(gentle music) - Hello and welcome to Knaresborough Castle in Yorkshire, a favorite haunt of the early English kings, but today, a kind of artist's battleground.

- And to help them, our eight artists have brought along an arsenal of tools, everything from biros to brushes, from rags to rollers.

- [Frank] Rags to rollers, isn't that the title of your autobiography?

- [Joan] Thank you.

- Anyway, welcome to a brand new series of Sky Arts "Landscape Artist Of The Year".

Looks lovely.

- That really was funny.

- [Frank] We've traveled across Britain to find striking and challenging views for the artists to paint.

- It's a challenge, but I think I'm gonna do something interesting.

- That is quite radical.

- I know, I hope I don't get in trouble.

- [Joan] From hundreds of paintings submitted, just eight competitors have been selected for each heat.

And today we have seven professional artists.

Julie Graves, Phil Reynolds, Gerard Byrne, Lindsay Pritchard, Jonathan Cassidy, Cathy Reddy, and Fadi Mikhail.

- How I'm feeling.

Yeah, nervous, very nervous about this challenge.

But I thought, what the heck?

What have I got to lose?

I play the lottery for the same reason.

- [Joan] Joining them is one amateur artist, Rodney Kingston.

- I haven't thought about anything else since I found out that I'm gonna be on the show.

So it's gonna be great to finally get the paints out, squeeze 'em on the palette and get going.

- [Frank] As usual, the artists will work under the watchful eyes of our judges.

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

- Shall I hold something?

- Yes.

Let me hold that.

- [Joan] The ultimate prize is a £10,000 commission and the winner will travel to the Caribbean to paint the view from Firefly, the Jamaican home of playwright and actor Noel Coward.

- [Frank] As well as the chosen eight, we've invited 50 more artists to compete as wild cards.

Just one of them will go through to the next stage of the competition.

- [Kate] I'm quite amazed by your range of color.

- I know, it's very bright.

- [Joan] So which of today's artists will win a space in a pod at the semifinal?

- [Frank] Are you not happy?

- [Cathy] No.

- I don't like to be this near to an unhappy woman with a chisel.

(gentle melodic music) - Yeah I just need some yellows.

- [Frank] Before the challenge begins, the artists get set up for the day ahead.

- I've got lots of stuff.

I've got lots of acrylic, and I've also got brushes that I kind of make myself, which I cut up to give me irregular marks.

- This is just a local map of Knaresborough.

I like to incorporate maps in my work if I possibly can.

- Meanwhile, our judges get to examine the originals of the artists' submitted paintings for the first time.

Judges, behold the wall.

Another eight paintings in flesh and blood.

Or oil and canvas.

- What I really like about this one is the level of suggestion.

It's not too literal.

And it gives you as the viewer, a chance to sort of walk into it and construct bits of the landscape itself.

- [Joan] Now, it's difficult to find an unused view of Venice.

I think that's rather original.

- Yeah, and I like the way they put the paint down as well.

It's very reduced, but it hasn't gone anywhere near graphic.

It's got a nice liveliness on the surface.

- And you know I have problems with figures in landscapes, but here, the figures have been sort of reduced to these abstract shapes that tell you so much with so little.

- [Kate] I like the slice upwards.

I think it gives you quite a dynamic lift up.

I don't know how I feel about the map because I think sometimes it becomes a bit of something to lean on when actually they're very good artists.

So I don't know that they necessarily need to do the map.

- [Kathleen] It's a strange combination of almost David Hoockney meets Salvador Dali.

It's got a surreal quality to it, which is very, very clever.

- Now, you can almost count the number of brush strokes on this piece, it's so small.

But how delightful it is.

- [Kathleen] Oh, it's just gorgeous, isn't it?

It's this beautiful relationship between looseness and tightness that I think makes it work on that scale.

- It's a beautiful little image, yeah.

- It really is.

They've made life so difficult for themselves by deciding to incorporate every single shadow, by giving you a whole row of houses plus the trees.

And so you have to really admire the audacity to do something which is very difficult.

- [Kathleen] I really like it when we're challenged to think about what represents landscape painting.

Even though it's a close up, you create the rest of the scene around it, don't you?

- [Joan] Now, here we've got the lino cut.

- It's a very interesting interpretation of obviously a corner of a landscape which is taking different textures and piles of light and putting it together into an abstract piece.

I'm intrigued.

I really wanna see what she does today.

- [Frank] Knaresborough Castle was built over 900 years ago, but was ordered demolished by parliament in the 1646 English civil war.

In the early 1900s, the crown bowling green was added.

It'll be presenting a brand new challenge today.

- We've given them a very traditionally English landscape.

It's got a bowling green, we've got a falling ruin of a castle in the background, and luscious green trees.

But today, for the very first time, we've created almost a scene for them, with people playing boules.

And the question will be, will they actually engage with that?

Or will they sort of ignore it altogether?

- I was unsure about it because bowling isn't really me.

It's a challenge, but I think I'm gonna do something interesting.

- I'm quite pleased with my view, especially the bowling, just because it adds another dimension to what you're painting.

I'm raring to go.

- Artists, it's the moment you've been waiting for.

Your challenge is about to begin.

- You have four hours to complete your landscape and your time starts now.

(gentle music) From broad brush strokes to shaping outlines, all the artists have their own way of approaching the scene in front of them.

- [Gerard] First of all, I'll put down a charcoal sketch.

If I put a good sketch down, it usually works out that I have a good painting.

- [Frank] But for some it's not just the marks they make, but the order they make them in.

- The way I've been working is to kind of work from the background to the foreground.

So I started by putting in the sky.

It's the furthest thing from me.

Then I put in the castle and kind of work my way forward that way.

In terms of the size, it's a lot smaller than the other artists, but it seems to suit my work, working on that scale.

- [Frank] Amateur artist Rodney Kingston is a graphic designer for a charity magazine.

To maximize time with his wife and daughter, he often gets up at 5:00 AM to paint before he heads to work, as in his submission painting of a London street.

- The thing with the four hours, it is longer than I would normally spend on a painting.

So overworking is a real possibility.

We'll wait and see, we'll see at the end.

- I started off by looking at the castle and trying to get the basic composition in.

My main concern is not to overthink what I'm going to do.

Just lose myself in it.

- [Joan] Julie Graves realized a lifelong dream of becoming a professional artist after she moved to Portsmouth seven years ago.

It was here she got inspiration for her submission, a detailed oil painting of nearby Southsea Beach.

- We loved your submission.

This is very different.

Did you know you would be adjusting to the day because you had a limited amount of time?

- Yes, definitely.

It generally takes me like three months to do a painting.

That's why the work that I'm going to do here today is going to be completely different.

- Oh okay.

And you use very interesting tools.

This stick with a Q-tip on the end.

- It's to get that distance from the work.

So it's the accidental marks that I'm making that I can't quite control.

- So it's a kind of a dance between knowing what you're doing and then working with whatever accidents come along the way.

Artists are weird people, aren't they?

- [Joan] And Julie's not our only artist today who aims to make marks accidentally on purpose.

- There are some really beautiful marks appearing here with this blue wash. How much do you plan what you're doing?

Do you suddenly go, oh, that looks beautiful, that little accident, I must keep that in, or?

- Yeah.

Allow some things to happen that naturally occur and keep them in if they work within the painting.

- [Joan] Former bookmaker Phil Reynolds turned professional in 2007.

He considers himself an abstract artist, as seen in his submission of the East Yorkshire coastline.

- [Kate] To what extent do you play around with abstraction?

- Most of the studio work is abstract, but I just love being outdoors, doing painting, so I kind of hover between abstract and figurative.

So I'm gonna stick with that and work with the scene that I see in front of me.

- [Frank] But not working with the scene right in front of him is Fadi.

Fadi.

- Mister Skinner.

Should I say Frank?

- You can say anything.

Frank is good.

What you've done so far, it looks a bit like the pod that you're in.

- You're not wrong.

Effectively it's gonna be this view that I have here.

So my pod and the other artists down there.

- [Frank] Fadi, that is quite radical.

- I know, I hope don't get in trouble.

- I'm gonna call it Fadical, if I may.

- I love it.

Fadi Mikhail has two sides to his professional life as an artist.

He's in demand by churches around the world for his work as an iconographer, but also makes oil paintings, as in his submission of a Venetian side street.

So the bowlers, the castle, the trees.

- They'll make their way in, in the very bottom right hand corner there.

- Okay.

- The way I paint generally is very shape heavy.

And you know, looking to, what's been given to us, there's a lot of large space, which I just, I needed to find a way to introduce more shapes.

- Tell you what it looks like, you know when you've been doing a selfie and then you go to do a normal picture and you can see yourself on it and you think, oh, I'm still in selfie mode.

I think you're still in selfie mode.

- [Joan] As well as our eight artists painting this very English scene, we've invited 50 additional wild cards to Knaresborough.

- I've left my husband with our newborns.

- She had a baby two weeks ago.

- [Woman] I've come here for a break.

- I've got a portable atelier, which is an ironing board.

That's what I use.

- [Frank] They'll be painting the view of the valley and viaduct from the castle grounds.

- There's an awful lot of view there, so... - Yes, a lot of green.

I can pick out some of the non green stuff.

- [Joan] The judges will be watching their progress throughout the day.

And one will be selected to be in with a chance of making it to the semifinal.

- So I'm gonna start with a couple of sketches.

I'm thinking of then tearing them down, sticking them on the canvas.

Use that as a base to paint on top of.

- I'm quite amazed by your range of color.

- I know, it's very bright.

- You've done a complete orange wash. You're more or less sort of dabbing.

- Yeah, it's kind of like I'm using a pencil and a rubber in a way, just washing and adding and washing.

I put on a lot of paint, but I take off most of it.

- [Kate] Really effective.

- [Frank] One hour gone.

The artists have just three more to go until the end of the challenge.

- I work quite quickly and I don't wanna lose any of the looseness that I may kind of get when I'm working quickly.

So I have slowed up the way I paint it.

It's timed at the moment.

And hopefully we'll finish on time.

- I'm now just trying to make sense of the shapes, just starting to block some of them out so I can see, oh, oh, that's a roof, or that's a lawn of grass.

I'm feeling much better about it.

Now the composition's in, things are looking brighter.

- I just need to relax and just concentrate, but not overthink it.

- It's going all right.

There's bits of it that I'm really struggling with and other bits that seem to be falling into place.

I don't feel calm.

I may look calm, but I don't feel calm.

- [Joan] We're into our two of our four hour challenge at Knaresborough Castle to paint this quintessentially English view.

And for our lino cut artist, it's vital that no mistakes are made.

- With lino, once you cut away a section, it's gone, you can't paint over it or fill it back in.

One little nick the wrong way and the whole print might not work right.

- [Frank] Cathy Reddy grew up on a farm in County Carlow, Ireland.

She portrayed one of her family's fields in her lino cut submission, in which the judges enjoyed her focus on texture.

- I work directly from a black and white photograph, so wherever's black, mark it all in.

And then wherever is left unmarked I'll start carving.

Until the last, I'd say, half an hour, there will be no image until I print.

So only then will I see what the image looks like.

- This is an all encompassing picture.

You've taken all the people playing boules and the people watching them.

How did you come to decide that?

- The way I usually do it is I paint everything I see.

Like a snapshot.

- Well, there's no stopping you.

Professional artist Gerard Byrne is a former electrician who loves painting outside.

His submission includes two subjects he's passionate about.

Heritage architecture and horticulture.

Are the figures a problem?

Because they're all bowling.

- Yeah, that's the thing, they're moving constantly.

Some of the sketches I did, those people are over here now, they were over there.

So it's a challenge.

- Well, Tai, we've never had anything quite like this.

I always think of you as Mr. anti figures in the landscape, and today, there's bowlers all over the place.

- [Tai-Shan] It's busy, isn't it?

- [Frank] It is, yeah.

- I'm a bit allergic, I would say.

- This is sort of aversion therapy.

You have the tarantula in the palm of your hand.

- But we've started talking about landscapes as a place of work, or in this case, a place of leisure.

I mean, here we've got a place full of people interacting with the landscape.

Just looking at the action of these...

There's something really kind of interesting and dynamic about it.

So if the artists do engage with the figures, I really want them to see what they're doing and make them believable.

And actually, I've been watching the bowling, and it looks like fun.

I want to have a go.

- Now, Neil, we don't often have characters in our pictures, and you have supplied a cast of bowlers.

What did you make of this art that's going on all around you?

- [Neil] It's absolutely wonderful.

It really is.

There's some talent out there.

- So this is crown bowling.

- This is crown green bowling.

- Which means that the bowling green rises to a crown.

What's the uniform for playing boules?

- Down south, they wear white.

In the north, there isn't a uniform.

We play in shorts, we play in long trousers, we play in jackets, depending on the weather.

- [Joan] Do you think I should take it on?

- It's compulsive.

It really gets you.

It really does get you.

- [Joan] Thanks very much indeed.

- [Neil] You're more than welcome.

(gentle music) - Truly clever.

You just not think about doing that.

- It's very different working onto a map because watercolor paper, you put the paint on, it sits on the top of the paper and you can move it around.

With a map, the paint sinks straight in.

So it is more of a challenge, but I think it just adds to the picture.

- [Frank] Lindsay Pritchard hasn't looked back since turning pro after a career working in a bank.

Her signature style is to use local maps in her paintings, as in her submission of Shap Limestone Works in the Lake District.

- [Lindsay] Just get my textures on at the moment.

It's really important that the paint underneath the cling film is dry.

- Cling film?

- Yes.

- What's this about cling film?

I don't register.

- So I use cling film.

It creates texture.

You can use it in a variety of ways.

You can stretch it, crumple it, and it creates this nice marbling effect where the rough rock of the castle is.

- So it's almost like you've got the contours, which are mirroring the contours on the map in a way.

- Yes.

- [Kathleen] Fab.

- [Lindsay] Okay, thanks.

- [Frank] And Lindsay's not alone in choosing a less traditional approach.

- Because I'm still blocking in.

I'm just putting on the paint on my finger and a piece of cloth.

That way I don't get too much detail too early, but fairly soon I'm gonna start using brushes and we'll see what happens.

- Jonathan Cassidy is a professional artist from County Sligo in Ireland, and was a heat artist in "Landscape Artist Of The Year" 2016.

He decided to apply again and got through with his submission of apple blossom.

So I can't quite see which be are the... Oh, are those... - Those are the stumps.

- [Frank] Oh, so you're gonna include our wildcard artists?

- [Jonathan] Yeah, hopefully.

- [Frank] Is there any parts of you that thinks it's a bit of a risk?

- [Jonathan] Well, I don't think, when you're painting, you can anticipate what other people want.

You have to kind of say this is what I liked, do you like it too?

- See, when you're a comic, you're a complete slave to the audience.

- Yeah, that's different.

And I'm hoping not to get heckled too much.

- We never really get members of the public who come and start saying, "That's rubbish, don't give up your day job."

- [Joan] Meanwhile, nearby are the wildcard artists who are vying to be shortlisted for just one place in the semifinal.

- So, what's that weird plastic thing you're leaning against here?

Because you know, they're usually made of cork with leather and they're called miles sticks.

- It's an old cricket stump.

I used to play a cricket with my two boys when they were little.

- [Tai-Shan] Oh, right.

- [Man] So I've just improvised.

- [Kate] I see you put yourself right at the front here.

- [Woman] Yes.

- So you get quite a close up view of the viaduct.

- Yeah, I like the angles on it.

This is too much green.

- [Kate] Too much green, okay.

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

- [Man] No, I paint cars.

- Hold on, do you mean pictures of cars or cars?

- No, pictures on cars.

- Oh, on cars.

- And on bikes.

It's mainly bikes.

- If only we did car and motorbike artist of the year, it'd be a lot easier to clear the art away at the end.

Just drive it off.

- I really like the wild cards today.

I think that there's an...

They're all quite close together.

I always wonder if someone's really good next to you, if you up your game and you learn from them, because these people usually spend all day by themselves.

- Actually this morning, I was speaking to one guy who felt really uncomfortable.

He goes, "I don't like painting with all these people."

- You wouldn't like it.

You're a grumpy painter, you wanna be on your own.

- Yeah, but, grumpy with somebody just there is fine.

- Just coming up to halfway point.

I'm feeling okay with my progress so far.

I'm undecided whether flower bits are a problem or not, but hopefully it's fixable.

- It's getting there.

The lights keep on change on me, so it's a struggle.

- I'm about halfway.

It's not so much pain by numbers per se, but in a way it is, like, step one is done, step two is done.

There's now just step three and four.

Just take one step at a time.

- Got the large areas of the line of block down, so the sky is down, so the big wide areas are gone.

So a little bit of a panic now to get the detail down and get it right.

But hopefully I should get there.

- I'm just kind of thinking I need to get cracking on my trees to be honest, because yeah, they don't come naturally to me, they're gonna take me a while to do, and I'm looking at the time thinking I need to get going really.

- I've finally moved on to bushes.

It means detail.

Nothing's gone wrong so far, so I'm still enjoying it.

That might change in the next half an hour.

We'll see what happens.

- [Frank] We're at Knaresborough Castle in North Yorkshire and our eight artists are at the midway point of their four hour challenge to recreate this splendid scene.

- Feels quite panicked, really.

It's gone really quickly already.

- So, esteemed judges, we're at the halfway mark.

I'd love to know what you're thinking so far.

Were there any signs of bias?

That was actually a crown green bowling joke, but people at home will get it.

- Sure.

- So can I start by asking what you think of Rodney's work?

- Rodney started off brilliantly.

I am getting a bit nervous because there's a lightness of touch which is really important in his work and it's that risk of being lost because he started to put in quite a lot of fine detail, particularly this flower bed.

Somehow it feels a bit heavy.

Maybe he'll match in other areas of detail and it'll balance out.

But I was a bit nervous when I saw him start to do that.

- [Frank] So, Lindsay.

- [Kathleen] She's got her style, she loves her maps and she's stuck with that vertical format.

- I can't see the space adding up yet.

You know, when you approach the rectangle of a painting, you approach and step into the foreground and then your eye travels through it.

And with her, it's still feeling very flat still.

So I'm hoping that will sort of reveal itself as the day progresses.

- [Frank] Fadi.

- Sometimes when an artist is really obsessed by shape and form, you worry that they lose storytelling.

But actually I think he's brilliant at creating this visual language, which is distinctly his.

- I'm just waiting for him to add the figures in because we loved his abstract figures in his submission.

I think it's gonna be a great painting.

- [Frank] Okay, Julie.

- Julie's painting today feels quite different from the style of her submission.

Her submission was quite detailed and filled in and what she's doing is very loose and a bit rougher.

- And it feels quite sweet at the minute, but actually it's also really quite beautiful at the same time.

- [Frank] Meanwhile, Cathy is hacking into a piece of lino.

- I mean, what we liked about the submission is that sort of shift into abstraction where it's all textural, and this looks quite literal at the moment.

- Yeah, it's difficult because we're so used to watching the paintings or collages or drawings, whatever the mediums are, unfold before our eyes and with this kind of process, we have to wait for a long time.

- I'm gonna focus on how I'm gonna indicate that movement of the wind.

That's hopefully the last step in carving.

- [Joan] As the artists move into the latter stages of their work, it's crunch time for anyone still deciding whether to include or ignore the bowlers.

- The bowlers haven't distracted me at all actually.

I've hardly noticed that they're there cause they're not gonna be in my picture.

I'm kind of looking over their heads.

- The figures probably will move about at this stage.

So I'll put one in, cover it up and put it back in again in a different position.

So it's got the essence of people wandering around.

- I plan to add some figures.

They're probably gonna be the last thing I do.

A little bit because they are kind of the closest thing to me, but also because I probably fear putting them in the most, cause I don't want it to stuff up my painting.

- Another artist is also including a figure, but it's not a bowler.

Now, Fadi, I don't think any competitor ever before has ever painted the other competitors.

- That worries me.

But I did ask her permission.

I told her she'd be recognizable to an extent.

- [Joan] But also, she couldn't have worn a better color.

- She couldn't have, could she?

- That blue is absolutely right.

- [Fadi] It does work.

- [Joan] Now, what made you do it?

- I couldn't help with looking all these geometric forms and not including them somehow.

- [Joan] And that was the major decision.

- [Fadi] It was, yeah.

A scary decision.

- [Frank] It might be a first for "Landscape Artist Of The Year", but the human figure has always captivated artists.

For hundreds of years, people were at the heart of all the great paintings in Western art.

Whether real or fictional, they enabled artists to tell a story.

And the landscape provided little more than a bit of set dressing for the central figures.

- Figurative paintings were held in a higher esteem than landscape paintings or still lives, cause they could relate directly to the viewer.

The landscape was there to heighten emotion, to give context, but it wasn't the focal point.

And this meant that artists would often get their assistants to paint it.

- [Frank] It wasn't until the 17th century that artists across Europe started to make the landscape a feature in its own right.

- Whilst there was an explosion of landscape painting in Northern Europe, it hadn't quite made it to Britain yet.

Gainsborough refers to the fact that he had to face paint.

He had to focus on painting portraits because they were the main source of income.

You could see his love of landscape painting.

He often puts the sitters to one side, focusing on the entire vista of the landscape.

He really inspired other artists to look at the landscape in a new way.

- [Frank] Gainsborough paved the way for a new wave of landscape painters in 18th and 19th century Britain.

- Romantic artists such as Turner and Constable were looking inwards to the British landscape, not just for a detailed observational view, but also they were actually creating an emotional response.

- [Frank] Turner and Constable put the landscape center stage in their paintings, and in doing so established a new and distinctively British genre of art.

- [Joan] The wildcard artists have been painting away for a chance to win a place at the semifinal.

What are the judges thinking about their work?

- Do you know what I find really strange about the wildcards is that they started the morning really, really well.

And then by the afternoon I really only had about two or three as possibles.

- [Tai-Shan] It's the view, isn't it?

There's so much stuff in it.

And as soon as they get bogged down by the stuff, it starts going wrong.

- Two women though, both down at the front, put themselves right up close to the viaduct, cutting a lot of noise out.

And I think that was a really good decision.

And I think they've both made nice work.

- The one on the right, she really found the light on the river with very few marks.

The one on the left's sort of a nice, honest painting.

I like a good bit of honesty.

It was a nice view and kind of understated.

There was a young boy who's sort of art suited guy, he was one to watch.

I dunno whether he's got any better.

- [Kathleen] No, he was slightly too tricksy with all the cutouts.

It didn't really feel honest enough, you know?

- So, are we headed more down the honest reductive path?

- I think, and down the staircase as well.

- Down the staircase.

Let's head down the staircase.

- Hello.

You are our wildcard winner.

- Oh, thank you so much.

- Congratulations.

- Oh thank you.

(applause) - [Kate] Excellent work.

We thought it was great.

Really, really beautiful.

Very good all day.

Thank you.

- It's been a wonderful day and I'm very glad to win.

- [Frank] Isabel Frias de la Uz from Cambridgeshire joins one wildcard from each heat and the judges will choose just one of those six to go through to the semifinal.

- [Joan] For lino cut artist Cathy, things have reached a crucial point.

- [Cathy] I'll have to start rolling ink on the lino block and lay it out and print the paper on top and pull a few test prints.

- [Frank] We're nearly there, aren't we?

- We're nearly there.

Well, this is just a first print.

- [Frank] So the first print will be a bit of a rougher... - [Cathy] Yeah, patchy.

This is just to see how far more I need to ink it.

- Here we go.

God, I wish I'd got four trumpeters.

- [Cathy] So that's fairly heavily inked.

- It's got a lovely atmosphere to it.

It looks like an illustration from a book about a mystical cottage.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

- [Cathy] A bad thing.

- [Frank] Are you not happy?

- [Cathy] No.

- Uh-oh.

- No.

Right.

- Well, it was lovely talking to you.

I don't like to be this near to an unhappy woman with a chisel.

(gentle music) - Final half hour, I'm actually putting the figures in at the moment.

The last main element of the painting.

There's been a bit of a danger of kind of overworking, but I hope I've kept the spontaneity that I like to put into my brush strokes.

- I've gotta put the shading on now, to sort of bring the stonework to life.

I'm hoping to get it finished within the half an hour.

Yeah, just keep lugging away at it.

- Could make a mess of it.

I'm gonna keep on painting till I'm told to stop.

- I haven't got a huge amount to do, just a few details here and there that just maybe need to be cleaned up just so it's a little less abstract, a little more recognizable in places.

- There's always flurries and butterflies in my stomach and whether it's any good or not.

I think you need to leave it alone and go back to it if I'm not sure.

I need to go away from it cause I can't see it anymore.

- [Frank] We're at Yorkshire's Knaresborough Castle and our artists are nearing the end of their challenge.

- Just racing against the clock now to get in enough detail to create a focal point.

- [Joan] One painter is using a tried and tested method to work his way out of a dilemma.

- When in doubt, always ask your wife.

She will tell you honestly what's going wrong.

- [Wife] I really like the structure on the left and I think add a bit more detail to the rest of it.

Yeah.

- I'm going back.

(gentle music) - You look like you're almost finished.

- I think I am.

It is literally just small marks now.

- And there is that thing that knowing when you're finished is part of the whole skill, isn't it?

- Yeah, definitely.

It'll be quite nice in a way to be told stop.

And then that's decision made.

- Well, we will be doing that eventually.

- Magic and clean and beautiful.

And shall I hold something?

- Yes.

Let me hold that.

- Thank you.

- [Tai-Shan] This is so thin, this paper.

I can see why people use it.

It must pick up everything.

So are you gonna do another one?

- [Cathy] Yeah, I think I might try.

- I'm not hanging around this time.

It's too stressful.

I'll send another judge round to help you.

- Yeah, but it's- - [Kathleen] I'm here.

Did you call?

- Yes.

Cathy's gonna use even finer paper than that for her next print.

- We've only got about five or 10 minutes left.

- Yeah, that'll be fine.

Loads of time.

- Artists, you have five minutes to go.

- Nearly there.

Few more bits to do.

So I'm okay with that, five minutes.

- I can see everyone furiously painting away, trying to finish their last bits.

But generally I think it's it's 98% there, as I want it to be.

- [Kathleen] So the last big push, Phil?

- Yeah, it's panic stations, if you don't mind me saying.

- Yeah, I'm right up against it now just to finish this last print.

- Been looking and looking, trying to see if there's any more little touches I can put in, but I'm done.

Time to spare.

- [Gerard] I am trying to tighten up something that I should've probably left 15 minutes ago.

- [Lindasy] That'll have to do.

It goes so quick.

- Oh.

- The wind just has a mind of its own.

- Artists, your time is up.

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

(audience applause) Let's us have a round of applause for our sensationally beautiful bowlers.

(cheers and applause) - Flippin' heck, that last hour was stressful.

- Crikey, you're able to work fast, aren't you?

- Yeah.

How'd you get on?

- Well, I didn't get it finished.

- Tired?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Yeah, we're shattered.

- Excellent.

- [Joan] Before the judges deliberate, the great British public have an opportunity to give their opinion on the finished landscapes.

- I love the way she's used the local map, so you've got the Knaresborough in the background and then you've got the Knaresborough Castle on the top.

- So this is actually finished.

- I don't know.

- Not enough detail for me.

- No, I need more detail.

However it's better than I could do.

- Yeah, you're not that good.

- I think, of all of them, this one's really captured the light.

It seems lighter and brighter than all the others.

- I think that one's absolutely stunning.

What do you think?

- I think it's great.

Could see that in their house.

Wonder what it costs.

- [Joan] Our eight artists can do no more.

It's time to find out what the judges think.

- [Kate] I feel like it's the exact kind of painting I'm not supposed to like.

It's so traditional and yet it is absolutely fresh.

- But also, you know, for such a small painting, if we were to walk along this path along here, he has got the distance absolutely right.

And the paint is really yummy.

- Her work seems so different to the submission.

It is incredibly competent, I have to say.

And I think the suggestion of the forms, the people, are actually rather good.

And I quite like the color palette, these sort of acid colors.

- [Tai-Shan] Submission was so abstract and this has got a completely different feel to it.

- He probably could have removed a little bit of information.

It's an interesting little picture.

I mean, I love the sky.

I think that's a really lovely way of handling sky.

I like the crosshatching at the back.

- I feel that she's not been adventurous here.

She's limited herself to what, three or four different styles of mark.

So you sort of feel like you look at it and you get it very quickly.

It doesn't sort of hold you.

- I really didn't think she was gonna get it together.

There was this flatness sort of halfway through and she's pulled it off beautifully.

I must say, you know, when we were talking about using maps as a bit of a device, that doesn't enter my mind.

It just works very well.

- [Kathleen] She knew what she was doing.

She knows her own style.

- I think unfortunately the trees are not as good as the castle.

And I think she felt conscious of that.

I really like the parts where it's very undone and very abstract and flat, because they are great little formal experiments.

- And it's incredible that they can reduce it to these very rough shapes and angles and really give us a sense of the place and somebody painting and people bowling.

I mean, just finding the essence of what was going on.

I think the view he edited down to and chose proved impossible to do.

- [Kathleen] It was too big.

You need to just sort of focus down, I think, even more, some of that detail and light that we had in the submission.

- [Kate] You know, you have to take your hat off to him for what he's done in a day.

And I think it's got this place's spirit.

- Absolutely.

He's got a confidence in his work, but there's almost too much detail.

I wish he'd stopped earlier in the day.

- [Frank] Only one artist can be selected for the semi-final, so to help themselves make the decision, the judges whittle down to a shortlist of three.

- [Kathleen] These two are both doing similar things, aren't they, in a way?

- But then this one is quite interesting, is that, you know, when we talked about figures and space.

- It feels to me like this one is pushing the boundaries slightly more.

- Artists, thank you for joining us today at Knaresborough Castle.

It has been a pleasure watching you work.

- Now it's the moment where we reveal the three artists that will go through to the shortlist.

And the first of those artists is Fadi Mikhail.

(applause) - The second artist is Julie Graves.

(applause) - And the third artist to make the shortlist is Rodney Kingston.

(applause) - Massive commiserations to you who didn't make it.

I mean, honestly, everyone did a great job.

Thank you.

(applause) - I'm exhausted.

My arms are killing me.

I've never cared lino block so quickly in my life.

So delighted that's over.

But the three shortlisted pieces, I can see whether they were chosen.

They are spectacular.

- Taking into account both the submission and today's painting, the judges must now make a difficult decision.

Well, what a pleasure to discuss such lovely pictures.

So let's start with Julie.

- I like the fact that she's an artist who's making discoveries and experimenting.

She plays around with different mediums.

I'm just impressed by the variety of what she can do.

- [Tai-Shan] I thought they were completely different.

As I'm looking, I realize there's these strands of the trees and the strand of the bush here.

Then there's a kind of a beautiful light and air going through both of the images.

- And she takes some quite brave risks as well, I think.

You can see it in her color palette and the figures that are so suggestive.

You know, I think it's really rather brave.

- [Frank] What about Fadi?

- To be that courageous, to turn his view to pods with the painter in it, some wildcard painters and bowlers, and make it absolutely believable in very reduced language.

It's phenomenal.

- [Kate] Yeah, I mean, I love the fact that he wants to know about shape and form and I really salute him for finding this style, which is his own.

- And when I look at the submission against the work that he created today, there are some real parallels, and that line that takes you through the middle of the canvas.

He's really good at creating that sense of far distance in a canvas.

- Rodney's submission is just such a little jewel and you really are transported to that place with very little there.

And he did something similar today.

Although he were actually worried about this painting, once the flower bed went in, he allowed it to develop in an even way.

It's really nice to look at.

- I thought he was taking a risk when he came to the people.

- Well, there's that wonderful bend of the knee and that beautiful shadow that sits underneath.

- [Frank] It's basically sports photography he's got down the front there with that.

- And there are the three boules players, but there's the guy sitting, watching them on the bench and there's a kind of poignancy to it.

It's lovely.

And I'm so pleased.

You know, we were talking about the figures being a problem.

They just haven't been a problem really to the ones who pulled it off.

- Very satisfying.

- Rodney, Fadi, Julie.

I know you turned up expecting castles and trees.

We gave you moving figures.

It's incredible that the three of you have come up with three such brilliant representations of that day.

However, only one artist can go through to the semi-final and the judges have made their decision.

- And the artist that the judges have chosen is... Fadi Mikhail.

(applause) - Congratulations.

- What just happened?

I don't know.

I don't know what just happened.

That was amazing.

I don't easily well up.

I felt pretty welled up.

- Well done, well done.

Congratulations.

- I got away with it.

Let's hope I can get away with it again.

- Fadi was a clear winner.

He grasped the really complex task we've given him today with both hands and found incredibly inventive ways for dealing with it.

I'm really excited to see what he does next.

(gentle music) (melodic music)