- Hello, we are on the South Gare in Teesside, where, beneath the roar of the wind, the crash of the waves, and the cry of the seagulls, you can, if you listen carefully, hear eight tiny artists' hearts beating feverishly.

- And no wonder, because today we're asking them to tackle an industrial landscape on an epic scale.

- You know, we could have called this episode Top Gare.

(Joan chuckles) Welcome to Sky Art's Landscape Artist of the Year.

- [Joan] In this series, we challenge 48 artists to paint some of Britain's most striking scenery.

Today, eight of those artists are tasked with transforming this reclaimed industrial landscape into eight inspiring works of art.

- [Frank] Three of our artists are professional.

David Nelson, Brien Vahey, and Julian Bovis.

- I normally take two months to do a piece of a art, and now I've got four hours.

So I've just been practicing different techniques to see what I can do quickly.

- [Joan] And we have five amateur artists: Magdalena Kusowska, Jonathan Hargreaves, Gina Hillaby, Vanessa Reynolds, and Alan Lascelles.

- Yeah, I've got butterflies, I'm a bit nervous.

You never know what's gonna happen when you put pen to paper.

Things could go badly wrong or they could go really well.

- [Frank] And on hand to scrutinize their efforts, are our three judges: Art historian Kate Bryan, independent curator Kathleen Soriano, and award-winning artist Tai-Shan Schierenberg.

- If I were teaching you, I'd be very angry about that palette.

It is one of the messiest palettes I think I've ever (chuckle) seen.

- [Joan] They're all competing for a once in a lifetime prize, a trip to the Caribbean and a 10,000 pound commission to paint the view from Firefly, the Jamaican home of Noël Coward.

- [Frank] And our eight selected artists aren't the only ones hoping to secure the prize.

50 other artists, our wildcards, are here to try their luck at winning a place in the semi-finals.

- The boats have a lot of, I don't know what they are, radar sticks.

(laugh) - I think they're called masts.

And it's time for our eight artists to compose themselves ready for the ultimate creative challenge.

- Oh no!

- It looks like a landscape as seen by someone who's just gotten into a lift, before you start concentrating on the fact that you're going to men's wear.

(bright music) On Teesside today, our artists' pods offer views of fisherman's huts in the foreground, with the last remnants of the great iron and steel industry creating a dramatic silhouette in the background.

- [Joan] As our artists settle in, the judges have a chance to study the submissions they entered with.

Okay, judges.

This is a really exciting moment for you to see them.

Now look, this is a little gem.

- Yeah, I think it's really imaginative the way that they've used these collaged elements to create a scene which feels slightly recognizable, but it still holds back from us.

- Yet it's a dystopian view, but full of texture, full of life.

And I think they're gonna be really comfortable today.

- Now this is interesting, because this is about light, isn't it?

What catches your eye are all the points at which the light is caught.

- It has also got a sense of decay, and there is a sense of sadness at something falling apart.

And there we've got industry, and the same thing has happened there, so I think they'll do very well today.

- My first question here is why is it in two parts.

- The artistic license, ultimately, I think.

But it's rather wonderful being in two parts.

I quite like that diptych element to it.

- [Kate] I think that the way they put the paint on is great, 'cause they haven't blended it too much.

So even when you get to the mountain, you get to see these great lilac slabs.

- And you have exactly that color on the hills here as well.

- Now, we said today was an epic challenge.

This is an epic submission, isn't it?

- [Kate] Yeah, I don't think we've ever had anything quite like this, in terms of the scale, the detail, but also the subject matter.

We're clearly looking at a bombed out city, probably somewhere in the Middle East.

- [Kathleen] Yeah, I really like the negative space in the middle.

- Me too.

- Because it almost echoes the shape of the minaret, the tower on the right hand side.

I love the colors, I love the palette, I love the little cars.

You need a good bit of car painting on the side of the key.

- The working port- - Touch of smoke coming from the stacks here.

- Cranes.

It's just all here.

So yeah, I think they're gonna have a very good day.

It feels like a northern artist gone to Rome to paint the ruins there.

I mean, I think it's very beautiful.

It is very old fashioned in its palette, the way the paint is put on, the brown ground coming through.

It's beautiful.

- So this is the second of our collages.

It feels actually like they are pretty good at what they do, and they know how to create all these sort of dissecting planes, and some sort of mismatched information.

So I hope that today, we do this same sort of confidence, and this wasn't just a sort of lucky break.

- [Joan] Now, this is on board.

And again, we've got ink.

- [Tai-Shan] What I like about it is that contrast of the glass and steel buildings and the steel bridge, with the very organic surface it's drawn onto.

I think that it works well.

- [Kate] I don't know that I'm completely in love with the blue bridge, 'cause it feels a bit like a gimmick.

- [Kathleen] The reflection of the water under the bridge, just done with ink.

That's quite something.

- [Frank] Normally, this stretch of land is off limits to the public.

However, today, PD Ports, the owners, have given our artists access so they can capture this unique view.

- The wonderful thing that this landscape offers is a sense of narrative, a sense of story.

Because you've got the present day, you know, you've got the fishermen at work, but you've also got the history with the blast furnaces and the industry behind us, which is also a nod to the future.

So you've got the whole of time in a very sort of British way represented here.

So there must be something for every one of the artists that are painting today, that they can really get their teeth into, that's beyond just the visual.

- I think the vista is brilliant.

I was very nervous it was going to be flowers and trees, which would've been nightmare.

But it's ugly buildings, and big metal things, and rundown huts.

It's perfect.

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

- You have four hours to complete your artwork, and the time starts now.

Most of our artists have a clear idea of their composition and how to achieve it from the off.

- My approach is to go big.

Big shapes, get the composition right, and then just refine the detail in from there.

- There's not enough time to do everything.

I'm trying to figure out what's catching my eye.

- I will try to find the right composition I'm feeling kind of excited about.

I will do some sketches, try to figure out the values, show the depth as well.

- I start by applying a lot of collage to the board, but I only work very loosely representational as well.

What I'm trying to do is get a feel for the place.

- I'm a little concerned about the huts, 'cause they're very regular and one color.

But the steelworks is something I've never seen before.

And, like, rust is my thing.

I love rust.

- [Frank] Brien Vahey works as a professional artist and runs workshops from his home in County Wicklow.

His submission and painting of his local countryside is typical of his panoramic approach.

Your submitted piece was a diptych.

Why was that?

- Well, it simply allows you to get what you're looking at in.

And if you were to paint that much on a normal canvas, you'd have to get this gigantic sky or gigantic foreground to deal with it.

- [Frank] I love rusty and broken metal things.

- This is like a piece of art now.

No sculptor, apart from Anthony Gorny, would make a piece like this.

You know, it's just phenomenal.

- Do you think it's because we're older men, we just empathize with something that's rusty and a lot of the parts aren't working anymore?

(chuckle) (peaceful music) - I'm worried about the wind, 'cause it's a really windy place.

Got things like cardboard, newspaper, and brown paper bags, some wrapping paper.

This is some coffee that I'll stain paper with and then cut out the shapes that I want.

- [Joan] Amateur artist Gina Hillaby is studying fine art at Hull University.

However, at home, she indulges her passion for collage.

Her submission is of Spurn Point Bunker, in which she's used paper and stains to create textures that convey a sense of the dreary weather conditions on that day.

- Do you think it's important that people who are making collages also understand how paint and a clinical sculpture works?

Or do you think that they're completely different, unrelated things?

- I think you just kind of mess.

You can just mess with the materials.

You don't really have to know the way to do it.

- [Kathleen] So have you tried sculpture as well then?

- Yeah, I do sculpture and printmaking, are my main thing at uni.

- 'Cause you like the stuff.

That's what you like.

But I can see you're responding to the colors beautifully.

And you'll be falling off the edges of your board.

- Yeah, I can't commit to the edge.

(chuckle) - You can't commit to the edge?

If you were working on a page as big as this pod, would you still be trying to get outside?

- [Gina] Yeah, yeah.

- Does that mean you're essentially unruly and chaotic, and you wanna break free of all the barriers?

- So rebellious.

- You are.

- [Frank] On the other side of the gare, around a small harbor are 50 wildcard artists willing to brave the elements for a chance of a place in the semi-finals.

(clink) - Oh, oh.

(laugh) - I'm the technical person, yes.

I've just been banging as many tin pegs as I can to stop this whole thing collapsing in a heap.

- [Joan] A wildcard winner is picked from each heat.

And once the heats are over, the judges will select one of them to join those going through to the next stage.

- It's just lovely to be out here with everyone.

It's just the idea of being here, and being with everyone else, and taking part.

- [Frank] For one of our heat artists, it's definitely a case of the devil's in the detail.

- I draw it firstly with my lucky joiners pencil.

So I draw big and bold, and then gradually refine and refine, and eventually with pen and ink on top of that, rub the pencil out, and then you've got a pen and ink drawing underneath it.

- [Frank] Amateur artist Alan Lascelles is a health and safety manager who has recently rekindled his love of art after 30 years.

He's developed a taste for painting on wood, and his submission of the gates at Sage and Tyne Bridge is a combination of ink, acrylic, and watercolor on pallet boards.

- Hi Alan.

- Hello.

- Thanks for not ripping up the floorboard of our pod to make your work.

- Well, there is a loose one.

- (laugh) You've got your eye on it.

- Yeah.

- Wow, you've done a lot already.

- Yeah, fast.

- Fast, yeah.

- [Alan] I work fast at the start, and then I slow down later on.

- You did such a sensitive thing in your submission, where you had everything very monochromatic, then you decided the bridge had to be blue.

So will we get green huts?

- I don't know yet.

- You don't know.

- I think throughout the day, I'll see which color feels best.

It might be rusty brown, it might be green.

- [Kate] How do you get this lovely effect?

- When I start to do a bit of maybe ink wash, the ink wash, it'll bleed into some wood, but it won't bleed into another piece, 'cause all the pieces of wood are different.

So you get different effects.

- Absolutely.

Well, I think you've chosen a very good format.

I really like the composition.

I'm interested to see where you take it.

Good, lovely start.

- Thank you.

(gentle music) - Right, Jonathan.

- Hi.

- You and I have something in common.

Do you know what it is?

- It's regional, isn't it?

- We come from Stockport.

- Yeah.

- So, an industrial landscape like that isn't it a great shock to you.

- No, I grew up sort of looking at things like this, I think.

- Amateur artist Jonathan Hargreaves trained as an illustrator.

He's drawn to manmade forms, as we saw in his submission of a building site in Castlefield, Manchester.

He takes great care over his palette to allow the colors to work in harmony.

This is your own palette, which is full of yellows and ochre greens.

- Well it is, but it's all about kinda tonal contrast.

I'll work in the darker, richer colors, and then start to make it more mute as it goes.

- [Joan] It is abstract.

I can see that it's abstract, but it also looks like what I'm looking at over there.

So what are you going to do about the sky?

- I just bang it in.

- You bang it in?

- Yeah.

- You mean you (chuckle) put blue paint there.

- More or less.

(chuckle) It's all that's simply that, you just gotta put the right color next to the other right color, I think.

Hopefully it'll work.

But it's at a transitional phase.

- Okay, you're happy where you are at the moment?

- Uh, yeah.

(laugh) - Yeah.

- [Frank] A place in the semifinal is guaranteed for one of today's eight heat artists, and they are nearly an hour into the competition.

- Got a bit of a difficulty where the paint is drying so quickly.

I have to keep on making paint all the time.

- Its really about getting those right notes of hues and tones.

We've got these powerful greens.

Getting there.

- The steelworks, which I loved, and now I'm sort of like, oh my Jesus.

That is just.

(laugh) So look, I just have to work my way through it.

And then hopefully have enough time to fill all the other bits in.

- [Frank] Here at South Gare in Teesside, our eight heat artists have had an hour to settle into the challenge.

But for one artist, it hasn't all been straightforward.

- It's very tricky.

All the shapes are very tricky.

So, I'm still working out where they all go.

But some of them are wrong, so I'm moving those, though these colors are a little bit crude at the moment.

Hopefully I shall hone them to perfection.

- [Joan] Amateur artist Vanessa Reynolds is a teacher from West Sussex.

Her submission in oil is a departure from her usual medium of acrylic.

It features the Kenyan village of Nakuru, which she visited.

She wanted to focus on conveying the aridness, dust, and lifelessness of its High Street.

- Your huts, I must say, are some of the best huts I've seen.

You haven't just done a row and then invented the rest.

Each hut is accountable for, isn't it?

- It is, yeah.

- Blimey, okay.

- It's like a census.

(both chuckle) The way the maize are different, the green, they're all different.

- No, but what I like is they're gray roofs.

You've introduced a bit of purple, and it makes it sing.

It's very, very beautiful, especially as it recedes.

Now, if I were teaching you in my art school, I'd be very angry about that palette.

It is one of the messiest palettes I think I've ever (chuckle) seen.

- [Frank] And while some artists have a very casual and relaxed approach to their work, for others, the process is far more formulaic.

- I'm terrified of wobbling the whole structure.

What happens if you go wrong?

- If I go wrong, it's a complete disaster and you can't fix it.

- Not at all?

There's nothing, there's no sort of masking tape or-?

- Nope, that big blob of sun cream there hasn't done me a lot of favors.

- [Frank] Professional artist Julian Bovis has a background in newspapers as an art director.

For his submission, he worked from a photograph and recreated a bombed out street in Aleppo, Syria, in pen and ink.

The sheer size of the piece and his painstaking attention to detail meant the work took two months to complete.

- It's so mathematical and analytical.

I mean, you really constrain yourself.

You just don't like the freedom, do you?

- When I'm working at speed like this, I have to be methodical about it.

Because if I wasn't, I wouldn't get it finished.

- So that is so mathematical.

And you trained as an architect, so you're able to indulge it even further.

- I thought it was more free than that.

I didn't realize I was so constrained.

- Free?

You've just talked to me about timing, sections (Julian laughs) lines, pencils followed by ink.

It all seems to me- - And also, If you look at this, every single thing is a multiple of eight.

- Oh my God, now you're scaring me.

I'm really scared.

- So all these things are eights and four.

So that's a four, that's an eight, that's a four, that's a two.

Because if I do it that way, then I know that there's also rhythm behind it as well.

'Cause otherwise there's a randomness to.

- But did you come to this landscape knowing that you were going to work in eights, fours, and twos?

Or did you look at the landscape and then work it out?

- I was gonna do it in sevens actually, but when I realized that I'd cut the paper to the slightly wrong size I needed to, I did it into eights instead.

- Okay, well fantastic.

I won't pat you on the back to wish you luck.

(both laugh) - Thank you very much.

- Tai, can I ask you a technical question?

The huts, as a challenge in four hours, they have a great deal of detail, and lots of identities.

Now, you can't possibly represent it accurately, can you?

What don't you include that still feels like that little encampment?

- The one thing that is interesting is that they're all the same green.

So in a sense, if you put that as a base down and then you start picking out little details, you would get the sense of the cluster, sense of the community.

But the fine detail, it gives it the slightly different rhythms.

But you're fixating with this.

I'm thinking that's where it's at.

But you are thinking this is where it's happening, really.

- I think this is the hardest thing to do.

- All right, okay.

- I think one could reduce that to a silhouetted backdrop, which would be a shame.

If I was painting this, I'd walk past the huts.

(Tai-Shan laughs) I'd get as close as I could to the factory, and I'd wanna see all the rust, and the smoke, and the individual elements of it.

But I don't want anyone to disrespect the fishermen's huts.

You're suggesting basically a green blob with a few lines on it.

- Well that's putting it simplistic, but that's a good start, yes.

(both chuckle) (bright music) - [Joan] With generous lashings of paint making their way onto the canvas, some artists are having to adapt to the environment.

- I'd never worked outside up until two months ago.

So that was a bit of a novelty.

- [Frank] Professional artist David Nelson lives with his family in St. Albans.

His submission, entitled "Paddling," shows Polperro Harbor in Cornwall on a hot summer's afternoon.

And he's hoping to capture a similar sense of place and time today, through his use of acrylic and collage.

- So you've set up quite a big space here, put down a lot of paper.

But the paper is relatively abstract, or am I just not reading it correctly?

- [David] No, it's completely abstract.

It's actually random.

- What about your composition?

I can see that's coming in with black marker pen.

Did you find it easy to decide what you were gonna go for?

- So, these are my compositional sketches.

I went for this sort of curved shape quite early on.

I wanted to get the contrast and this sense that the industry is sort of surrounding this beautiful little community of huts.

I thought it was absolutely lovely.

- Can you see the finished picture in your mind, or are you waiting for it to form?

Is it organic?

- I can see most of the picture now with this one, yeah.

- Okay.

- Yeah, yeah, I can.

(both laugh) - You just gotta make it now.

- I've just gotta make it now.

- [Joan] For some artists, painting landscapes is second nature.

But for one, it's a bit of a novelty.

- Well, I discovered my passion for painting last year.

The painting I submitted was, you know, really one of the first ones that were kind of successful.

Yeah, I'm pleased it got accepted.

Yeah, we'll see how it goes now, because I still don't feel very much like a pro.

So.

(laugh) - Amateur artist Magdalena Kusowska is an illustrator in the film industry.

For her submission, she chose oil and a classical style for her depiction of Welsh landmark to Tretower Castle.

I'm very intrigued why you chose this size and this dimension, because this is a landscape going like that.

And this is a painting going like that.

- I think I liked it to challenge it, in the sense that you can show the depth, despite the format.

- You certainly can.

'Cause you're starting with these dunes.

- That's right, I wanted to make this zig-zag kind of shape.

- I got it.

I see what you're doing.

- I just need to make it work.

(laugh) - [Joan] Okay, I won't detain you anymore.

- [Frank] Competing against seven other artists is one thing, but trying to catch the judge's eye when you're one of 50 wildcards requires a bit of extra creativity.

- Your color palette's incredible.

But are you going straight from the tube?

- Well, I did it straight from the tube.

I've got various sponges, and obviously hands, and occasionally face.

So that's why I put my hand behind my back, so I don't do this.

- Oh, I see.

Oh.

(laugh) - [Joan] And for one of our wildcards, it's not their first visit to Landscape Artist of the Year.

- [Roy] I was in one of the pods last year.

And because this is on me doorstep, I thought I would enter again, but really coming just to be out in the sunshine, and to paint.

- We've got some really brave, large canvases.

Everyone's sort of working on a quite grand scale.

They're really taken with the landscape and the variety that it offers.

I think we've got a really excellent bunch today.

- [Frank] You know what, Ramona?

I like it.

- Thank you.

- [Frank] Have you come far today?

- Yes, I've came from Bromley, in Kent.

- [Frank] Forgive me, I can't quite identify your accent.

- I'm traditionally from Romania.

I'm from Transylvania.

- Oh, you're from Transylvania.

- [Ramona] Very close to Dracula's castle.

- Yeah, in Whitby every year, goths, you know goths.

- Yes.

- They all gather and celebrate the arrival of Dracula.

- He was a good king, and you guys transformed into a blood-sucking vampire.

- Yes, well, that's PR for you.

(Ramona laughs) He just got the wrong people.

- [Joan] There are just two hours of the challenge remaining.

- Yeah, more than halfway through.

Got four of me nine to-do list ticked off.

- My only dilemma at the moment is where to bring the color in.

I was gonna paint the sheds green, but I like the sheds the way that I've drawn them there, and I don't wanna do any more to them.

- Halfway.

I'm feeling slightly panicked.

There's just so much to do.

Well, you can see.

- [Joan] Our artists are halfway through their challenge to create a landscape of South Gare in North Yorkshire.

- The colors are so pale today.

They really are.

- [Frank] And whether they're attempting to capture its natural beauty or reveal its darker industrial heritage, it's the judges who'll need to be convinced of their approach.

Esteemed judges, welcome.

So we're at the halfway stage, roughly.

Let's talk about who's doing what so far.

So Jonathan, first of all.

- [Tai-Shan] I think he's got, has he got the biggest canvas here?

So he's really gone for the big composition.

- He's interested in finding his way organically through it.

He says he doesn't really know what the painting's gonna look like, 'cause he's gotta wait to see what the paint does.

So he's an artist who's very much led by the material aspects of the paint and the way it plays around.

- [Frank] Okay, Vanessa.

- [Kathleen] She's done really well in capturing the light and a sense of movement through.

She's found a pathway, which I think is pretty impressive.

- My worry is time.

And I'd rather actually she left a lot of it unfinished and just gave us that kind of lovely light bursting through in one area.

And she could just do the huts, and I'd be happy, but I want to see that light.

- [Frank] Julian.

- [Tai-Shan] I was quite surprised to see him being quite methodical and reducing everything to a pattern.

- It's not even a pattern, it's maths.

So it's based on the number eight and four and two.

So actually- - Are you telling me that this is painting by number?

- It's drawing lines by numbers.

But now he's got all free forms.

So he's putting all those sort of almost indigenous curly shading into the section.

- [Tai-Shan] You know what it reminds me of.

It reminds me of tattoos.

You know, it's got that dense kind of patterning into it.

- [Frank] Okay, Gina.

- Gina's made an awful lot of mess.

And you get up close, and it's just a tiny little work that's as much about what she's not putting in as what's there, you know.

It's definitely sort of trial and error and working out.

I don't really get a sense that she has in her mind what she wants it to look like, which is kind of exciting.

- She's so quiet and so focused.

I mean, I'm just watching her here.

She's looking up, looking up at the landscape all the time.

And everything is absolutely perfectly observed.

She's so meticulous.

- [Frank] What about Brien?

- [Tai-Shan] His palette is just beautiful colors.

It's just the colors sing, and it's just reinterpreted in such a beautiful way.

It's a yummy, yummy painting.

- He's not a fast painter.

But there's enough there to really give us the same kind of confidence that we have in the submission, the way that he puts down the paint.

- [Joan] For over a hundred years, this stretch of coast has attracted local iron and steel workers keen to enjoy a spot of fishing in their spare time.

The closure of the Redcar Blast Furnace two years ago marked the end of Teesside's great iron and steel making industry.

But that hasn't deterred many retired workers from coming back to the area to keep up their fishing habit.

Some are lucky enough to own one of the 101 green fishermen's huts.

- We fish on the beach, and we also fish on the gare end, which is where the lighthouse is.

And we fish for mackle off the jetty.

And you'll get the odd cod.

- [Joan] After the second world war, fishermen were granted permission to build the huts, on condition they adhered to a number of guidelines.

One was that the huts had to be painted a particular shade of green.

And the other referred to members of the opposite sex.

- Paragraph six, no female shall be permitted to use any hut or to be on the site after sunset.

When the wife comes down, she'll pick faults of the cabin.

Look at the dust and all this.

(chuckle) So then I scatter her.

(laugh) - The huts were traditionally used to store fishing equipment and repair nets.

But today, they're also a social hub for the community.

- I love coming down here, because of the people down there.

It's always been who I've known for a lotta years.

We've all got boats, and we all love fishing.

Started coming down there with my father when I was a nine-year-old.

It gets in your blood, to get on beat, go fishing, catch a few fish.

- I brought me sons down here and taught 'em how to fish.

So, we definitely gonna pass the hut down when I go.

(laugh) - [Frank] Completely exposed to the elements, today's wildcard artists have been in luck where the weather's concerned.

- It's really interesting how different everybody sees things, all the different mediums that people are using.

(bright music) - I've got three people I like a lot.

- Okay, tell us, tell us, tell us.

- One of them, we've had on the show before.

- Oh, I love that.

- He's done a lot of the beautiful colorful boats.

- It's chalky.

- Chalky.

- It's great.

he's found really good color equivalents for everything.

It sits together really well, it's not boring, and it's fun.

- It is fun.

I don't think he's fun.

- No, he's very serious.

- Well, we're not asking you to go on a night out with him.

I'm just asking who's the best picture.

- The guy who's not been very social, has tucked himself around behind the wall, where there are bits of the orange wash coming through.

He hasn't painted for two whole years.

I know it's not completely brilliant.

- [Tai-Shan] It was better.

- But the woman who's at the top of the stairs.

Another one who I think is just tipped slightly.

So for me, it's between the chalky boats man and our man from Belfast who hasn't painted for two years.

- For me, it's chalky boat man and this woman.

- Chalky boat man.

And had to push the woman here who just mess it up in the five minutes.

- Oh my God, so you two agree on those two?

But we're saying that chalky boat man gets three.

- [Tai-Shan] Yeah, chalky boat man.

- Happy?

- Excellent.

- Oh, happens so quickly sometimes.

- [Frank] The decision may be swift, but breaking the news is not always so easy.

- (laugh) I found the painting, but I'm looking for the artist now.

(laugh) There you are.

(applause) Congratulations, we love it.

- [Joan] Roy Carless from Hartlepool will take his place in a pool of winning wildcard artists.

And when the heats are over, one will be selected to take part in the semifinal.

- [Frank] There are just 30 minutes to go, and our eight artists need to decide which aspects of their artwork to focus on.

- There's areas that I would like to spend a few more hours on.

I'm half an hour away; I've got two hours work to do.

I'm not happy with it, a single part of it, but I'm okay with the whole it.

- What else have you got to do on this?

It looks perilously close to being finished- - Yes.

- To me.

- Maybe adjust a few things tonally.

- I'll probably sharpen it up, get the drawing back in, because there's a lot of sharp, clean edges.

If I can establish those, it's gonna have a little bit more clout about it, which, in combination with the painterlyness, should work.

Although I'm getting flies (chuckle) in it now.

These poor little souls.

Fly away.

- Here on this reclaimed industrial shoreline of Teesside, our eight artists are nearing the end of their four hour challenge.

Artists, there are five minutes to go.

- Oh no!

- [Frank] And all of them are working furiously to finish.

- That's not so bad.

- Well, I'm gonna be finished?

Whether it's my finished or not is another thing.

- [Magdalena] I feel adrenaline, you know, because there is that deadline.

But that's good.

That always makes things work out somehow.

- Every once in a while, I get a little bit anxious, and I remind myself to breathe, and calm myself down.

(slightly tense music) - Artists, you have just one minute left.

One minute.

- Ah!

(slightly tense music) - Artists, your time is up.

- Put down your utensils and stand back from your work.

(applause) - Congratulations.

- [Joan] Our three judges will be drawing on all their expertise to pick today's winner.

But you don't need to be an artist or an artist historian to have an opinion.

- Do you like that?

I love it.

- Do you?

- I love the interpretation of the scene.

I love the layers, the geometric design.

- Do you think that looks finished?

- Yes.

They've even got somebody's car in the corner.

- They're boring.

The huts are boring, and she's managed to get a real bit of impact out.

- Yes, yeah, definitely.

- Just sort of loses foreground a bit, I think.

- Nice colors though, isn't it?

- When really you compare it to the others, it's such a different style.

- Everyone's got different style.

This one's really very bold.

It's very bold brush stokes, and really, yeah, really wonderful.

- [Frank] With the artists' work complete for the day, it's time for the judges to decide on the winner.

And they start by a process of elimination to narrow them down.

- Do you know what I really love about Gina?

It's all very small and controlled and contained, but there's a really sort of rebellious part of her that's just trying to break out.

- She's captured the distance we've got here, and she's done it in a very crisp and clear way.

I think it's a little gem.

- From chaos must come order.

(chuckle) The huts are all in order like soldiers.

I love the different patterns.

I think he's very inventive.

Do you know, I just particularly love the sky.

- I can see he's found something to stand in for the landscape.

It doesn't give me this landscape.

- It's not quite as sophisticated and resolved as I'd like it to be.

It feels like I'm looking at an unfinished work.

- I just think he has such a gift for putting a color palette together that's interesting and different.

And it's like his unique signature, isn't it?

She hasn't really resolved a lot of the passages of paint.

This feels too scratchy at the bottom for me.

So I don't think she paced herself very well.

- She's picked up on the lovely colors that you find in the hills with the shadows.

And I think that's beautifully done.

I really like the way this was developing during the day.

But then when he introduced the lawn tennis court here of the green, I just thought it was a bit over ripe.

- I was really worried 'til he had it popping up through the huts.

- Oh, but doesn't that irritate you?

- No.

- No, I think it looks great.

- Oh, it just so irritates me.

- It brought the foreground into the back.

- It's just so tricksy.

I like the way he tries to create the foreground by having the grasses here.

- There's a bit of three dimensionality here, but otherwise, it's very flat and doesn't seem to hang together.

I don't feel there's any space.

- I don't often like people who put down paint in this sort of messy- - Dibby-dabby.

- Dibby-dabby, slight way.

But I tell you what, I like the way she does it.

- I like that way it's gone through.

I like the slice, I like the colors, I like the blues in the background.

- [Kate] She's a pretty-fier.

- I love the ambition of it.

He was whacking the paint on in a very nice, vigorous way.

It's a very vital bit of painting.

- I think this strip of the horizon line is fabulous.

Really, really great.

- [Joan] But there's only room for three on the short list.

- So we're happy with that.

- Yeah.

- That one, we all agreed.

- I think that should go in for a nice bit of contrast.

- And I think we should also think about the submissions as well.

- Think of that submission.

We felt very safe there.

But that one's also quite good, a safe pair of hands.

- Okay, I'll fight you for these two.

Otherwise we've got that one, that one for sure.

And then we need to wrestle between the two.

- All right.

- Artists, thank you so much for joining us at the South Gare today.

And it's been really fascinating, exciting, and uplifting watching you work.

- However, only three of you can go forward to the short list.

And the first artist that the judges have chosen is Gina Hillaby.

(applause) - And the second artist on that short list is Alan Lascelles.

(applause) - And the third artist to make the short list is Jonathan Hargreaves.

(applause) - And I know they always say this, but it was a really high standard today.

There was some fascinating art, a lot of it done by you five.

So, thank you so much for coming.

It's been brilliant.

Well done.

(applause) - Two months ago, I hadn't worked outside.

So, that's been really rewarding.

Putting myself under pressure with a time scale I think does force my work to be more expressive and intuitive, and I like that about it as well.

- [Frank] Before finally deciding who will win the place in the semi-final, the judges are keen to look at the work the shortlisted artists have completed today alongside their submissions.

- Well, judges, a lot of the work today has been excellent.

So people will be divided as they sit at home, wondering how you came to make this particular selection.

- We've watched them work throughout the day, and things just tickle the synapses more than others.

You know, they get me excited.

How can you recreate what we're seeing today in an interesting way?

And these three have done that.

- There was a level of sophistication in Alan's work.

I love the way in which he deals with the shadows, and the way in which he's dealt with the foreground and the background.

- Also I think he pushes and pulls the graphic quality by adding all the organic background, and playing around with paint, creating these beautiful accidents.

- [Frank] What about Gina?

- There's a tentativeness, there's a nervousness.

She's trying to break free of the borders.

- In the delicacy of that horizon and the jumble of buildings, I mean, there's great power and clarity.

- [Frank] So, Jonathan.

- I think that what Jonathan did today was very, very beautiful without being boring.

I love the way all the colors bleed through.

You have this sort of bright, burnt rusty orange that keeps poking out.

- But the foreground is right there in your face.

And I think one of the things he really struggled with today was not being closer to the huts.

There are some issues, but the beautiful treatment of the hills and the background behind, setting those rusty buildings sort of against that backdrop is beautifully done.

- Well, you did have a difficult job choosing today.

- Yeah, we did.

- Today was a real harvest of talent, and I think that was a real pleasure for everyone.

- It was a great day.

Let's celebrate that.

Gina, Alan, Jonathan, well done on making it through to the top three.

But as you know, only one of you can go through to the semifinal, and the judges have made their decision.

- The judges have decided.

Jonathan Hargreaves.

(applause) - Told ya.

(loud kiss) Well done, darling.

- I'm very emotional.

Just holding it together, just about.

(laugh) - Great work.

- Well done!

Congratulations.

- This is a much needed confidence boost.

There's no two ways about it.

I'm gonna let it try and sink in.

(applause) - We love Jonathan's painting because it told a really convincing story about this landscape, but it did it distinctly in his own way.

He's got a great use of color.

We think his composition is really interesting.

And if you take the painting and put it next to his submission, there's just a confidence in the kind of painter that he is.

But also we're excited by him.

We wanna see what he does next.

It's not formulaic.

He plays around, he experiments.

He allows chance to creep in.

So it's a brilliant thing to watch, and you get great results.

(bright music) (chiming tones)