(bright music) - Hello, and welcome to the Garden of England.

We're at Castle Farm in Kent, where we're surrounded by the sight and also the scent of acres upon acres of glorious lavender.

- Now, this famous plant is primarily used, of course, in perfumes, in medical remedies, and sometimes in delicious edible treats.

But today it has a different role.

It's to be the muse for our semifinalists.

- Joan, we've finally entered our purple patch.

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

(uplifting music) - [Joan Voiceover] Over the past weeks, we've challenged 48 artists to paint some of the country's most striking landscapes.

(uplifting music) And they've created some inspiring artwork.

- [Frank Voiceover] Now, only the winners from each heat remain to battle it out for three coveted places in the final.

- I won.

I'm into the semifinals and I've got no idea how it happened.

- Congratulations.

- Ah, I'm so happy.

It's been a really wonderful day.

(people clapping) (uplifting music) - I'm very nervous about doing it all again.

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

- [Frank Voiceover] Deciding which artists deserve a place in the final are our three judges.

Independent curator, Kathleen Soriano.

Award-winning artist, Tai Shan Schierenberg, and art historian, Kate Bryan.

- The phrase that had haunted several of them is chocolate box.

- As opposed to purple?

- [Joan Voiceover] So it's the battle of the brushes as six artists must contemplate, compose, and paint their way into the final.

- Your entire future could be riding on this one piece.

- [Tom] It could be.

I've not thought about that, but thank you.

- [Frank Voiceover] Who will crumble under the pressure?

- I've somehow managed to omit the sky again.

- [Frank Voiceover] And who will keep their cool?

- Doesn't it smell delicious?

It's very, very relaxing as well.

- Don't get too relaxed.

(bright music) (gentle music) - [Joan Voiceover] Of our six semifinalists, two are professional artists.

Alice Boggis-Rolfe and Fadi Mikhail.

- I've actually been in Canada the last few weeks, painting a cathedral, trying to finish a commission there.

So it's been a completely different scale, completely different medium.

But I'm kind of looking forward to that freshness, that sort of unknown that might come through in the painting.

- [Frank Voiceover] And the remainder of today's semifinalists are amateurs, Benji Thomas, Jonathan Hargreaves, John Ball, and Tom Voyce.

- I didn't have any expectations beyond the heat, really.

So to get to semi final is an absolute honor.

And I can't wait to get started with it.

- Wow.

That's so beautiful.

- Nice.

- More lavender than I've ever seen in my life.

It's gonna be tricky to find a viewpoint, but... - [Alice] Yeah, perfect.

And a good sky.

- [Joan Voiceover] But our six heat winners aren't the only artists to have made it to the semifinal.

At each heat, 50 more artists of all ages and levels of experience came to try their luck as wild cards.

And each week, the judges selected one of them to bid for a place in the semifinal.

- You're our wild card winner!

- Oh, thank you so much!

(people cheering) - Congratulations.

- Thank you very much!

- [Frank Voiceover] But the judges can only put one wild card artist forward to the semifinal.

(gentle music) - There were so many paintings here that were, you know, as good as what was going on in the pods on the days.

- Absolutely.

- They're not that wild.

They're very knowing, these paintings.

- But I think we know which one.

- There's one for me that really stands out.

- Yep.

- Yep?

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Agreed.

- This one?

- Yes.

- Fantastic.

- Good.

Come with us.

- [Frank Voiceover] And the judges chose Isabel Frias de la Uz's depiction of the viaduct in Knaresborough, Yorkshire as the winner.

- The wildcard was a fun day out.

And today is a competition.

It's a bit different.

It's a lot more pressure.

(bright music) - [Joan Voiceover] Today's view is of lavender, stretching up and beyond the tree line.

The scene only broken by the farm buildings which process the crop.

- This is a pure, gorgeous English landscape.

But it's full of geometry.

There's line and shape and form in there.

And you don't always get that.

There's a big danger today and I think it's purple.

Purple's quite tricky.

You know, it doesn't sit necessarily that well with green.

It can be too pretty.

The impressionists used green and purple together beautifully, but it's quite a nuanced thing.

You have to be quite careful, If you just slap them up against each other, it can look quite thick and actually quite jarring.

(bright music) - I love a landscape that is not all green.

So this, to me is, great.

- The main worry for me here is the quaintness of the landscape and how I could offset that.

Because that's not really what I like to do, you know, pretty things.

(bright music) - It's a nice color.

I wear a lot of purple.

But it is a difficult color to paint.

- Artists, I hope you haven't been lulled into too much of a tranquil state by all this calming lavender, because your semifinal challenge is about to begin.

- And I hope you've been practicing hard because the judges look to you to up your game.

Now, the landscape that you're painting today, they want you to capture the spirit of the place in your own individual style.

You've got four hours to meet your challenge.

And the time starts now.

(bright music) - [Frank Voiceover] All the artists approach their composition differently.

But with a place in the final and the chance of a 10,000 pounds commission riding on this early decision, it needs careful consideration.

- I'm thinking avoid perspective.

So I'm gonna try to look for a corner somewhere.

The perspective is going downhill in front of you.

So I think I'm gonna be on the side so it's not so coming up.

I find it easier.

- I'll do some preparatory studies with pencil, try and work out a couple of compositions.

And then I'll do two different compositions on my two different boards.

(bright music) - So I found my composition, which I think, to me, is the most important thing.

'Cause often I otherwise rush in and then have to redraw it.

And then gonna try and get in the colors first that jump out to me the most.

The purple is quite dominant, so I'm gonna try and put quite a thin strip of lavender, I think, at the front so it's not too pretty.

(bright music) - I've never been confronted by just an ocean of purple like this, but I do use purple.

But normally as as a color which tends to recede.

But here we have everything in the foreground coming straight at you.

- [Joan Voiceover] Jonathan Hargreaves is a freelance illustrator from Stockport.

His painting of a Manchester building site earned him a place in the heats.

And his depiction of the industrial landscape on Teesside had an ambition and scale which the judges loved, taking him through to the semifinal.

- What do you think about the lavender?

I can see it's just making its first appearances.

- It is.

- These tones.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's amazing.

Isn't it?

It's quite a challenge.

I like very much the lines that that gives it.

- Yeah.

I thought you'd like that.

- [Jonathan] Well, without that, you're in trouble, really.

- In real life, there are so many subtleties and so much green and so much white and yellow.

But when you sort of photograph it or paint it, there just seems to be a flatness of purple.

How do you play with that?

- It's about boiling it down to the bare minimum in order to convey what you've got truthfully in front of you, without going to a 00 brush and having to paint, you know... - Every.

- Which would bore me and probably produce a fairly boring painting.

- [Kate] Yeah.

I agree.

- [Frank Voiceover] Purple is undeniably the color of the day and each artist must find their own way of tackling it.

(bright music) - It's inevitable we'll all be using purple.

But how can you find a way to escape just how purple this field is?

That's the main thing.

To see the greens, to see the browns, and to see these little nuanced spots of yellow, I think that's probably where I'll start.

- [Frank Voiceover] Fadi Mikhail, who studied art at the Slade, works as a figurative and landscape painter, but also has a thriving career as an iconographer for churches around the world.

During his heat at Knaresborough Castle, Fadi boldly turned his easel to take in the other artists.

His risk paid off, with all three judges admiring the abstraction of the resulting painting.

(gentle music) - There's really no comparison between today and the heat day.

This is a much more interesting landscape, much more the kinda landscape I would stop and stare at.

And say, yeah, actually I really wanna pick up a paintbrush and do something about this.

I wanna respond to this visually.

(gentle music) - So the two reds I use is an Alizarin Crimson and a Cadmium Red.

So I've got a cool one and a hot one.

And then I actually use three blues.

I use a Cerulean, a Cobalt and Ultramarine.

So I have scope for mixing actually a lot of purples.

And when you look at this, there are a lot of purples there.

There's some much paler mauves where the light's catching it on the top.

And then there's some much richer colors as well.

So I think not to treat it as one color, just to work in patches and see what comes out.

(gentle music) - [Joan Voiceover] Alice Boggis-Rolfe studied portrait painting for two years before deciding to focus on landscapes.

She regularly paints en plein air.

And during the heat, the judges admired her handling of the changing weather conditions.

But now they want to see her push the boundaries of her more traditional style.

- Your work, it lends yourself to being quite sweet and romantic, almost, in its style.

Are you worried about what you're looking at today?

- Yeah.

I really panic about being chocolate boxy, actually.

So when I heard we were doing lavender fields, I was like, oh no.

Give me stormy skies.

It really helps.

- I mean, lavender is tricky.

I've been sort of scratching my head, trying to think of some of the great lavender paintings out there.

You know, you're thinking, did van Gogh do one?

He was down in the South of France.

- I did so much research.

Nobody paints lavender.

And I think they must have a good reason for it.

Either that, or they have painted lavender and they hated their pictures so much they hid them afterwards.

(gentle music) - [Frank Voiceover] One artist is bypassing the problem of purple altogether.

- Since I work with ink, I'm probably one of the few contestants, which won't be really using purple.

I mean, I tend to work fairly monotone.

But I was thinking of zooming in towards that treeline and not getting as much of that lavender in as maybe some of the others.

- [Frank Voiceover] Benji Thomas is in the second year of a fine art degree at Loughborough University and hopes to become a professional artist.

At Paddy's Hole on Teesside, the judges called his landscape, achieved with ink and bleach, cleverly constructed and courageous.

And he made it through to the semifinal.

(bright music) - Benji, no purple yet?

- No purple yet.

- I've only seen two pieces of your art.

As a man who doesn't deal heavily in massive colors.

- A lavender field's a challenging thing color-wise for someone who doesn't have anything purple.

Or anything- - Did you not bring purple?

- Nope.

I'm bringing no purple.

I'm painting with black.

And I just get the colors that come from the black.

So this will be the least purple piece.

- Okay.

- Of the competition.

I'm pretty sure of that.

- Well, it's good to have that as a distinction.

- [Benji] Yeah.

- It's basically gonna be your style and to hell with the beautiful lavender field.

Is that a fair summary?

- Yeah, I would say so at this point.

(gentle music) (bee buzzing) - You've just started.

You've got really three sketches sorted.

So you sorted out the composition?

- That's what I'm trying to work out at the minute.

'Cause obviously the composition's really important with this perspective.

- Yeah.

- [Tom] Of the field taking us to that kind of industrial farm unit.

- [Joan Voiceover] Tom Voyce lives in Staffordshire and recently qualified as a secondary school art teacher.

In his heat at the Gower Peninsula, he painted four versions of the view and then struggled to pick one.

Fortunately, the judges found his chosen painting contemporary, fresh, and unusual.

And he won his heat.

- At what point do the other boards come in?

- I'm nearly finished with this one for now.

And then I'll start doing that one.

I'm gonna work on two boards today, not four.

- Okay.

- Wow.

- I'm gonna try and limit myself a little bit.

- Okay.

(suspenseful music) - [Frank Voiceover] Competing for just three places in the final and a 10,000-pounds prize, our artists are nearly one hour into their challenge.

- Have you got a train to catch?

You seem kind of almost finished.

(awe-inspiring music) - [Joan] So there has to be lavender on this canvas.

- Would you like me to put the purple in next?

Would it help?

- No, don't do it to please me.

- I'm a bit worried because it is actually starting to look a little bit van Gogh.

And I don't wanna be branded as a rip off.

(bright music) - [Frank Voiceover] Here at the Castle Farm in Kent, our seven semifinalists are just one hour into their four-hour challenge.

(gentle music) - [Joan Voiceover] And one artist in particular has found a way of navigating the inherent prettiness of the landscape.

- So we have yellow to the horizon, but the main feature is a pylon.

And it's that pylon over there?

- Yeah.

- [Joan] Now what made you choose that structure?

- It's a little bit forgotten in all this beauty, isn't it?

Standing there?

- [Joan] This is a great shape, of course.

- I've got bit of a penchant for the old pylons.

- [Joan Voiceover] John Ball studied fine art at the Guild Hall in London.

He's drawn to bleak, rundown subjects, like the abandoned building on Canvey Island which took him into the heat.

The judges praised his depiction of Knaresborough Viaduct, calling it both skillful and unique.

- You've been preoccupied with the structure, really, haven't you?

- I know.

I do regret starting.

- You regret starting at all?

- [John] Yeah, because it's a lot more complicated than it looks.

- That's not a problem.

It's a chance to shine.

- I'll try my best.

(bright music) - Is landscape your thing?

Would you normally be in the middle of a field somewhere?

- No.

If I do landscape, it's normally from photos.

- Oh, okay.

- I normally do...

I've been trying to get more into still life.

- [Frank Voiceover] Originally from Madrid, Isabel Frias de la Uz joined a watercolor course to help improve her English.

At Knaresborough, she felt she'd made a semi-finished painting, which she was semi happy with.

But the judges felt it was an incredibly honest painting with a beautiful collar palette.

And it won her a place in the semifinals.

- You are painting a still life, in a way, aren't you?

- In a way.

Yes.

- You're painting some flowers.

So why is this different?

- So much of it.

Still life is small.

- But you can.

Your composition, you can.

- Yes, I can.

- Tighten if you want to.

- Still lifes, you move how you want it.

Like, I cannot move that tree over there, can I?

- You can move that tree.

You can.

Today, this is your field.

- Yes, I can move it.

- If you wanna put a beautiful two-up two-down house in the middle of the lavender field, that's up to you.

- That'd be nice.

- Yeah.

- Mine.

- No, you don't get to keep it.

It's just in the painting.

(bright music) - Just laid in the first sort of layer of bleach just to get the lights going in the trees.

(bright music) I'm just building up layers of ink now.

Still not entirely sure where it's gonna go or what it's gonna do.

But I'm just sort of gambling at the moment and seeing what comes out of it.

- Now, I've already had a few people today using the word twee about this landscape.

- [Tai] Yeah.

I can see that.

But here we've got a farm.

And actually, there's not one attractive farm building in there.

They're all pretty ugly, but they're very interesting shapes.

It's rather real.

- Can I ask you a technical question there?

When you're looking down these rows and they go quite a way into the distance and then they dip and go up, is that a perspective problem if you've got to paint that?

- I think it is because I've looked at some of the early compositional things that artists have started with.

And they've got everything in, but they don't get that sense of the dip and the landscape going up.

- Yeah.

- You know what I mean?

It's a very subtle change in the geology and I don't think, I dunno how you get it.

- You don't know.

- No, I dunno how you get it.

- Well, if you don't know, what chance have they got?

- But that's why we've brought them here.

It's a beautiful bit of abstraction, really, isn't it?

Three-dimensional abstraction.

(bright music) You're almost finished.

You almost got everything on the canvas.

So when you're changing stuff, what are you looking at?

What are you changing?

What are you adjusting?

- A lot of the time, some things start to look better later in the day and other things look better at the beginning.

And the nice thing about landscape paintings is that they can, they don't have to make sense the whole way through.

You're looking at a period of time, rather than a snapshot.

- [Tai] So it's a record of an activity?

- Yeah.

- And the light changing, rather than a finished, fixed product.

- Otherwise you just paint from a photo when you get home, which is boring.

- Looking forward to how this talk becomes reality.

- Yeah.

- Throughout the day.

- All the chat.

(bright music) - I really like this sort of angled slice that you've taken of the landscape because you've sort of involved so much more color than just the purple.

You've been a bit cheeky.

- Have I?

- You sort of, you're relegating the purple to the sort of left hand corner in a way, aren't you?

- I'm just trying hard not to be too chocolate boxy.

- So we're not gonna get sweeping swathes of purple.

- I'm taking- - We're gonna see detail.

The small brush is gonna come out, is it?

- I'm gonna push myself to bring it out a little bit.

My major temptation is to leave it relatively yellow, actually.

Yellow is usually the base that I start with anyway.

If nothing else, it just literally makes everything kind of appear like it's glowing.

- You're going to be up against artists today who have given us purple.

- They have?

- Are you not worried that someone might- - I am worried.

I am worried.

My main goal today is just to make a painting that I'm happy with.

A good painting, quote unquote.

So, you know, if that requires me to leave more yellow than I would purple, then that's what I'll do.

- This might sound a bit daft, but I think it's one of the most prescriptive landscapes we've ever given them.

I mean, we've sort of imposed this big form and purple on them.

- But they've all approached it in a very clever way.

I mean, I think they're getting to know us a bit.

They kind of worked us out.

Paint this.

And they're going, no, actually I'm gonna paint that.

I'm gonna do a close up.

I'm gonna do it black and white.

- The only thing I'm wondering about is there's a lot of sense of the day quite early on.

And I always worry that after lunch, it tips off and you know that they overcook it.

So that, I think, could be the danger today.

(bright music) - [Joan Voiceover] The artists are nearly halfway through the semifinal.

- The composition I have chosen, it has many layers and many different planes.

I'm feeling a bit stressed because I'm not going fast enough.

But I don't think starting again will be an option because it has taken me two hours to this point.

(bright music) - The trees at the moment seem pretty weak.

Most of the lavender is not working too fantastically.

But still a long way to go.

(bright music) - I'm now conquering my fear of starting to put some purple in, which has been my nemesis for several hours.

(bright music) - Jonathan, you've basically gone life size.

- [Jonathan] If you're looking at the Alps, you don't want a little picture of it.

- Do you have good eyesight?

I can barely see Shoreham.

(bright music) (bright music) - [Frank Voiceover] Here in the heart of the Kent countryside, the artistic battle continues for a place in the final.

Two hours into their challenge, our artists are taking a quick break.

And some can't resist a peek at the competition.

- You can feel the heat.

The heat of today comes across in those colors.

- You can.

How well do you think the purple patches are working?

- They're pretty bright.

- They are, aren't they?

- [Benji] But then almost in real life, they're almost too bright anyway.

- I like the format.

- [Fadi] Do you know what I thought when I first saw it from a distance?

I thought, my God, she's gonna finish in no time.

- And I think you're right.

I think she's almost done.

- I think my worst bits at the moment are those tall trees, which I was really excited about painting.

And they've just come out a bit shoddy.

- That's why I didn't bother doing them trees.

I thought I'm just gonna mess it up.

- See, I find myself wrestling with them.

- Yeah.

And the wind keeps blowing in different directions.

So mine are all facing different ways.

- [Tom] And the way the light hits them changes as well, it's changed throughout the day again.

- Oh well.

We'll have to see how it all goes.

See what everyone else is up to too.

- Yeah.

- We're halfway through.

Yeah.

- Halfway through.

- So we've got time to either completely ruin them or make them great.

- Yeah, that's it.

(bright music) - [Joan Voiceover] But what do the judges make of their progress so far?

- Now, Alice regularly paints out of doors.

And she goes into action.

She absolutely hits it running.

- It's like she's tuning a radio the whole time.

You know, she's got the painting in half an hour.

She could leave after half an hour if she wanted to.

The thing that I think she's very good at, but this is her challenge, is not to lose that lovely study aspect.

You know, that freshness.

- Yes.

- But I think that's a definite danger zone for her.

- Now let's look at Benji's because his is the most outrageous because there's no purple there.

- [Tai] I thought the way his huddled mass of farm buildings, they're very well observed.

They feel like what I see down there.

But I mean, 'cause it's black and white, it feels like sort of a winchy van Gogh drawing to me.

- [Joan] Oh wow.

- Well, he's been quite clever.

I mean, he's painting exactly what's in front of him.

He's got rid of the sky.

He's obliterated that with the hill.

So he's taken away one problem.

And, of course, he's taken away the big problem of not dealing with the purple.

But it's too easy to dismiss him as just being a monochromatic artist.

I mean, if you look very carefully, there's a whole raft of colors in there.

- [Joan] Okay.

What about Fadi?

- For me, Fadi's not got mad enough yet.

And he really pushed it in the heat and gave us this very, almost surreal, strange way of building up the picture surface.

And I feel like maybe it's a bit safe.

I love the colors.

Maybe I'd just like to see him break it and damage it and push it and pull it.

- Isabel, how do you think she's doing?

- I love her palette.

The colors are just beautiful.

So she's capturing the reality of what's in front of us, but somehow she's given it a sort of a quieter English dullness, I think.

And it's to do with that chalkiness of the greens and the purples that she's bringing.

It's quite distinctive.

- Okay, Jonathan now.

- I really like Jonathan's use of size to really draw you in.

- Somehow he's able to find the grittiness, despite the prettiness at the moment.

And feeling it's enjoyable right now.

- John now.

Who was the one who was fearful of the lavender color.

- Well, he's embracing it wholeheartedly now, I can tell you.

There are huge, enormous brush strokes of lavender in two sections at the bottom of the canvas.

I'm hoping he's going to go in and sort of add some sort of specificity to it or detail.

The fact that he's got a pylon on, he found the pylon I thought that was so clever.

- [Joan] Now, Tom.

- What I love about his work are almost the edges, the sort of hints of form or marks around the edges or the lines that he has there.

And I know they're slightly fey and they're slightly manufactured, but they make it a sort of a lovely thing.

- And what was fantastic about his submission was the use of tuned-up color and stronger shadows.

And, of course, he didn't have that during the heat, but as the day progresses, this is coming into play.

And I hope he'll bring that sort of extra zing to the painting.

- Right.

Now, this is the semifinal.

Seven artists.

We have to choose three.

How comfortable are you with the choice you have to make?

- I must say, I have no idea at this moment.

They're all doing very well.

And they're all incredibly calm, which I'm surprised for a semifinal.

- It's the lavender.

- It's the lavender.

I'm very calm.

(uplifting music) - Tom, last time we met, I remember on that occasion you had four options.

And you kept four of them going until the very last minute.

- It was 20 seconds before the end, I decided on which one I went with.

So I thought I'd make life a bit more easy for myself and only start with two.

I'm favoring one.

- Which one?

- I'm not gonna tell you.

- You're not going to tell me?

I'm favoring one.

- Just in case.

Are you?

Interesting.

- I'm not gonna tell you.

(Tom laughs) (bright music) - Just a bit overwhelmed today and exhausted.

Had a baby five days ago and haven't really slept since.

So yeah, not much time for sort of practice.

(bright music) - Lisa, you are John's partner.

- I am.

- And you've brought your son.

- Yeah.

Little boy Vincent.

- Vincent, a good artistic name.

- Yeah.

That's what we thought.

Yeah.

- Oh, how lovely.

- Yeah.

- He has a very distinctive style, John, doesn't he?

He seems to find, even in a beautiful lavender field, he finds some sort of mournful industrial aspect.

- I mean, when we go out for the day, he'll always finds something that you and me might just walk past.

I dunno, like a delict burger bar or an old car park.

And then he'll take a picture when we get home.

And then in the morning, there's usually a painting started.

- Have you ever tried to analyze this psychologically?

- I don't wanna know.

- You don't wanna think that the man who's chosen you loves dilapidated old burger bars as a general thing.

(bright music) - Van Gogh worked in very visible, very small brush strokes.

And that was the strategy I had made for myself.

And now that I'm doing it, I'm a bit worried.

It looks contrived.

It's probably gonna take some washes 'cause that's one thing that van Gogh really didn't seem to do much.

Or at least not visibly.

(bright music) - Really just addressing the bits that need improving.

So making the darks less dark, making the brights less bright.

And the bits that really aren't working, I can bleach completely out.

(bright music) - [Frank Voiceover] Artists have long found inspiration in this picturesque Kent valley.

In the 1820s, the nearby village of Shoreham became home to a talented young artist who would like to be called the English van Gogh, Samuel Palmer.

(bright music) Coming from London, Palmer found in Shoreham the kind of rural idyll he'd been searching for.

During the seven years he spent living here, he painted what would become his most celebrated works.

Pastoral visions of the landscape that seemed to hark back to another time.

- He called Shoreham Valley his valley of vision, his earthly paradise.

And because, to him, it represented everything that he would've wished the countryside to be.

An ideal, bucolic situation of quiet shepherds, dozing sheep, fecund nature, glowing apples.

It was what he was seeing with his inner mind.

(gentle music) - [Frank Voiceover] The 1830s were a time of great agricultural unrest as the arrival of new threshing machines threatened the livelihood of workers.

But Palmer wasn't interested in depicting reality.

He wanted to convey how it feels to be in the landscape.

He'd take nocturnal walks through the corn fields, captivated by Shoreham's vivid night sky.

- The industrialization meant that gas lighting had come to London.

So you couldn't see the stars.

So here in Shoreham, he could see the stars and the moon and the shadows.

And these were very important to him.

- [Frank Voiceover] Palmer's unique, artistic vision wasn't appreciated in his lifetime.

And he died in poverty without the fame of his peers, Turner and Constable.

But his rediscovery in the 1920s, four decades after his death, inspired a new generation of landscape painters and cemented his reputation as one of the great landscapists of the Romantic Age.

(bright music) - [Joan Voiceover] Our artists are entering the final stages of the challenge.

Resting on their depiction of these fragrant fields is a place in the final and a chance to win a 10,000-pound commission.

- The light's changed and also the wind's built up, which has brought a lot more colors.

And actually lots of them I prefer to the colors I had this morning.

So I'm quickly putting them in.

And then thinking, oh actually no, that one was nicer.

So there's a lot of slightly sporadic mind changing going on at the moment.

(bright music) - [Tom] I've took it down to one now.

That was my aim to do at halfway.

- That's rejected?

- That's rejected.

- Forget about that.

- Yeah.

It's gone.

The focus is on this one now.

- [Frank] Where are we going from here?

- Right.

So there's more of the lavender to put on now.

And I'm gonna try and work on that sky as well.

So there's still lots to do.

(bright music) - There isn't long to go now, but I think I've probably got a handle on what needs to be done in that time.

I might mess it up.

You still, you never know.

You make a few marks here and there and it knocks something else out of joint.

(bright music) - Now, there are lot of buildings down there.

There are all buildings here, but there are none on your canvas.

- [Isabel] I ignore the buildings.

- [Joan] You don't like buildings?

- No, not that much.

- That's the great thing about artists.

If they don't like something, they don't put it there.

- Yes.

- Just leave it out.

(bright music) (bright music) - [Joan Voiceover] Our artists are nearing the end of their four-hour challenge.

Soon, they'll find out if they've done enough to win a place in the final.

- Artists, you have five minutes left.

(bright suspenseful music) - I'm looking just to see that I haven't missed anything that is gonna bite me later.

That I'm gonna look at and think, oh, how did I miss that?

- [Kathleen] Looks like you're done.

- Yeah.

I mean, for the most part, I'd be pretty happy with calling this finished.

Things which don't look quite right, I'm just tweaky on there, but I'm very conscious of overdoing it.

(bright suspenseful music) - You know, if I was to get through, that would be just brilliant.

(bright suspenseful music) - What are the most important bits for you now in these last few minutes?

- Making sure I don't put the wrong color in the wrong place.

(bright suspenseful music) - I'm just wary that if I do much more, I could ruin it or I could change things that I can't reverse.

I'm at a stage now where I'm just contemplating and looking at what more I could do without ruining it, really.

(bright suspenseful music) - It's not gonna be finished, but personally I can't finish a painting in four hours.

I can't even finish a painting in four weeks.

(bright suspenseful music) - So we're in the final few minutes.

I keep thinking I'm finished.

Then I keep thinking maybe I haven't.

This is the story of my life.

It's just indecisions and confusion.

But now I've seen something else I can do so I'm gonna go.

(bright suspenseful music) - Artists, there is one minute to go.

(bright suspenseful music) (awe-inspiring music) - Artists, your time is up.

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

(people clapping) (awe-inspiring music) - We did it.

- Happy?

- How'd you do?

- Well done.

- That was a hard challenge, wasn't it?

- Well done.

(people clapping) (bright music) - I used every brush, every probable color combination that would work, every paint stroke.

I could not have done any more, I don't think.

(bright music) - [Frank Voiceover] Now the challenge is over, the judges must pick the three artists they'd like to go through to the final.

- A phrase that I've heard bandied about, not just today, but generally, I think on the landscape series is this term chocolate box.

Now, what does that mean in terms of a landscape?

- Yeah, I think, you know, like a box of chocolate, sometimes, you eat too many of them.

It's too rich.

It's too sweet.

And you want something that's got a bit more grit in it, that's not too over romanticized.

Which is really difficult when you see what we presented them with today.

So they've had a really difficult job.

- I think all seven of our semifinalists have done very well to think round that problem and reinvent it.

No, they've done very well.

- [Joan] So no chocolate boxes here?

- No.

- Let's take a look at them one at a time.

What about Benji?

- Well, he's got a basic medium.

He's finding ways to get as much out of it as possible.

And I love this sense of these crouching, rather menacing farm buildings.

So he's really avoided any sweetness, but it still has a sense of the light of the day.

- Actually, he's given you an incredible richness in the range of blacks and then the whites and the effect the bleach has on the ink itself.

- What about Fadi?

- I think he didn't take enough risk.

I think I would like to have seen it be a bit more abstract.

Think I'd like to have pushed it into something which was bit more jarring and disjointed, like the other paintings we've seen of his.

- I love that experimentation and freedom that he has with color.

He's not a slave to what he thinks the colors should be in front of him.

- Do you think he's gone a bit van Gogh tribute, then, today?

- Well, we were discussing, especially with the marks he used to define the lavender at the front.

But, you know, it looks like that.

But there is definitely an aura of Vincent about it.

- So Isabel.

- I think it was a really good composition.

She chose a wonderful corner, but it's got a nice strength, quiet strength, to it.

- There's a lot of things that she did that are great.

I think it's one of those artists that you put her in the lineup with everybody else and she just somehow does not kind of punch her way through to you.

There's just not quite enough there that's exciting for me.

- Jonathan.

- His mark is very lovely.

And he arrives at things in a sort of roundabout manner.

So, on the right, there's some trees which look transparent.

And he's kind of arrived at trees without actually painting trees.

So very inventive.

Great sense of space as well.

And just a nice bit of painting.

- Yeah.

I mean, I love the sense of space and distance.

I don't think I like the foreground that much.

I feel like it's a bit of like kind of a cliche type of putting down paint, like a shortcut that I think he's better than.

- I know it's very cheap of me, but there's something very exhilarating about a really big painting.

- [Tai] It's immersive.

That's what it is.

It just surrounds you, doesn't it?

- [Frank] So, Alice.

- She's created this immense distance.

You know, we're saying Jonathan has created distance with this big board he's worked on.

She's been able to create it in this very compressed space and very successfully.

And the farm buildings are just very beautifully distributed.

- [Kate] She's done the full spectrum of the lavender hills.

In fact, you've got the ones in the background and you've got the houses, the hills, the sky.

It's wide, you know?

And yet, it's this tiny little kind of movie wide screen.

And I think that it's kind of marvelous that she does that.

- [Frank] So, John.

- He picked the pylon over there.

I kind of admired.

Knowing that he would then introduce the purple.

So he was actually balancing the pylon with possible chocolate box element.

And I think it came off very well.

My only problem is there's a little bit of a disjoint between this very atmospheric, light background and rather heavy-handed lavender.

- But he pulled it back at the end.

And he did it by putting in these tiny touches of orange, which then links so beautifully with the trees in the foreground and in the background.

- I think he treated the lavender with the contempt he felt it deserved.

Okay, Tom.

- I think Tom definitely picked the right one of his two, where he'd given us much less sky and sort of allows the lavender rows to push through that composition.

- Yeah.

I mean, I think the format is excellent to have chosen this portrait format.

I think the lavender's very believable and I love the little townscape in the background.

- My problem with Tom's painting is that, you know, there is a lot of lavender in there.

But the greens, the other colors around it are very dull.

- Well, judges, we've seen seven outstanding pieces of work today.

And, of course, your job gets harder and harder the better the paintings are.

So have you made up your mind?

- We've nearly there.

I think we've got a little bit more fighting to do before the end.

(bright music) - This appeals to me.

I'm interested in it.

I love this.

- These two I don't find are giving me enough.

I'm so intrigued by them.

And then I look, and there's not much more to see.

Whereas with all these here, you're constantly, there's more to look at, more to discover.

- I definitely feel I'm going this way.

- I'm going this way.

- Okay.

(suspenseful music) - Artists, what a wonderful challenge it has been today and what an impressive array of paintings you produced.

- Yes, indeed.

But it is that point where seven become three and the judges have made their decision.

(suspenseful music) The first finalist is Alice Boggis-Rolfe.

(uplifting music) (people clapping) - The second finalist is John Ball.

(uplifting music) (people clapping) - And the third and last finalist is Tom Voyce.

(uplifting music) (people clapping) - We're always sorry to disappoint the rest of you, but it has been a sensational day.

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have.

You have done impressive work.

Well done.

(people clapping) (uplifting music) Sorry you didn't make it.

Sorry you didn't make it.

Lovely work, too.

You had a good time though.

(uplifting music) - It's been a big week with little Vinnie being born on Friday.

And now this.

Actually, I think I'm gonna explode.

(uplifting music) (people clapping) - I'm absolutely thrilled beyond belief.

I didn't ever, ever in a million years expect to get to the semifinal, let alone to the final so...

Both John and Alice did fantastic work.

So it'll be really good to see what we can all do.

(people clapping) (uplifting music) - I can't believe it.

I really can't believe I'm in, if I'm honest.

It's crazy.

It does make me feel a bit giggly, but I'm so exhausted after today and so lavendered out that I don't really know what to say.

(uplifting music) - I'm absolutely thrilled.

We had a fantastic place to make our landscapes.

It was a very high-quality semifinal and those three stuck out because of the way they edited what is a very difficult landscape, actually.

They found good compositions and they built on what we'd seen them do in the heats.

And we really got a sense of them as an artist with their special voice.

And I wanna see where they're going because they've all got huge potential.

(uplifting music) (bright music)