(upbeat music) - Hello, it's a (speaking in foreign language) day here at Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness.

It's witnessed many a battle in its time, and today, it's gonna witness another, a battle of the brushes.

- And our three finalists now face their ultimate challenge, before one of them claims a 10,000 pounds commission.

- 10,000 pounds, it's an absolute monster.

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

- [Joan] Over the past few weeks, we've watched some of the country's most talented artists paint, print, and even felt some of the UK's most beautiful views.

- It's a sort of a Wray Castle greatest hits.

- I like that!

- Yeah.

But from those who made it to the heats, three have consistently impressed.

(people applauding) - I'm chuffed, but kind of shocked.

- [Joan] And today, they have to prove themselves one more time.

- Have you fantasized about that?

- Yeah, but also fantasized about losing.

- Who fantasizes about losing?

- No, no.

- [Frank] At stake, a 10,000 pounds commission to paint Petworth House for the National Trust's permanent collection.

- I could go very wrong at this point by dropping some ink in the wrong place, knocking my water pot.

Could quite easily have a very big disaster.

- [Joan] Who wins is down to the judges.

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

- We've made it absolutely impossible for ourselves.

- But faced with three very different mediums... Scalpel.

- [Joan] Who will win?

- And the winner of the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year is... (upbeat music) (whimsical music) Of the three artists that have made it to today's final, two are professional, Gregor Henderson and Kim Whitby.

- I don't feel nervous at all, so.

And that's either good or bad.

I enjoy drawing outside and painting outside, and I get to do that today, so that's great.

- I think I'm fairly relaxed 'cause, I dunno, that I'm just gonna enjoy it, hopefully.

Don't really have a strategy.

I'm just gonna try and find a good spot to paint from.

- [Joan] And joining Gregor and Kim is amateur artist, Richard Allen.

- I'm feeling nervous and tired.

Not a very good night's sleep.

Looks like a stunning setting, Very misty right now.

With any luck, it'll burn off a bit, and the midges are swarming.

- [Frank] For their final view, the artists are facing the ruins of the castle.

Perched on a peninsula, they can choose to focus on its former battlements, Grant Tower, or even the infamous Loch Ness.

And especially for today, we've got a proper Scotch mist to add to the atmosphere.

- I think with this year's competition, because each of the artists have such particular and distinctive styles and they're all quite different, it's not about making something that's going to surprise me or that's going to completely transform the language of landscape.

I think in a way, each of them are doing that already.

So I suppose more than normally, I'm looking for consistency, and what I'm looking for is excellence in that consistency.

- I've come ready for the weather today, I've got my boots on, which are thermal and warmer than wellies.

And I've got something that just covers everything up and is completely waterproof, which I'm hoping I won't wear for very long and that I'll be taking off and exploring.

- It's gonna be difficult to the artists if the clouds do lift and suddenly we get sunlight and then the whole structure of the landscape will change.

But that's also exciting and part of the competition.

- This stuff here is called Naples yellow.

I treated myself to a tube of that having made it through the semifinal.

And don't tell my wife, that's 30 pounds.

- Maybe it's really childish, but I need at least a shadow underneath the water of some impression of a monster.

No, not really.

I don't want any of them to play it safe.

In my mind, I've got a feeling of what I need each of them to do, which is new and delivers new promise.

- I've got cotton mat, scalpels, spare blades, and then all my paint.

I'm all sorted, I'm all set up, so, ready to go, ready to get started, and hopefully it goes well.

(laughs) (gentle music) - Artists, your final challenge is about to begin.

There is just one last surge of creativity between you and a 10,000 pounds commission.

- Now, to give you the best chance possible, the judges have extended the challenge by 30 minutes, which means you'll have time to explore the castle and the grounds, and hopefully find inspiration in these wonderful surroundings.

- So you have four and a half hours to complete your potentially winning piece, and your time starts now.

(gentle music) - [Joan] Giving the artists the chance to explore the landscape before committing to a composition will give the judges more of an idea of each finalist's way of working.

- That's a great hole.

- [Frank] And Kim and Gregor embraced the opportunity at some pace.

(Gregor laughs) - [Joan] But Richard is taking a more static position.

- Morning, Richard.

- Morning, Kate.

- [Kate] So you are not out in the landscape having an exploration.

- I mean, it's tempting, but just the way that I work, I don't think that it would add anything to it.

- So you want to just pick a viewpoint and work from that and keep it as that.

- Yeah.

- You don't play around with what nature presents to you.

- I dither a bit and I do want to go for interesting, arresting, dynamic compositions, but I think that the way that it's worked with the heat and the semi is that I just simply need to get something pegged and then crack on with it.

- Yeah.

- [Frank] Richard Allen from Bournemouth is a full-time illustrator.

He studied fine art at Central St. Martins in London for his degree, but it's only in the past few years that he has returned to painting as a hobby.

(gentle music) Richard likes to play with visual perspectives, as in his submission piece, which depicted two images in one painting.

But it was the painterly brush marks of his work at Stowe Gardens which secured his place in the next round.

The four hour time limit of each challenge forced Richard to develop a more spontaneous approach, and at the semi final in Margate, the judges felt his style captured both the view and atmosphere of the harbor and were keen to see more.

- It's a very gray day, there's this mist hanging low.

Everyone keeps telling me that it's gonna brighten up.

If I could just bring the weather god now and give you one or the other, what would you rather have?

- I think I'd have to plum for clear skies and that sort of deep ultramarine.

- Well, the great thing is, you can paint it however you want, but you want to be quite literal, I guess.

- I do, without wanting to sound sort of slavishly sort of wedded to what is in front of me, I mean, I suppose I've declared that I don't wanna sort of editorialize.

So yeah, I'd prefer not to throw in colors that aren't there.

- And your work is all about these amazing passages of paint and these textures, so it's gonna be interesting to see how you compose the signature Richard take on this.

Good luck.

- Thank you, Kate.

(upbeat music) - There are any number of things here that are absolutely fantastic that I could spend a lot of time drawing and painting and thoroughly enjoy.

But today is a challenge and the time is limited, so I'm happy with this, I'm just gonna try and make this one work.

- [Joan] Professional artist, Kim Whitby, is from Portsmouth.

She started her career as a primary school teacher, but gave it up to study an MA in fine art at Aberystwyth University in 2015.

Unlike Richard and Gregor who won their places in the final through the heat, Kim beat 299 other hopefuls who joined the competition as wildcards.

She was spotted amongst the undergrowth at Stowe Gardens and was put forward to a pool of other wildcard winners, but it was the ambition and sense of scale of her chosen medium, ink, which convinced the judges to put her through to the semifinal.

Kim secured her place in the final with a portrait arrangement of Margate Harbour Arm, which was, once again, in ink.

But today, she may be breaking away from her usual medium.

- Are you using color today?

Are you still undecided?

There's something about the color that you like.

- The color is lovely.

The color is lovely, isn't it?

- Oh, okay.

Oh, right, I'm not gonna say anything.

No, no, it's very exciting.

(whimsical music) - Morning.

- Gregor, you've got a lot of spray paint today.

I feel like I'm on a police raid of your bedsit.

You were careering around.

You've obviously found your magical- - Well, I've actually ended up taking one from basically here.

But I just wanted to, like, I wanted to check, I wanted to, like, go around and kinda check there was nothing else.

- That's always the way, isn't it?

Known for his derelict urban landscapes, Gregor Henderson is a professional artist who studied fine art at the Glasgow School of Art.

Alongside his work, he also volunteers at a charity which teaches life skills to secondary school children.

(gentle music) At Wray Castle, the judges were fascinated by Gregor's technique of breaking an image down into several layers and making three intricate circular stencils before spray painting each one to form a single image.

He gained his place in the final by using the same technique on the horizon at Margate.

The judges loved his finished work for its innovation and beauty.

How do you ever begin to do this kind of thing?

Were you torturing an insect one day and thought... - No, it was just a development from...

I was art school and I had quite a keen interest in street art and graffiti and stuff.

And there's obviously a lot of stenciling in street art.

- Yeah, so that kind of thing, when you walk down the street and you see a plastered wall and it's got like a big mouse on it holding a sign, that someone has held a stencil and sprayed on that.

So this is a microscopic version of that.

- Yeah, I wanted to make it like...

I wanted to try and make it, I don't know, more complex, more detailed, and more interesting as a piece of art.

- [Frank] So how will the composition be today?

- I've got three just now.

I'm hoping maybe to do four.

- [Frank] I love the circle as well, that's great.

- I quite like that as well.

- What I love about it reminds me of the souvenir plates you get in color supplements of the tabloid newspapers.

- Well, that's what I was going for, I was going for the souvenir plate effect.

(laughs) - Well, I'm looking forward to that very much.

Good luck, mate.

- Cheers, see you later.

(whimsical music) - [Joan] As the mist turns into more of a drizzle, it marks a pivotal moment, committing paint to canvas.

- So I think basically it's not gonna be watercolor today.

I'm going to stick with ink because I feel comfortable in it.

I'm going to work large, and you want to put a large wash down quite quickly.

So now I'm just blotting it out so it's not as dark and fierce as it was looking, and it also gives a sort of uneven, almost textured finish to the ink, so it looks a little bit more like an etching.

- The rain's coming in and just kind of landing on the paper, so obviously it's fragile as it is and it's just making it even more fragile.

You can't cut, it'll just start to rip if it gets wet.

- You can imagine what I'm like in a restaurant choosing from a menu, that I'm just an inveterate ditherer.

I'm gonna have to stop dithering at some point and actually get cracking on this.

Yeah.

Okay.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - [Frank] Amid the slow rising mist at Urquhart Castle overlooking Loch Ness, finalists, Kim, Richard, and Gregor have been laying the foundations for their final pieces for just over an hour.

- With the prize of a 10,000 pound commission at stake, they all have their work cut out, and for Gregor, that's not even a figure of speech.

Gregor, we're all in awe of this technique of yours.

It's stenciling basically, isn't it?

- [Gregor] Yeah.

- So you have to deconstruct what you can see in front of you.

- Pretty much, yeah.

- Because I can't see that.

- So this is the kind of tree line just down at the front, just to the left of the castle.

- [Joan] I got it.

- [Gregor] And then that's the bridge here.

- [Joan] Got it, got it.

- And the castles came out here-ish.

You'll just see kinda the edge of the castle there, the castle's just gonna start to creep in at the side.

- [Joan] Whose landscapes do you admire?

- I love a lot of impressionist stuff.

Monet is one of my favorite painters.

And it's not so much the composition, it's just the light that they get into it.

- [Joan] But that's not something you can get here, is it?

- No, no.

- [Joan] Yours is an entirely different technique.

- [Gregor] It is different.

- Well, good luck with it.

- Thank you very much.

- Tomorrow's Monet.

- (laughs) Cheers.

(whimsical music) - How do you feel about being in the final?

I know that feels like the sort of question that you ask someone on FA Cup final day, but I can never quite work out how it is for an artist, 'cause you're so sort of spiritual that maybe you don't care about a 10,000 pound commission, fame and glory and a blossoming career.

- I'd kill for that, yeah, yeah.

- You would actually kill.

- I wouldn't literally.

(laughs) - [Frank] I mean, what changes would it make, do you think?

- [Richard] I've been obviously running through all of those.

- [Frank] Have you fantasized about that?

- [Richard] Yeah, but also fantasized about losing.

- Who fantasizes about losing?

- No, no.

No, not necessarily a rewarding fantasy, but a nightmare.

(gentle music) - People might think that working in black and white, that the weather actually wouldn't affect you so much, the changes in the weather, but it clearly does have an impact.

- Yeah.

Any outside painting, you've just got to go with the general feel, because daylight changes very, very quickly.

You've just got to respond to it.

- Yeah, that quick response.

- But you give it scale, and I think that's one of the things that we love.

- And it's the vitality as well, the way that you're able to capture so much with these big, bold movements.

I'm just so interested to see all the contrasts and the tones emerge throughout the day and the bigger picture, but without losing the sense of- - I want to keep it loose.

- Looseness.

Yeah, that's fabulous, so that's great.

- [Frank] Once one of Scotland's largest castles, Urquhart was a center of conflict throughout its 500 years as a medieval fortress.

The castle passed back and forth between the Scots and English during the wars of independence, but the power struggles continued, as the McDonalds, lords of the isles, regularly raided both castle and the surrounding glen.

And it's last inhabitants, government troops garrisoned here in the 17th century, blew up the castle to prevent its use by Jacobite forces.

But luckily for us, it now enjoys a more peaceful existence.

Tai, you know, you could call this a chocolate box view, but it's got such a history.

- I don't know whether our artists know about it, I think they're just struggling to try to capture all this.

- But it seems to me absolutely crucial to the landscape you produce that the castle gets its full status as a place that a lot of blood and passion has been spilt all over it.

- I hope we'll feel a bit of that in our artists' work, but you know, they're only artists.

I mean, they're three great finalists, but you know, there's a limitation.

- That will make a great trailer for this show.

- I don't know what you want.

- That one of the judges says, "They're only artists."

If you were gonna paint this today, what is the thing that you would think, well, one thing I have to get right, is?

- We're expecting them to deal with the ruin.

Personally, I would deal with the ruin slightly less, because what's interesting for me and which embodies the, you know, the atmosphere you're talking about, is the clouds coming down the hills.

I mean, that is just stunning.

You know, as you go up the hill and into the mountains, that soft edge is very beautiful and it gives a sense of the lowering sky, you know?

And I wish, well, I hope one of them at least tackles that.

That would really be very effective.

- Okay, so we're looking for lowering sky.

- Yeah.

- Distance.

- Yeah.

- And for me, I want some brutal history.

If anyone pulls off those three, we've got a winner.

- They're our winner.

- Hooray!

(whimsical music) - [Joan] While Richard and Gregor are quite happy working in their little studios... - That is really, really outstanding.

- Oh, cheers.

Thank you.

- [Joan] Kim has got a touch of cabin fever.

- I'm looking for the contrast in the tones, and it's the detail that will make the character of the war seem authentic.

Okay, I'm off.

- You've chosen to really go in close on this greenery here, you're on top of it.

- Yeah, I think that that's just me going to town on the sort of gestural mark making.

- But indeed, when they were judging last time, the judges remarked on your mark making, they were very keen on the marks, and it's a very specific mark, yours, Richard.

I bet I could guess whether your painting among many because of the marks being so characteristic.

You must get pleasure.

- Yeah, I'm always keen to avoid polishing a particular style, but it's inevitable that one does end up with a sort of identifiable way of working, and definitely the sort of calligraphic strokes are something that give me a lot of pleasure.

- [Frank] Gregor, Richard, and Kim have just over two hours of their final challenge left before one will become Landscape Artist of the Year, 2016.

- It's kind of hard to tell how it's gone.

The time thing's okay just now.

I might have time to kinda crack on with a little bit of a fourth layer, which would be ideal.

So yeah, we'll see how it goes.

(upbeat music) - Just popping in some vegetation which is in the sort of rough part of the edge of the moat.

So I'm just using the hard pencil to sort of push the ink into the paper a little bit.

I could easily go very wrong at this point by dropping some ink in the wrong place, knocking my water pot or my ink pot over.

Could quite easily have a very big disaster.

- Often I'll look at my old paintings, and if they've gone really well, I get the feeling not only that somebody else did them, but I can't even remember the process that led to them being that way, so yeah, I'm at that sort of a stage, wondering how the hell I got here.

(whimsical music) (upbeat music) - [Joan] On the banks of Loch Ness, just as our finalists reached the halfway point, the sun has finally broken through the mist.

- We always say there's tremendous variety of style, but there really is this time, isn't there?

Is it a bit like saying what's better, an orange or a yacht?

- Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

It's incredibly difficult.

You're judging three completely different approaches, three completely different styles.

- [Frank] So what about Richard?

- There's a conventionality about his composition, you know?

You've got the space on the left and the castle on the right.

And I was a bit underwhelmed, but just over the last hour, he's put the other side of the loch in, and it's created this immense distance.

I hope he can do that even more.

- But you know, the paint, as always, is beautiful.

I mean, it just swims around so nicely.

- So what about Kim?

- I think her composition, which I thought was a bit basic when she set out, of just the castle, is working very beautiful, because she's juxtaposed it with this very strong tree and you've got this beautiful wash. - It's a great shape.

- Yeah, it is.

- She's great at those shapes, but what struck me about her work today for the first time is I felt like I was looking at a theater backdrop.

- So she represents ink today.

- Ink.

- And now we turn to the scalpel and Gregor beavering away at those little, tiny stencils.

- I mean, the way he cuts the stencils, it was such precision.

The problem for me, I think, or for us, is that his process doesn't really give much away till the end.

I can't imagine what it's gonna look like at all.

- It's like a magic trick, isn't it?

- It is.

- So just to sum this up, this is not about, is it your favorite medium.

It's about who does it best.

- There isn't really a hierarchy of medium anymore.

It's about what they're doing with it and how they're presenting the landscapes to us.

And I just think this is a great final to be in a position where you've got three people competing, masters of their medium, and actually, all of them using them in interesting ways.

(gentle music) - [Frank] But it's not just today's piece of work on which our artists are going to be assessed.

Two weeks ago, the judges set them another challenge.

Taking into consideration their diverse styles, each was given a commission at one of three very different National Trust properties.

The aim was to see what they could do given a brief and more time.

- [Joan] Richard was sent to South Wales and the 400 year old tin mine and watermill of Aberdulais.

Kim traveled to North Antrim, to the white arc of sandy coastline of White Park Bay.

And Gregor went to North Yorkshire to scale the spectacular balancing stone formations of Brimham Rocks, where he met ranger, Steve Pilkington.

- Hi, Steve.

- Hi, nice to meet you.

- You, too.

- Welcome to Brimham Rocks.

- Thanks very much, looks amazing.

- You brought a fantastic day with you as well.

- [Gregor] It's a great view.

Could you tell me a little bit about the rocks themselves?

- Yeah, if you go back 320 million years, that's when it all started, and it's basically the sediment that was dropped in a river delta.

- [Gregor] And the balancing bits at the top, that's from ice?

- [Steve] Probably it was held in a glacier here in the ice, and then eventually, as the ice melted, it would leave some of the rocks just literally standing on top of other rocks.

- What would you be looking for in a painting to really come across and come through?

- Ooh, that's actually quite a difficult question.

I think the shapes are important.

And they're so solid.

If it looks permanent, which is what it is.

(gentle music) - At the tin works and watermill of Aberdulais, Richard met with manager, Lee Freeman.

- Richard, welcome to Aberdulais.

Aberdulais is quite a compact site.

It's got lots of natural resources around us.

So we've got the coal, we've got the timber, obviously we've got the quarry stone, and it was very much an experimental era.

- [Richard] What would you ideally like to see sort of represented?

- This thread that's made it pioneering has always been the power of water, so it's always been kind of man's relationship with nature, I think.

And that's something that as you walk around, you'll really capture that spirit.

- Yeah.

- So maybe that's what I'd hope to see in the painting.

- [Joan] To learn about her brief, Kim met Area Ranger, Dr. Cliff Henry, on the shores of White Park Bay.

- Is there anything especially that you're hoping is gonna be included in the final commission?

- I think to catch the feel of the place, it needs to have waves and sand and dunes.

- [Kim] And perhaps the weather, because there's a lot of weather happening today.

- [Cliff] Well, there's always weather, isn't there?

But that makes it interesting, I think.

- [Frank] Having learned their brief, our finalists were given two weeks to complete their pieces, a chance to show what they can do without the pressure of a tight deadline.

- The process that I know that I need to go through is to be in the space to experience it, to do a lot of drawing, and drawing involves a lot of careful observation and looking that you don't get from working from photographs.

That is a lovely atmospheric.

Ooh, I can see that in black and white, but I actually particularly want to do color.

So I might do several pieces and see which one seems to work best and submit that one.

(gentle music) - I'm looking for some unusual rock formations, something you can pick up against the skyline, I think, to break it up a little bit.

In the heats, I ended up painting kinda grays and stuff.

The reason for that was that greens can be very harsh and clearly manmade and not quite match up to nature, basically.

So I'm gonna have to try and play around with that and possibly find another way to do it.

- Quite mesmerizing, the patterns that you see, they're never repeated, and just how to transcribe those, how to get those down, almost sort of like hand-like projections from the water's edge, fascinating.

(gentle music) Just to capture the impressive scale of it, the constant movement, the layering, if I could convey any of what you get when you're here to see it in the flesh, I'd be happy.

- [Joan] Once back home, Richard, Kim, and Gregor set about making the best possible use of the longer timeframe.

- [Gregor] I'm excited about everyone seeing the commission.

I've put in a lot of work over the last couple of days and a lot of sleepless nights, lots of pain in my hands and stuff, so I'm excited for everyone to see it.

- [Richard] Hopefully the commission painting will show that the composition, because it's got a much more sort of considered composition, I hope that that will complement what I've delivered in the heat and the semi.

- [Kim] I particularly wanted to do color work for my commission because I was very conscious that I've only done ink and black and white work, and that's not all I do.

- [Frank] But their completed commissions won't be revealed until today's challenge has come to an end.

(gentle music) - [Joan] The dramatic change in today's weather means the artists face some serious decisions.

- The color choice is really important in your work because I think it can tip it between being one thing or another.

- And it is getting bright, so it's whether I stick with what I had in the morning, which I probably will.

Or go brighter.

I think I'll probably stick to mostly this morning, maybe, like, have something kinda a little bit lively in there.

- So when do you think you will make that color choice?

How close to the end?

- Right at the end.

- Should I put Nessie in there?

Is that the way to win over the judges?

No.

(whimsical music) - [Frank] The finalists seem relatively calm considering their circumstance, which is more than could be said for their friends and family.

- What do you think of what he's doing today?

- [Callum] It's very worrying because... - [Izzy] Very stressful at the moment.

- And there's still nothing on the paper because the actual paint comes at the very, very end of the process.

- You're very tense for him.

- I am, my heart is going.

And I'm like, "Oh my goodness, when's it gonna happen?"

(gentle music) - Peter, I think I've spoken to you so many times on this show now, people are calling you the new Joan Bakewell.

(both laugh) You'll miss this though, won't you?

- [Peter] I think there might be some problems of withdrawal, yes.

- But honestly now, from the bottom of your heart, you think Richard's in with a good shout?

- I do, I think so, yeah.

- [Joan] There are just 30 minutes left before the judges have to decide whether Gregor, Kim, or Richard will become Landscape Artist of the Year.

- What do you think?

- I think I don't know how I'm going to be able to make a decision between the three of them.

- Today we might have a situation where it's all gonna come down to the commissions.

I think that they'll all do well today, but I need to see those commissions in order to have any sense of who could go on and win this.

(upbeat music) - [Tai] It's completely changed now.

It's nice and warm and hot and sunny.

- [Kim] I know, I know.

- Is that changing anything in your paint?

- Oh, it's too late to change.

- [Tai] But it's pretty much there.

- We're not too bad.

I'll just be tweaking until they say, "Stop!"

- There's some very nice sort of shadows that have just, just appeared, and I'm wondering whether I should alter things majorly to incorporate those.

I think I will.

Hell with it, it's the final.

- I'm just finishing up the third layer, but that's as far as it's gonna go, I'm not gonna have time for the fourth.

And then I need to paint and I need to figure out colors.

That's my concerns just now.

(whimsical music) - [Joan] Overlooking the historic ruins of Urquhart Castle, our three finalists have only a few moments of their final challenge remaining.

(gentle music) - Up until about two minutes ago, I was gonna say, it's feeling really calm in here, unusually for you, 'cause I'm used to you being quite nervous, but now it's all changed.

- The sort of shadows that I'm seeing on the grass there are sort of what I've been waiting for all day.

- We'll leave you with the last few minutes to crack on.

- Thank you ever so much.

- [Kate] Your last few minutes, are you using them 'cause you feel like you should, or are they just things you've got to get done?

- There are a few things I need to get done, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, okay.

- Having spent the past four hours cutting out three delicate stencils, this is the critical moment of Gregor's operation.

I feel like I'm the guy who's looking out for the police while you're doing the graffiti.

I think you're all right for a minute.

Okay, so here comes the first stencil, yeah?

- [Gregor] Yep.

- God, I've got so much spray anxiety.

We're off.

I just so want it to work.

Oh, man.

(horn beeping) Sorry, I've got a text coming through.

I need to work out the volume on this phone.

- Artists, you have five minutes left to the end, the very end of the competition.

- Joan, we're trying to work up here.

- [Joan] You've got five minutes, get on with it.

- [Frank] Okay, it's a very complicated process.

- [Gregor] Can you pass me the knife, please?

- Scalpel.

- Cheers.

- [Frank] Get your skates on, Gregor.

- [Gregor] It's all right, we're nearly there.

- Artists, your final challenge is over.

Please put down your brushes and stand away from your work.

(people applauding) - [Frank] It was lovely sharing that with you.

- Thank you very much.

Thanks for coming.

- Thank you.

Let me know when you're doing your next one.

(Gregor laughs) (gentle music) - [Gregor] Well done, guys, well done.

- Well done, well done, yeah.

- [Joan] Obviously the judges' word is final, but that doesn't mean to say we can't all have an opinion.

- I like it.

It's interesting.

- [Woman] It doesn't look like spray paint.

- [Man] No.

He's done a lot of work with one medium.

- I think it's just neat.

- It's got a Scottish, rugged look about it.

Like the environment.

- Like the area, yeah.

- Looking at the castle and looking at the picture, it does make me think it is.

The way it just sweeps into the gatehouse at the edge of the picture there.

- I think I would hang that on my wall.

- I would hang it on the wall as well, yeah.

- [Frank] To help the judges come to their decision, they not only get to examine today's work, but they also see the finalist's commission pieces for the first time.

- That is extraordinary.

- Oh my.

- Oh my god.

- [Kate] It just shows, doesn't it, what you can do when you've got all of that time.

- [Kathleen] They're wonderful, aren't they?

- I think when the judges see my commission, particularly alongside today's work, it will be quite a contrast, and I think that's probably a good thing.

And it will show a bit of breadth and hopefully they will look on that favorably.

- Love this slice upwards, it's really dramatic.

Particularly like the way that she's handled the paint and the colors on the roof.

It's a really, really beautiful piece of painting.

- I like the way she's sort of dealt with the foreground with the large brambles, that you can almost feel their spikiness.

I find the upper section just almost slightly sloppy.

- We love her inventiveness and how she uses the transparent color, and there's some fantastic abstract bits in here.

And then we get further up, my particular bugbear, figures in the landscape to give a sense of scale.

But it then does make it very illustrative, you know?

Whereas this isn't, this is exciting.

- But again, I think we're seeing the same thing.

I love this half, like we like this bottom.

I like this half, I love this Japanese tree, the way that the mist is hanging in the sky, that's exactly what it was like this morning.

And then it falls away on that side for me, actually.

- [Tai] I think her scale is wonderful and I think it's quite courageous to work in that.

- I'm reasonably pleased with the painting.

Maybe certain misgivings about the composition, tweaking the colors slightly, but no regrets.

- This surprises me in a good way because I feel like he's moved his painting to a place where I actually understand it better, because this is a great piece of painting.

I like the paint, I like the way that he puts things together, and he's pushed it even further here, so it's basically abstract.

You know, I can imagine a great rocky terrain with a waterfall.

It's quite sculptural.

- Yeah, I'm really impressed with the composition.

I love the way he's gone and he's locked it down.

I mean, clearly he's someone who needs more time to really think things through, work them through.

- I wonder, however, is it representative enough?

Does it give enough of a sense of the place?

- I can feel that clammy narrowness of the gorge or whatever you're standing in, and the river rushing down, you can almost hear it.

So he gets a sense of place, doesn't he?

- Yeah, he really, really does, and I think he did that today.

And in a way, I wish he would spend more time thinking more carefully about composition before committing paint- - Exactly.

- To the canvas, which I think is what he's done here.

- I think he had enough time, so I find it a bit strange that he's done this.

It's a bit mild.

- I think he's a thinker.

I think he needs more time.

You know, this isn't about fastest landscape artist of the year, is it?

You know, so maybe we should bear that in mind.

- Yeah.

- Winning the competition would be lovely, I've not thought about it that much 'cause I've not had time to think about, I've been too busy, like, working on the commission painting and stuff.

Aye, winning the competition would be excellent.

- It's absurd combination, who puts chocolate brown with this really bright blue?

It looks like velvet.

- Velvet.

- It's got a very strange feel.

So as we go closer, just the abstraction.

I don't know what goes on in Gregor's mind, there's about four or five color, how he does that.

But it works.

- He's obviously had an amazing landscape to work with, these rocks stacked upon rocks.

You get a real sense of them projecting out, and at the same time, he allowed his background to be so unforgivingly flat and unrealistic.

- [Kathleen] It feels like it's in the wild west.

- I am bothered by its clarity, in a funny way.

I like the fact that here today, we don't quite know what we're looking at.

- If I was coming to that cold and someone said, "When was it painted?"

I'd say, "Oh, moonlight, nighttime."

So it's a completely different place, in a way, that he's painted.

- I like its mystery, I like the way that the actual texture, which I mean, that's quite an accomplishment, to create something that looks like sparkling water with spray paint.

- We've made it absolutely impossible for ourselves by having these three.

(gentle music) - But with such an assorted final lineup, there really is only one question.

These are our favorite children.

How do you choose between favorite children?

- Oh, Joan!

- Straight up, the commission is a huge influence, because the commission shows you what they can do on their own terms, in their own time.

But the other thing I find that's really important is going back to the original submission, and also going back to the works that they've made during the heat.

So it's a really full rounded composite sense of that person that you get.

Even though the individual pieces might have issues or problems of their own, the whole pushes someone up.

- Because in a sense, these have become portraits of our artists.

It gives us an understanding of them as people.

That's what makes it so thrilling, and also incredibly difficult to choose, as Joan says, which of our favorite children wins.

- Well, I'm also trying to think ahead and think, well, what can I forgive them for?

What mistakes do I think they're gonna learn from?

Ultimately, you're piecing together a picture of who they are and the decisions that they're making, and you've got to back the person that you think ultimately in the future, as an artist, outside of this competition, is gonna make best decisions.

- As a team, have you agreed on your final choice?

- We have.

- I think we have.

- And it was really loud and clear.

- Was it?

- I think it was really, really difficult.

(laughs) - And we have a unanimous decision?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

(gentle music) (duck quacking) - Kim, Richard, Gregor, thank you for being our three splendid finalists.

You are all our favorites.

It's been an enormously difficult choice to make, but throughout your time on this series, we've enjoyed watching you work so much.

Thank you for that.

- But the judges have reached their decision, and the winner of the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year is... (dramatic music) Richard Allen.

(crowd applauding) Congratulations.

- Congratulations.

That commission was fabulous.

Fabulous.

- It feels amazing, I feel elated, 'cause I was playing it through in my head and didn't wanna get ahead of myself and have my name in there, but yeah, no, it feels great.

(upbeat music) - He's just a fabulous painter.

We love watching him paint.

And the commission just blew my socks off.

- You can sense this long history that's behind him and you can feel that love of paint, you can feel that respect for great British landscape artists, and he's just trying, in his quiet way, to build on it.

- Well done.

Brilliant, amazing commission.

It's all about paint, and that's really exciting, and it's a really kind of luscious, evocative way of looking at landscape, and now I wanna see the next one.

- Richard deserved it, he's excellent at painting, so I'm happy for him, he's great.

It's just been good fun overall, something different, it's like something I've not had the chance to do before.

Probably wouldn't really get a chance to do again.

So, I've just enjoyed the experience kind of as a whole.

- Just getting this far is a great endorsement, really, of the work that you do as an artist, and today was a lovely day, it's a lovely thing to do, and I've had a great time doing it, so I'd recommend it to everybody.

- The Landscape Artist of the Year competition has really whetted my appetite for painting outdoors.

And I, you know, I hope to assemble a body of work in that vein, as well as dusting off some of my attic and garage pieces.

Maybe exhibiting them, maybe getting shot of them.

- Next time, Landscape Artist of the Year 2016, Richard Allen, travels to Petworth to undertake his 10,000 pounds commission.

- It's daunting, terrifying.

I just really wanna do a good job.

- We can't wait any longer.

- Right, you all set?

- Here it is.

(gentle music)