crossed again.

(bright music) - I feel that he's slightly lost the power that he had in the submission.

And this has descended slightly into something that's a little bit twee and decorative and pretty.

- This feels like desperation, but in doing the hacking and scraping, it gives me that sense of foliage.

- I love the way that he uses pattern and texture.

This is someone who brings a very novel, original approach to a landscape.

- I didn't really have time to kind of step back from my painting and take each bit in.

It kind of felt like it came together as much as it could on the day.

- [Joan] But who will make it to the short list.

- Okay, so what's the third one then?

- In a way we are saying that you can choose between those two, because- - Yeah and I'm thinking actually the strongest one with the submission is the first one in there.

- Yeah, and I'll go with that.

(whimsical music) - Artists, the timers come to reveal the short list of three.

- Yes, and the first artist the judges have chosen is David Fox.

(crowd applauding) - The second artist is Paul Robinson.

(crowd applauding) - And the third artist to be shortlisted is Titus Agbara.

(crowd applauding) - Our commiserations with the rest, but we have enjoyed your work too.

So thank you all very much.

(crowd applauding) - Yeah, fantastic job.

- Actually I'm feeling pretty good.

I'm a bit happy it's over, the stress is sort of gone, but it was a really fun day.

(whimsical music) - So we have our three finalists.

Paul is a man of process, isn't he?

Process after process.

That's always gonna be a problem, isn't it?

In the four hour slot.

- That kind of work often really benefits from having time to step back, sleep on it, come back the next day, and he didn't have that.

So I was really feeling for him, but I do think that he gave us enough today that allowed us to be really sure that the kind of brilliance that we're seeing in the submission, we'll see in the future.

- He does have one steady ingredient that is in all his paintings, which is his mother's wallpaper.

I think that's rather prusty really.

- Yeah, I like that consistency.

I like the fact that he's hooked onto something and he holds it and he owns it, and it's very particularly his.

- I think the submission's quite sparse, and this is quite busy.

I don't know if that was panicked to kind of fill the canvas rather than just being a bit more laid back about it.

- The house was the big challenge today, it seemed to me.

A lot of people fell flat on the house.

Personally, I felt David was one of those people.

You clearly don't agree.

- I really love it when an artist doesn't do too much, it's quite evocative.

That water is fantastic.

Even though there's not a lot there, it shares the same brilliant textural qualities in the sky in the submission.

I agree with you, I wish that he'd done a bit more on the house.

I think it would've given the work more strength.

- There's still something very different about it.

And quite refreshing, even though there's very little there.

- I find there is a little bit too little there, but what he's shown, which he did with the motorway is the sense of composition.

We enter on the left and we follow the water in through to the right and back, and I think that's pretty amazing to be able to draw that in with that little information.

- I'm looking at it going, well, I could have done this better, I could have done better.

I tweaked it a little bit, you know, but it's always the way it was gonna be, I think.

- [Joan] What about Titus?

- If you look at the absence of descriptive content in David's, and then you go over to Titus, you've got that in spades in the lower section of the canvas, but how evocative is that?

- And possibly I know I overdo the conceptual bit about the idea of the framed landscape from the front of the bus, and in a sense, the drips, which are watery representing water.

I mean, there is that kind of funny cross fertilization, but I mean, just looking at the submission and the paintings done today, there's a richness and a depth.

It's just they're very strong paintings.

- I started with a wash, drips of colors, and it's just worked so perfectly, and that makes me not to cover all the canvas.

(tranquil music) - Paul, David, Titus, three into one, won't go I'm afraid, and only one of the three can go forward, and the judges have made their decision.

- Yes, the artist that they have selected produced a multilayered work full of intensity and passion, and that person is... Titus Agbara.

(crowd applauding) That was fabulous.

- Oh my God, it was like a surprise to me.

I was so, so happy now.

- Really great painting.

- Titus won today actually for two reasons, one of them of course is the brilliance of his piece today, but also he knew when to stop.

And he used the substance of the paint to suggest the wateriness in front of him, and that kind of matureness, it's really promising for the future, and we really wanna see what he does next.

- All the while this was like finger crossed, but so fortunate for me.

Semi-final here I come.

(whimsical music) (bright music)