(gentle music) - Hello, we're on the green, green grass of the Gower Peninsula in south Wales with a breathtaking view of a Rhossili Bay.

- It's not only been declared the best British beach, but it's also been proclaimed the supermodel of British beaches, and it's this scene that our eight artists have to capture today.

- The supermodel?

It is quite thin and a bit miserable.

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

- [Joan] In this series, we're challenging 48 talented artists to paint some Britain's striking scenery and to capture the landscape in their own unique creative style.

- [Frank] In today's heat are seven professional artists: Leslie Gaduzo, Chris Stevens, Kumar Saraff, Lisa Henderson, Theo Crutchley-Mack, Fatima Pantoja and Alice Boggis-Rolfe.

- I never really imagined I'd get in.

So I didn't really think it through very far.

- And just one amateur artist, Chris Shaw Hughes.

- I am competitive and I do want to win, but my natural proclivity is to be a pessimist because a pessimist is never disappointed.

(gentle music) - [Joan] 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.

- Can I prompt?

- Yeah, go ahead.

- It looks very yummy.

Oh no, that's good.

- [Frank] The artists are competing for a fabulous prize, a £10,000 commission to paint the view from Firefly in Jamaica, once the home of Noel Coward.

- I want to create a masterpiece.

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

50 more artists, our wild cards, are here to try their luck at winning a place in the semifinal.

You're one of the few people here who's actually older than me.

I thought I was one of the oldest people in the world.

- You're a youngster.

- [Frank] So sit back, relax and let the contest find "Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year" begin.

People over there think I'm smoking.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - [Joan] Today, we've challenged our eight artists to capture this sweeping vista of Rhossili Bay from their vantage point atop the weather-beaten cliffs of the Gower Peninsular in south Wales.

- One of the things we wanted to do with this series was really stretch people's understanding of what a traditional landscape may be.

In Britain, we have one of the most fantastic coastlines, so we need to be celebrating that.

We want the artists to rise to the challenge of what we're presenting them with today.

And if that means depicting a huge, blank, open vastness of sea, I wanna see what they're gonna do with it.

- All of the artists in the competition are selected on the strength of a landscape painting they submit online.

So, before the judges meet today's artists, they get their first close up look at the paintings.

Esteemed judges, it's wall time.

For all we know, the winner of the whole competition could be waiting here for us to view.

Let's find out.

(gentle music) - We were taken with this because the artist's put this very immediate and direct narrative into the painting, which is the figure bending down.

- But with the light bouncing of his head, you get the idea of where the sun's coming from, what kind of day it is.

It's a key to reading the landscape.

- I think this is one of those paintings that you can spend an awful lot of time with.

It's quite hard to read, but I like that fact.

It's very clever in the way they've sort of fragmented and sliced it up.

- I was excited to see this 'cause it's a great optical illusion to make you realize that you're looking through a window onto other windows.

- We're doing a landscape show and we think of rolling hills and clouds and stuff.

And actually the ubiquity of the coffee shop, this is our modern landscape.

That is an impressive amount of work, an impressive idea.

I mean a political landscape.

It's obviously working from photographs.

That amount of detail is photographic.

- I love that relationship between the detail of the fragmented buildings and these sort of almost digital figures, which are moving around it.

- It's interesting how landscape you can either make it with tone or color in this case, texture.

The color palette is very reduced.

So it lives off the feeling of the surface of the paint.

- I like the fact that they've reduced everything down to these cool blue tones with their peach.

- [Tai] The paint has sort of been scraped on, the board has been used as a resistance against which to scrub the paint on and the whole thing then lives off the way the perspective is drawn in.

- There's something really traditional about this.

Something really, really comforting that people are still able to give you such an enormous amount of information, such a big vista by delicately working this paint on the surface and then not overworking it.

- It's quite impressive.

I mean, when you crank up the colors to 11, to still find tonal values.

So, as we look through the trees, so that light blue bit, you really do get a sense of space and light.

It's very beautifully done.

- You start to think about fairy tales.

And so there's a lot of narrative in the scene as well.

(gentle music) - [Joan] While our artists set up for the day ahead, they consider the view they've been given.

- My initial reaction was, oh my God, there's nothing there to paint.

But actually, the longer I've been looking at it, the more keen I am to start painting instantly.

Yeah, I think I'm actually really excited.

- All the colors are very similar.

There's a lot of gray, maybe a very small hint of blue.

Having said that it's beautiful and it's quite atmospheric as well.

- The water is very flat and the light reflecting on the water is very gray.

It's quite a difficult view I must say, very, very tricky.

(gentle music) - [Joan] Originally from Spain, color loving artist, Fatima Pantoja now lives in Hampshire, where, as well as regularly painting out of doors, she also runs art classes and co-manages a gallery.

Her submission was painted from life in the Hampshire woodland using acrylics, oils and pastels.

- I'm preparing the colors of the palette.

So I normally put yellow, two reds and two blue and that should be it.

I'm going to show you the color I use to sketch.

Waagh!

Pinky pinky.

(gentle music) - Artists, I hope this view has got your creative juices flowing because your challenge is about to begin.

- Brushes at the ready.

You have four hours to complete your painting and your time start now.

- [Frank] Picking their composition is our eight artists' first task.

But presented with this dauntingly large seascape, some of them go in search of inspiration.

- I wanna bring something into the foreground to bring stuff, a weight, and also to emphasize the space in the painting.

And this stone wall is perfect for that.

(gentle music) - Chris Stevens is a professional artist who divides his year between studios in London and the south of France.

His submission is an oil painting, showing a view towards the Pyrenees, but feeling it lacked a focal point, Chris later added in the stooping figure of a friend.

Chris.

It wasn't what I expected because, at the moment, what's that, a dry stone wall?

- It is indeed.

- Is it that one over there?

- Yes.

- Okay.

I was looking for a rear view mirror on the easel.

You keep a neat table, if you don't mind me saying.

- I know, my studio's always a disappointment to people.

- Is your inner life extremely ordered and sorted?

Yeah, oh God, so anal.

So anal.

- It looks like you've slightly tidied up the dry stone wall.

- I have a bit, yeah.

(laughing) (gentle music) - I've taken lots of photographs of different bits of the foliage, the gorse, the thistles, which I can then fill my foreground with, rather than having this flat green grass, which is okay if you're painting, 'cause you just do it as a great big swathe, but doesn't quite work with me.

(gentle music) - Today's only amateur artist, Chris Shaw Hughes, studied fine art at Brighton University after a career in advertising.

His work involves painstakingly tracing photos through carbon paper, a technique he used in his submission, a collaged image of Syrian and Palestinian devastation, which took Chris over 200 hours to create.

- I've taken photographs of the area, cut them out, stuck them down and that will now form the basis of my drawing.

This is actually a double thick Biro.

Normally use a thin Biro, but I had to save time.

So that will transfer onto the page like that.

I don't think anyone else does what I'm doing so I'm elevating the Biro.

(gentle music) - [Frank] Our eight competitors aren't the only artists on the Gower Peninsula today.

50 wildcard artists have arrived further down the headland, challenged to depict the Worms Head promontory in all their individual and diverse styles.

- [Joan] And, if any of them impress the judges, they could find themselves in the running for just one spot in the semi-final.

- I'm delighted to be here.

Sky is the limit.

- You're one of the few people here who's actually older than me.

I thought I was one of the oldest people in the world.

- You are a youngster.

- This is very beautiful, the way the paint is put on very thinly.

- It's oil on the back of glass.

So you gotta spend a bit of time making sure I get the composition right, do a few sketches and then get into it.

- [Joan] You're very active, aren't you?

- You've heard about my wingwalk, haven't you?

- [Joan] You are doing wingwalk?

- [Female] I did the wingwalk last year.

- What's that feel like?

- It was great, but freezing cold up there.

- Drawing without looking- - Yeah, if you can bypass your brain, then you get a better result.

- Yeah, that is always the problem, isn't it?

- I'm abseiling next Sunday down the Smithfield Tower.

- You're abseiling?

- Abseiling.

- Are you practiced in abseiling?

- No.

(gentle music) - Back in the main competition, and vying for a definite spot in the semifinal, our eight artists are underway with their challenge to paint Rhossili Bay.

- [Kathleen] Wow, Alice you've really stormed ahead there.

- I'm just hoping the sky doesn't go completely blue and then lose all those lovely dramatic clouds that we've got at the moment.

So I'm having to work very quickly.

- [Kathleen] So do you feel that you've got to stick with what you see?

- I don't know.

I just don't want a clear blue sky.

Sometimes the painting reads as one light on one side and the stormier clouds on the other 'cause that's how you've ended up painting.

So progression of time.

(gentle music) - Alice Boggis- Rolfe has been painting professionally since graduating from Heatherley's Art School in 2012.

Alice is based in London, but loves to travel with her easel and paints.

Her submission shows a Cuban tobacco plantation painted from life on a recent round the world trip.

- Your submission was so full of detail.

This is quite an empty landscape by contrast, how are you gonna give us detail?

- I was really panicking about that at the beginning.

Really, really panicking.

But actually the more I've been looking at it all morning, the more has come out at me.

But actually I think I'm gonna work on the drama of the sky and then just a little bit of detail and light coming through.

- And what about the sea?

Because obviously, you know, it's constantly moving.

So how do you get that sense of movement and color change?

- I don't know yet, I'm a bit worried about that.

(laughing) (gentle music) - [Frank] The sea and the changeable weather are giving our artists plenty to contend with.

And they're already a quarter of the way into their four hour challenge.

- I made a mess.

These colors are very bright all over the place.

So I need to think about what element I want to drive the eye to.

- I'm a little behind but we will persevere.

I'll just have to draw quicker.

- Panic!

The sun's coming out, the blue sky's gonna sweep in and actually I really liked all the stormy clouds before, so we'll see how we go.

- It's all right.

I think I'm in control.

I think.

Yes.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - [Joan] Here in south Wales, our eight artists are one hour into their four hour challenge to capture the Gower Peninsula's wild, natural beauty.

- I used to be an architect so I'm used to painting streets and roads and buildings.

This is the other side of the spectrum.

There aren't any straight lines anywhere, it's all green and the sea is fluid, it moves, and it's a challenge.

(gentle music) - Gibraltarian Leslie Gaduzo took early retirement from his architecture career to dedicate himself to art.

His submission, showing Gibraltar's American War Memorial, was specially commissioned for a series of postage stamps and was painted in thin glazes of acrylic paint.

- Oh, got a nice big sponge happening.

Is that how you always put on your background?

- Yeah, I like to have a nice, smooth middle tone or consistent middle tone.

I brought brushes with me, but I hardly ever use brushes when it's something like organic as this, you know, I'll try and stay away from that, but I will use something which is straight on... - Like this scraping.

- Gives you a line.

- Yeah.

So in your submission we saw this great symphony of blues.

Again, we got a lot of blues here today.

Is that your signature to use blue or is it because both places lent themselves well to it?

- I love the blues, yeah.

Do you wanna call it a signature color?

I'm fine with that.

- Okay.

(gentle music) - [Joan] For one of our eight artists, the key to success is all in the preparation.

- I make pieces of paper specifically for the situation that's needed.

And I have a small selection that have been building up in my studio.

These pieces of paper become like friends to me.

They really, really do.

Here are some of the smaller pieces left from previous pictures and I just adore these.

(gentle music) - [Joan] Professional artist Lisa Henderson works in mixed media, collaging paper she has pretreated with wax, paint or even tissue.

Lisa is based in Staffordshire and her submission shows a view of Black Brook, an area of wild moorland in the Peak District.

Let's have a look at the work in progress.

Is this glued down?

- That's glued.

What I did was to make a complete right size template, if you like of all that.

- This is a clear attempt to replicate that landscape.

- It is.

- But with paper.

So we've got the outline of the cliffs.

- [Lucy] Yes.

- [Joan] That wonderful row of hills.

- Yes.

- Now are we working from top to bottom?

I mean, is that finished?

- Yeah.

- And then you're coming down here.

- It's not finished by any means.

I shall rest when I've covered the board, but then I'm going back into the detail.

Hopefully it'll come together.

(gentle music) - One thing I've never quite worked out is there are landscapes like this one where everything instinctively tells you it's beautiful.

And when you see an accurate painting of it, it can be quite a dull painting.

What is it where the beauty of the real thing becomes quite predictable and dull when it's on the canvas?

- That's such a complicated question.

Thanks Frank!

So hang on.

What you are saying is, sometimes there's a beautiful landscape, it has been painted, but the spirit of the place hasn't been translatable in a sense.

- Yes.

- Well, that's quite often the case.

I mean, that's what artists are struggling with all the time.

That's what makes them keep on painting is the idea that they try to, especially figurative artists or painting from life, they try to capture something of it and that dissatisfaction at not being able to capture it, because nature and reality is just so much more powerful, that what drives you on to try to do it make better next time.

That's what we want our artists to do here.

And what we really want to say to them is, look, you've got all these elements, what we want is to get the essence and the beauty of the place, find it by editing it, using different elements, try to find what is making this place specific and reinvent it.

So we get that feeling that you're saying, rather than it just being a bland reproduction.

(gentle music) - [Joan] Whatever their technique, our artists are hard at work in their attempts to capture the essence of Rhossili Bay.

And selecting those specific elements is precisely what one of them's doing.

- I'm just finding my way around this view really.

I've sort of got some key things there's a little house, there's the beach, headland in front.

So it's really a case of making sure they're all in the right place, altering things if they're not quite right.

(gentle music) - [Frank] Professional artist Kumar Saraff lives in Powys, in Wales.

Where, as well as painting, he also works as a part-time firefighter.

His submission shows a view through a cafe window overlaid with the reflections of the street outside.

In 2016's "Landscape Artist of the Year", Kumar reached the final three of his heat, impressing the judges with his painting of the lake at Stowe.

- So you went for the vertical slice.

Can you talk us through why this wide bay wasn't working for you in the composition sense?

- Oh, well, at the time... Now there's more out there, but, at the time, it was literally the water, the sky, and then a thin gray, which was very interesting.

But the real interesting stuff is the path here.

That's what originally caught my eye.

And that ends up conveniently just to the side of that house.

And I love that little surprises that occur in nature.

(gentle music) - I'm inspired by texture and patinas on surfaces.

The further back you go, the less texture there is and the flatter things get.

So I'm a little bit worried about the massive distance in between me and what I'm painting.

I'd say about 40% of the paintings I make end up being chucked.

So it's a bit of a risk.

(gentle music) - Theo Crutchley-Mack completed a degree in drawing from Falmouth Art College in 2015, and now paints full time in his studio in Cardigan, Wales.

His submission is made of mixed media, incorporating thick, handmade paper and acrylic paint and shows a view of the Elan Valley in mid Wales, painted from memory after a camping trip with friends.

- I want to bring this layer of grass that's in the foreground into my painting.

Cause it's very separate from what's next to it, the background.

So to do that, I'm just tearing up some really thick, handmade watercolor paper and leaving quite a lot of the strands, which won't be exactly the same as this foreground 'cause I'll change it slightly to fit kind of the rhythm of the painting.

Normally I'd use a different kind of glue other than a glue gun but that takes about three hours to dry.

So glue gun's definitely the way forward today.

(gentle music) - [Frank] On the other side of the cliff top, overlooking the Worms Head, our 50 wildcard artists are well underway with their landscape paintings.

- You're prepared, you've got all your colors listed.

So your know which- - Have to remember what makes what.

- [Kathleen] Does that actually save you a lot of time?

- [Male] Yes.

You can play with the colors and play with the textures.

- [Frank] I like it.

What do you think, you happy?

- No, I was gonna tear it up.

- Don't tear it up!

That would be morally wrong.

- [Kathleen] Do you normally do landscapes?

- No, I'm really a horse painter.

- A horse painter.

- [Joan] I've come upon a tragedy.

- You have.

- [Joan] Tell me, what's happened?

- So I paint on glass, just about got the composition right, then I went to pick it up and it just cracked.

- I always like coming to see the wild cards, but when you see them on this cliff edge with this extraordinary sea view, it's something really sort of magnificent about them today.

I just hope no one gets blown off the cliff.

(laughing) - I shouldn't laugh.

(gentle music) - [Joan] Competing for a guaranteed place in the semi-final, our eight heat artists have almost reached the halfway point of their challenge, with two hours left in which to complete their landscapes.

- It's just about trying to get into a sort of machine like process, you know, to just churn it out really.

- At the moment, I'm not terribly happy with it.

I can keep going over it.

I can keep adding things on and look again much harder.

- I'm not that happy at the moment.

My scene has changed so much while I've been standing here that we've had stormy exciting clouds then blue sky and I've tried to put everything down and gotten a bit of a messy, muddy muddle.

- It's at that stage where something needs to happen, make something happen so I can react against it 'cause it's becoming a bit kind of, you know, plodding a bit over the same things.

- These colors keep changing, which is flipping annoying.

I'm trying to create that effect, with no luck so far, but I'm on it, I'm working on it.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - [Frank] Here on the Gower Peninsula in south Wales, our eight artists are halfway through their challenge to depict their view of Rhossili Bay.

- [Joan] They've been painting for two hours.

So who do the judges think are front runners and who might be struggling?

- Fatima, I think is one of those artists who's very comfortable with her style of painting.

You know, she knows her own identity as an artist and she's confidently carrying on making something in her own style.

- [Tai] I just think her colors she works against when she lays them down very loosely are just beautiful.

But what I'm seeing is, as she's trying to grasp what's in front of her and capture that, those beautiful colors are slowly getting obliterated.

- I'm really hoping that neon pink comes back in because it works so well.

She's too addicted to color to give up on it.

- [Joan] Right, Kumar?

- Quite nice to have one of the artists not to respond in that way, but responding this way to create that depth.

- [Kate] I think the difficult task that he set himself is, by taking away these huge skies and seas, he has to tell you the story of this sort of three part landscape without all of that information.

- And I thought he wasn't getting it and then something happened with the weather where, from the cliffs in the foreground and the mountainous background, he got a bit of light in there and it suddenly just opened up this huge vista.

- [Joan] Right, let's move on.

What about Chris Shaw Hughes?

- I thought this looked rather uninspired and actually when he peeled it back- - Lovely.

- It was fantastic.

He was worried that he couldn't fill it all in, actually the white of the paper makes what he has put down sing and gives it great distance.

And there's something mechanical about his process.

But the end result is- - [Joan] It's a most extraordinary process.

- I do have reservations about the method because, for me, it just feels too mechanical and a bit too much like tracing.

But then I do think that he has got a great composition.

He's able to sort of identify these vacant spaces and these compositional clusters that actually do something quite interesting.

- [Joan] And what about the other Chris, Chris Stevens?

- I'm not finding the wall here adds much counterpoint to the landscape.

I find it very subdued at the moment.

I dunno where he's going- - [Kate] Yeah but I think the problem is that the wall is sort of deadening the landscape cause the wall's got all this fabulous texture in it.

- [Joan] Now, Alice, what do we think?

- I actually quite like the looseness that she had in the early part of the morning, she had an incredible moodiness to the sky.

And she's the one that I'm really worried about will sort of do more and more and more to it so we'll end up with a slight muddy mess at the end.

- It's just very difficult to keep a sense of luminosity and vibrancy when you're overworking the paint.

- [Joan] Isn't your job to tell her to stop?

- No!

- Absolutely- - Unfortunately can't!

- We can't do that.

- [Joan] Favorites?

Do you hazard of guess at this stage?

- Never.

- Never.

Because you could fall in love with something after lunch and it'll be long gone by tea time.

(gentle music) - I was standing back there watching you paint and I thought, if you carry on like this Alice, you will just paint forever because the sky obviously changes.

- Yeah.

I have painted about five different paintings on top of this now.

- What you've basically produced here is a video.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Your submission was not painted in England.

That's right isn't it?

- No, that was painted in Cuba.

- Yeah.

Cuba was it?

- I actually spent the first six months of this year traveling around the world just purely to paint.

- [Frank] Did you work straight from the landscape or do you get a photograph and work from there?

- Straight from the landscape, yeah.

- I love that as well.

Because you don't wanna travel all over the world and work from a photograph.

- Oh no way!

- Something wrong about that.

Otherwise you could just get a Michael Palin box set and work at home.

- Exactly.

(gentle music) - [Joan] The waters surrounding the Gower Peninsula look placid today.

But this stretch of the Bristol Channel was once a notoriously hazardous shipping route.

Sailing ships filled these waters until the mid 19th century and hundreds fell victim to strong gales and treacherous currents.

The remains of the most famous of all the Gower shipwrecks are still visible in the sands of Rhossili beach.

The Helvetia was a Norwegian ship heading for Swansea with a vast cargo of timber when she found herself at the mercy of a ferocious November storm in 1887.

- Originally it was aiming for Mumbles harbor.

Couldn't get through because the water was so rough.

So took shelter by Worm's Head here.

But then, as the storm took hold, the anchor started to drag and then they realized, no, we need to get our men off here now.

(gentle music) - [Joan] Shipwrecks never failed to attract a crowd of inquisitive locals keen to see what might be washed ashore.

- The shipwreck resulted in 500 tons of oak, nice beam to build buildings and things, being strew all across the length of Rhossili beach.

So yes, the locals, being quite resourceful, decided to make the most of this.

- [Joan] While the timber was salvaged by enterprising beach combers, the wreck itself was bought by an entrepreneurial local farmer.

- My grandfather paid 60 pounds for the Helvetia when it came aground on Rhossili beach.

He wanted to buy the wreck because of the copper hull, which he thought he'd sell.

But of course it went down before anything could be done about it.

(gentle music) - And so the Helvetia's copper hull remains buried in the sands of Rhossili beach.

While the sea slowly reclaims the ships' wooden ribs.

(gentle music) Fatima, what I love about this structure is the fact that you've used these rocks and that's let you put some of your reds that you like, what would you say is the main thing you have to resolve?

- Oh, everything, the water, this sky, the landscape.

No, I'm not used to painting water in open sea.

- [Joan] Of course, the sea is receding so there's more and more beach.

- [Fatima] Yeah, I keep changing that.

- I don't think you can keep on changing it as the sea goes out.

- I know, I know.

- Don't spoil this wonderful crag, I love it.

I'd like to take that home with me.

(gentle music) - Kumar, are you having a good day?

You've found some lovely colors there.

- [Kumar] Oh there's lots of lovely colors there.

The trouble is they keep changing.

- That's what en plein air's all about.

- That's part of the joy of it, but yeah, that's what we're fighting against.

- I love this sort of explosion of energy in this.

I wish you sounded a bit keener about it.

- Well, you know, if you get too keen on it, you stagnate.

Get annoyed with it.

- Don't stagnate.

Oh no, get furious.

(gentle music) - [Joan] Having completed her paper collaging, Lisa's breaking out the paint for the final stage of her process.

A technique known as scumbling.

- [Tai] What does this scumbling do?

- It sort of makes the colors stand out.

- Okay.

Where were you gonna put- - [Lisa] All over it.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah well that was- - Come on then.

- [Lisa] The brush has got to be almost dry and it finds textures wherever they are.

- I can see the paint catching in the ridges of your collage paper.

- Yep.

- Without actually coloring the paper so- - Exactly, that's what I'm- - It's actually accentuating the drawing in a sense.

The different layers of your torn pieces are starting to sing a bit more, yeah.

I love finding other artist's secrets.

So it's... (laughing) - I'll see you later.

- Okay.

(gentle music) - [Frank] Meanwhile, our 50 wild cards have spent the day painting their view of the Worm's Head.

- Some really interesting characters out there working in very different ways.

There's a guy making practically a model, you know, with styrofoam.

And there's someone working with spray paint.

- They're wild, these wild cards.

- Nice.

- [Frank] They're all competing to be considered for just one place in the semi-final.

But have any of them done enough to impress the judges?

- [Tai] There's a chap who's got a color chart.

- [Kate] Oh yeah, we like that.

- [Tai] You get that sense of a space coming through and he's got all that foliage- - [Kathleen] He's done a really, really good job.

- And it's a rather good- - It's interesting.

- Sort of craggy pastel by the tall woman.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And she's really worked at it all day long.

A lot of people knock off a pastel really quickly, but she's very quietly calmly built it, built and built it.

- Slowness to it.

- [Kate] Okay, so do we go pastel or do we go painting?

(gentle music) - Congratulations.

(audience applauding and cheering) You're the wild card!

We enjoyed watching you today and the way you captured the bracken in the front, we thought it was marvelous.

- Lovely.

Thank you very much.

Been a wonderful day.

- Brilliant.

(audience applauding and cheering) The atmosphere here's been wonderful.

It's the first time I've done it and I'm absolutely elated.

- [Joan] Richard Rees now joins a pool of wild card winners.

And once all the heats are over, the judges will select one to go through to the semifinal.

(gentle music) - [Frank] Back in the main competition, our artists have half an hour left to perfect their paintings.

But for some that might be too much.

- I felt desperate to get on with it and I've probably pushed it a bit too far.

- I can't really see this.

I've been at it too long.

I'm fiddling, I shouldn't really be doing that.

- I think I might be overworking it cause I've painted a lot of pictures on top of one another.

- Someone else like another mini me saying stop, stop touching it, that's enough.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - [Frank] Perched on the cliff overlooking Rhossili Bay in south Wales, our eight artists are in the final moments of their four hour landscape challenge.

- It's remarkable, isn't it?

How quickly four hours goes.

I'm going to keep painting to the last second.

- My heart is pounding very, very fast.

I'm between feeling frantic and feeling I can do it, I think.

- This is the trouble, it's pacing it, isn't it.

It's very difficult.

So how long have I got?

- Artists, you have five minutes to go.

Five minutes.

- Just carrying on.

- I kind of thought I was finished but now when somebody says there's only five minutes to go, I suddenly see all the things that I wish I'd done four hours ago.

- That's it.

- Artists, your time is up.

- Please put down your brushes and step away from your easels.

(audience applauding) - Congratulations.

- Well done.

- Well done.

- Well done.

- Well done.

- Think I've got it.

- Well done.

Well done everyone, they all look amazing.

- Well, I'm exhausted.

(gentle music) - [Joan] Before the judges get a chance to scrutinize the finished paintings, some of the days' art lovers offer their opinions.

- I like the use of palette knife.

I love the way he's brought this out.

- There's lots of sweeping movements so it feels windy.

You can feel the weather.

- It's sort of almost 80% sky as opposed to- - Yes, too much sky.

- You think so?

- I mean, I like sky, but I think there's far too much sky in that.

- Little bit of artistic license with the wall.

- Well, that's an artistic thing.

- I'd have it on my wall.

- I wouldn't mind it in my wall either.

That wall on my wall.

(gentle music) - [Frank] Finally the moment arrives for the judges to cast their critical eyes over all eight finished landscapes.

- I really like the way Theo plays between painting and sculpture actually.

I love that sort of energy that he gets in the construction.

- [Tai] And he has a great understanding of space.

You know, eye leads up to the horizon and he does, this is very beautiful and subtle and he's got great energy, but I don't think the end result is as anarchic as the energy that's gone into it.

- I think what's great is that Chris decided to put this wall in to sort of reimagine the landscape, bring it forward.

It's a painting very much of two halves at the texture and the depths and the treatment of the foreground feels a totally different land and place and time to the background.

I actually really like the background.

I like the sensitivity and the subtlety and the sort of sparseness.

I don't know that I like it sitting that much with the foreground.

Fatima's given us a utopian version of this coast in Wales.

It's got these fantastic colors in it.

- [Tai] There are bits of the painting that aren't working for me, but there are passages absolutely lyrical in their beauty.

- [Kate] Yeah.

- Chris did remarkably well.

I didn't think he would bring it to some conclusion because his submission was so detailed.

- [Kate] I like this more than I thought I would, but still I have to say proven myself to be more old fashioned than I thought I was.

I'm not mad on this technique.

I think it's just so close to something which doesn't take that much skill.

- I love his fascination and enthusiasm with it.

And I think he's been clever in the way he's composed it.

Leslie's clearly got a fantastic ability to deal with perspective.

He's used the sweep of the bay to give us that sense of distance and enormity of the landscape that we're looking at.

- The best bit for me in this is when Lisa lets herself be quite free and go quite abstract.

- This, I think it's fabulous.

- That's amazing that bit.

- Yeah, yeah.

In some places she's really succeeded when she's trusted her instincts.

- I didn't imagine that Alice would be able to hold herself back pallet wise and keep those lovely, cool gray and blue tones that she has.

And it's almost like a little Constable study in the sky.

I think she's done a really good job.

- I do slightly question putting in the house.

The balance shifts too far in the favor of that side of the painting and that bit there with its emptiness and its sort of ancient landscape is just so beautiful.

- [Tai] I think Kumar really found a very good composition.

So you got these fantastic abstract passages, which tell you everything about the landscape without sort of being absolutely tied to every detail.

- The composition was incredibly clever and he played around with flatness and then he did create somehow a path through to the back.

Even though he didn't really have any sky or water to help him tell that story.

- [Joan] Picking just one winning painting will be no easy decision.

So first the judges narrow down their selection to a short list of three.

- I'm really happy with that one staying in.

- Me too.

- Top three.

- And here, I'm happy over here.

- Yeah, I'm happy with that one too.

- Okay, so we've got- - Two, three.

- Yeah.

- Done.

(gentle music) - Artists, thank you for joining us today on the Gower Peninsula.

What a pleasure it has been watching you all work.

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

And the first artist that the judges have selected is Fatima Pantoja.

(audience applauding) - And the second artist on the short list is Alice Boggis-Rolfe.

(audience applauding) - And the third artist to make the short list is Kumar Saraff.

(audience applauding) - Can I say absolutely genuine commiseration.

You five guys have all done really top notch stuff today.

Thank you so much.

Well done.

(audience applauding) - It's a little bit disappointing, but the shortlisted works are very good.

(gentle music) - [Frank] To help the judges select today's winner, they also consider the artist's submission paintings.

- I think Kumar really delivered on his promise of his submission.

In the way he's composed the landscape today, he's made a sort of look around a rock and there's a very strange perspective and he's created space in the very unusual way.

But there's a consistency in his brush marks, in the way he creates this image between figuration and abstraction.

- Now what about Fatima?

- They're both independently brilliants painting, but I'm glad she didn't go as far as she did in the submission because I don't think she needed to.

There's a lightness of touch with that color today that just allows it to pop without it going into something which would be very unrecognizable of this landscape.

- What about Alice?

- Although the palette is very similar to her submission, the light is a very different sort of light.

You do get the sheen on the sea and the light appearing around the headland there.

So she's not only playing with horizon lines, but also very good at finding subtleties within the light.

And being able to nail it.

- I think, out of everybody today, she just approached that sea and caught the character of it.

It's like a sheet of metal.

There's something really serene about the water and something really powerful about the sky.

- [Kathleen] The danger was that, of course, that we'd end up with a composite cloud that was part morning cloud, part afternoon cloud.

But actually somehow she's managed to give you something that's very convincing.

(gentle music) - Kumar, Fatima, Alice, congratulations to all of you for having reached this stage.

But unhappily only one can go through to the semifinal and the judges have made their choice.

- Yes and the artist that they have chosen to go through to the semifinal is Alice Boggis-Rolfe.

(audience applauding) - Thank you.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much!

Oh my god, I can't believe it.

- Naturally, I'm a bit disappointed, but I think the other two were very strong.

I was in good company.

- Fatima, it's such a joy.

- I'm really happy because I really like the painting that I did.

- Oh thank you so much!

I can't believe it.

I honestly can't believe it.

I can't believe it.

Ah, I'm so happy.

It's been a really wonderful day.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I can't believe I've made it to the semi-final, I never even believed I'd get here in the first place.

I'm really, really, really thrilled.

- Alice really excelled.

She was completely observing every change in the weather, in the light and she absorbed those changes as she was painting.

And you'd imagine that that would create some sort of a mess.

But actually what she managed to capture was a definitive sense of place and time today.

(gentle music)