(upbeat orchestral music) - Welcome to Herstmonceux in Sussex.

Once home to the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the site still houses six historic working telescopes.

- And today, it's home to eight astronomically talented artists who we know will make a bid for the stars in search of landscape glory.

- Let's hope they create something out of this world.

It's "Landscape Artist of the Year."

(thunder rumbling) - [Joan] Over the course of our glorious British summer, we're visiting some of the most spectacular and thrilling scenery that our sceptered isles have to offer.

- [Stephen] 48 talented artists will be challenged to capture these magnificent views and turn them into their own landscape masterpieces, come rain or shine.

- The weather is crazy, but it's still a beautiful landscape.

- [Joan] The artists are competing for a sensational prize, a 10,000 pound commission to paint a scene in Venice to celebrate the bicentenary of the art critic John Ruskin.

- [Stephen] To be in with a chance of winning, they'll have to impress our three exacting judges, Kathleen Soriano, Tai-Shan Schierenberg and Kate Bryan.

- Have you been practicing doing a painting in a day?

- I've got different speeds, so I'm just gonna.

- Oh, okay.

Well, put yourself on turbo speed, you're fine.

- [Joan] And at every heat are an extra 50 artists, our wild cards, just one of whom will make it to the semi-final.

- [Stephen] So sit back and enjoy as the search for the landscape artist of the year takes shape.

- I do landscapes in triangles, I do lots of things in triangles, everything is triangles.

- Not literally.

- Not literally.

- You don't see me in a triangle.

- I can, yes.

- Oh, you can, okay.

(upbeat music) - [Joan] Engaging with both the landscape and the British weather are today's competitors, comprising four professional artists: Pippa Cunningham, Steven Royals, Patsy Moore, and James Hayes.

- I think the weather kind of suits me.

I like to paint gloomy skies, so couldn't have asked for more.

- [Stephen] Joining them are four amateurs: Drew Carr, Tamara Savchenko, Chi-Yien Snow, and Roy Carlos.

- I've painted in rain before.

I don't think I'm worried about anything except maybe lightning.

- [Joan] All of the artists were selected from a piece of artwork they submitted online, so today the judges get their first chance to scrutinize their art in person.

- Well, judges, welcome out of the rain to contemplate some really sunny landscapes.

Look at the sunlight on this one.

- There's just such an intensity of color here, you really feel bathed in a warmth.

I really like the way the paint's put down, I mean, they really clearly delight in these big, bold brushstrokes that sort of dance across the canvas.

- [Tai] I had problems with this sort of angular style, but seeing it in the flesh, what really works is the distance the artist will be able to create and the space in a believable landscape.

- Yeah, we often want our artists to have their own particular style.

It feels like this artist has found their own voice.

It's a really creative composition, actually, sort of combining the manmade and the natural in that way with that fantastic viewpoint that frames the landscape for us.

- But so counterintuitive in a sense, because, you know, if you're teaching somebody about painting, you would say don't frame something that symmetrical with something that sort of geometrical, but it works because of that contrast between the natural and the pylon.

- [Kate] It's a really strong bit of storytelling, man's existential crisis in the face of the forces of nature.

There's a storm brewing on the mountains, there's a tiny little patch of light in the distance, and he seems all alone with his thoughts.

- What a cheerful picture.

- Oh, it's fantastic.

I want a coconut, I want my bikini.

- [Tai] The way the marks are made, there's a speed to them, which sort of suggests also the speed of light somehow, it's sort of matches the brightness.

Today's a rather dull day, so I'm quite intrigued with how they'll bring this language to bear.

- [Kate] And this is very gritty, it's very industrial, but at the same time, well, it's really quite cute with all these lovely colors.

I mean, I don't think you look at this and feel kind of weighed down by industry, I think you feel intrigued by it.

- Again, a fantastic composition.

The diagonals are pushing us out to the edges of the canvas and a small work is telling a huge story within it.

- Ah, water in a landscape.

Water's always wonderful and refreshing, but it must be hard to paint.

- Very difficult to paint, especially in this way.

I can hear the water rushing, you know, it's very well done.

I mean, it leads your eye through the landscape in such a way that it becomes very abstract, and I think it's a fantastic bit of painting.

- I love the color palette.

Everything's got this really lovely kind of yellow glow, so you don't know whether or not it's like a kind of sandy scene and that's echoed into this glowing yellow sky.

- [Kathleen] The way in which they sort of created these lovely blocks of color with the different buildings and distant mountains, you know, and I think quite an interesting, not an obvious color palette.

- So here we are, eight extremely talented artists, all very different, rain coming and going, how will they handle that?

We'll wait and see.

(upbeat orchestral music) - Artists, the moment has arrived.

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

(upbeat orchestral music) - [Stephen] Assessing their surroundings, the artists get underway, each with their own particular technique.

Their view is of Herstmonceux observatory, once home the Astronomers Royal and still in use today, albeit by less august stargazers.

- [Joan] Mirroring the domes and the telescopic housing, we've dropped in some rather shiny celestial objects of our own.

- We're looking for the artists today to really respond to what we've put in front of them.

You know, how do they deal with that traditional English pastoral scene and this very kind of modern geometric form with this amazing reflection, actually.

There's good storytelling here.

I mean, they could do something quite moody.

We could have something quite strange.

We could almost have like an alien landing landscape artist of the year, that would be fun.

- I think the view is incredible.

When we arrived, I actually shed a tear of joy because I love round things.

I've never painted round things, but I love round things.

- I usually go for kind of distance and horizons, and there's none of that today, and the silver balls certainly add a bit of complexity as well, which I try not to panic about.

- [Joan] For one artist, panic may actually be setting in.

- Oh, it's not a view I would pick.

It's really difficult.

I mean, normally you pick things that have some sort of connection, you know, it's a feeling that you want to paint, and this is like quite challenging for me, 'cause I don't have any of those sort of feelings towards it.

- [Joan] Local artist Pippa Cunningham studied fashion and textile design.

During her career, she's been commissioned by high-end fashion houses and national charities.

She often features balmy climes, as depicted in her submission, painted in gouache on a recent trip to Sri Lanka.

Now, your submission was the beach scene.

- Yeah, I like sunny, hot places.

- Sunny, hot places.

It's not.

- No.

- It's also quite a challenging image, isn't it?

- It is, yeah, it's quite hard.

- So you've started with a wash. - Yeah.

- We've got this huge, bold splash of green.

- Yeah.

I'll be splashing out for the next four hours, I think.

- Where are you going to focus?

- Probably just sort of, I don't know yet exactly.

- Do you know?

- I think this is the hardest landscape we've ever presented to anyone.

- It's really hard.

- [Joan] But don't let me discourage you.

- [Pippa] No, thanks.

- [Joan] 'Cause everyone else is in the same boat.

- [Pippa] Yeah, yeah.

(gentle music) - Obviously there's a definite precision about the architecture, but ironically as an architect, I don't really enjoy painting buildings.

I would usually choose mountains or lochs, a bit of both.

- [Stephen] Glasgow-based architect and amateur artist Drew Carr's submission in oils is painted from a photograph he took of Long Loch while out running near his home.

The scene's been framed by the geometric form of an electricity pylon.

- Drew, you've sketched it in sort of that kind of blew under-painting.

- Yeah, I always kind of do a quick wash, mark like nine-thirds, as it were, trying to figure out where I think the composition's gonna sit.

- Is that because it makes for a better composition or it helps you draw out the scene in front of you.

- It's kind of like a really lazy way of gridding up.

- Once this is done, you start applying realistic color.

- [Drew] Yeah, so I kind of always get the sky in first and then kind of just work my way forwards basically.

- Oh, okay, so actually the paint is physically coming forward as well.

- Yeah, I just, I just did that, when I first kind of got into painting, I kind of learned that the hard way, like trying to do the sky last was a nightmare, just trying to paint it around everything you've done.

- It's a very beautiful start.

I would like to hang that on my wall, but I think it needs to go on so I'll let you get on with it.

- All right, thanks very much.

- [Stephen] Also experiencing the volatile weather at Herstmonceux today are a further 50 weatherproofed artists, our wild cards.

They're pitched directly in front of the historic castle, an army of umbrellas on maneuvers, deploying tactical measures regardless of the rain.

- I've got two easels because I've got a meter-wide canvas and then I'll have good firm, and I won't wobble at the end.

- It's fun, isn't it?

It's a day out.

It'll be a nice warm bath later, I think.

- I'd sit down, but my seat's got a puddle in it.

- Should their landscapes catch the judges' eye, they could win a place in the semi-final, but some don't want to just catch their eye.

- If you come right back now and tell me what to do next, then I'd be grateful.

- Yeah, right.

- You've got a plastic bucket, you've got a broom, you've got a mop.

- We've got it all here.

- Was the art shop shut?

- I just wanted to cover this large canvas.

It's much quicker, you see.

You don't need any of those little tiny paintbrushes.

- Turner didn't know what he was doing, did he?

Who needs paintbrushes?

(gentle piano music) - [Joan] Meanwhile, our chosen eight are taking a slightly more traditional approach, depicting their scene at Herstmonceux Observatory.

- I've never painted anything quite like this before.

This is very different.

I like a view that will tell a story, and that's what I try and across in the painting, that there is a story to be told there.

- [Joan] Professional artist Patsy Moore's shantytown submission is painted in oils.

A fine art graduate from the University of Edinburgh, for the past 17 years she's tutored budding artists on how to get their stories across on canvas.

- Patsy, what are you making of these quite extraordinary orbs that have found their way into this bucolic English landscape.

- Fabulous.

- Oh, you like them, good.

- I do, I do.

They're reflecting, I mean, it's all about the sky, this view, anyway, I think, isn't it?

The story is about the sky.

I'm intrigued by how much lighter the globes are than the sky itself.

- They make the sky look so dramatic, don't they?

- Behind it.

- It's like a vortex, those clouds.

- Absolutely.

Well, it's been a bit vortexy today, I think, hasn't it?

- Well, that happens on "Landscape Artist of the Year".

I love this under-color that you're using.

There's a kind of almost fleshy pink tone.

- I think it has advantages because there's warmth in the atmosphere and that can come through if you leave a few crackles of it, keeping it underneath.

- [Kate] Yeah, yeah.

Okay, good.

Well, let's see where we end up with the day.

- Those observatories look like giant daleks, kind of, "We will exterminate," "We're gonna come and get you."

It's good, I like it.

- Somerset-based amateur artist Chi-Yien Snow is a freelance graphic designer and mum to two young girls.

She revels in the freedom of oil painting, working quickly to capture scenes.

- Chi-Yien, you've gone off like a rocket.

I mean, your painting, not you.

- I'm keeping with the theme of the astronomical theme.

- Sending stuff up into the heavens.

You don't hang about, do you?

- I don't.

I try to, actually, I try to sit back and think about it and be really sensible, then I thought, no, I've got to just be myself.

So I thought I'm gonna dive in.

I've got four canvases.

- Have you?

- So if I mess up.

- Okay, you've got a plan B, C, and D. - Yeah, yeah.

- So you wrestle with your art.

- [Chi-Yien] Oh, yeah.

- [Stephen] It's a psychological battle with yourself.

- [Chi-Yien] I'm never happy.

- Really?

You smile, but inside there is- - Crying.

- [Stephen] Well, I expect to look over later and see you laughing hysterically one minute and crying like a baby the next.

- I will.

- [Joan] With an hour of the challenge gone, is the view still to everyone's liking?

- It's just getting everything coordinated.

There's an order, chaos, order, chaos, order.

I'm at one of the chaoses.

- I always feel like the beginning's not too crucial for me.

Everything kind of moves about a little bit and changes a lot throughout the course of the painting.

So once I've got everything covered, that's the proper start.

- I am finding it difficult.

It's just feeling a bit blank, I think.

I might fill it up with buttercups.

(upbeat orchestral music) - [Joan] At Herstmonceux Observatory in Sussex, our eight artists are into the second hour of their four hour challenge to capture the cosmic view.

But for one, artistic license may play its hand.

- I think this view, I'm reasonably happy with it, but I think there is room for shuffling things around.

I'm juggling the balls.

- [Stephen] Not phased by today's weather is amateur artist Roy Carlos who has a love for light, as demonstrated in his submission of Thornton Force in the Yorkshire Dales.

An experienced landscape artist, in 2017, his painting of South Gare on Teeside won that day's wildcard heat.

Hi Roy.

- [Roy] Hello.

- How are you gonna cope with these big balls?

- Oh fine, that's no problem, I think, really.

- [Stephen] I mean, you've really gone for it, you've put them all in.

You've decided to embrace them fully.

So you started with the compass.

- [Roy] Yeah, so I've let everybody else know that they are available for rent.

- Have you got no competitive edge in you at all?

You should have kept them for yourself.

- No.

- This could have been your defining glorious feature.

- [Roy] Indeed.

- You're the only one to move the round balls.

- But one artist has no need of a compass.

- My specific style is just not to use curves, which is, with this many shiny balls, it's pretty challenging When I started learning how to paint, it's just a revolt against all the curves.

I just know I just want to just be sharp and straight and still beautiful.

- [Joan] Retired chemistry teacher Tamara Savchenko originally hails from Russia, but for nearly 30 years has made Exeter in Devon her home.

Her submission, an oil painting of Budleigh Salterton Beach is in her signature geometric style, something which might prove tricky with today's spherical view.

- Tamara, we recognize the reduction of the landscape from your submission, of course, but what's missing is the triangulation.

- If you look, everything is a little bit triangularish, so it doesn't have to be exact triangle, it's just the straight line which create the angular shapes.

- There's a looseness here that I'm really enjoying, it gives it much more texture.

- I just actually want to make a landscape, which is more or less realistic, and on the other hand is chopped into my shapes.

- And I think you've done that really well.

I love the surreal quality of it and the way the worlds are reflected inside the spherical balls.

- I love them so much, those balls, and then you have the smiley face over there.

- Oh yeah, the gravel makes a smiley face.

- It's actually a smiley face there.

- Very nice, very nice.

Well, let's see if the smiley face makes an appearance and what happens when the trees come in.

- Our landscape: trees, grass, six copper domes, and a lot of silver balls, a weird one today.

- It looks really like a prog rock album cover, don't you think?

I think it's amazing.

I must say I wouldn't want to paint it though.

- [Stephen] Tough.

- Yeah, it is very tough.

The balls are very shiny and the balls are reflecting within the balls.

- [Stephen] I am told from above they look like the solar system.

- [Tai] Nice.

Well, it really is for the artists to find subtle differences in the landscape that contains a lot of the same shape.

- How could they muck this up?

How could they cock up the balls?

- [Crew Member] Brilliant.

- [Tai] I don't know.

I mean, the human mind likes to make order, and if they start subliminally sort of lining things up and trying to make order, it could get very boring.

So they really need to concentrate that there's a nice rhythm in their painting.

- I think if the wind picks up, it'll blow all those balls down and wipe out several of our artists.

Maybe that's how we let them know who's the winner.

- I don't need to do too much judging, then.

- We just roll seven balls down and wipe out seven pods, and the one who's left is the winner.

- Excellent idea.

- I'm trying to do justice to the roundness of those spheres.

I can't remember the last time I painted sort of perfect circles, though.

We'll see, they might be imperfect, but.

- [Joan] A love of straight lines in the landscape is also much more Stephen Royals' style.

A Bolton-based professional artist, he has a passion for painting construction sites, fascinated by their dynamic energy.

- Stephen, your submission was lots of straight lines and we've given you a composition with lots of round things in it.

- I'm still trying to do straight lines, and I think maybe I'm gonna do quite solid lines for the domes.

- [Tai] And what about light, is that important?

- Yeah, because it gives you absolute depth, doesn't it?

And especially when we first started this morning, it was so flat, I was struggling with the sky.

But now we've got sort of creases in this sky.

It's really interesting, that.

- I can feel it happening.

There's a way to go, so I'll let you get on with it.

- Great, thank you.

- Like all these domes and all these spheres and there's a lot of competing elements, so I just kind of decided to focus on one of the domes and just a couple of the spheres.

I went with a kind of a portrait elongated canvas, 'cause I wanted to emphasize the sky.

There was a bit of thunder and lightning earlier and if you're trying to paint an atmospheric sky, like to be honest with you, that kinda stuff kinda helps.

- 31-year-old professional artist James Hayes describes himself as a country boy at heart.

Born in County Kerry, he takes artistic inspiration from the brooding expansive skylines he's grown up with.

Are you happy to see clouds and gray skies, or would you prefer blue skies?

- I'm absolutely thrilled, yeah, I mean, it just doesn't get a lot better than this, does it?

- [Stephen] No.

- [James] Yeah, I'm planning on doing something a bit dramatic, maybe slightly more dramatic than what we've got.

- Your submission was very dramatic.

- Yeah, the submission was dramatic.

- Yeah, a huge landscape with those big storm clouds gathering.

- [James] Yeah.

- [Stephen] Who's the figure in the painting?

- [James] That's my brother.

He ends up in a lot of my work.

He kind of wanders into shot, you know, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

- Do you two come as a pair?

- We do, yeah.

- Today, anyway.

- Are you, are you close in age?

- Yeah, we're twins.

- You're twins.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- That's close in age.

- Relatively close, yeah.

- [Stephen] In the submission you look very moody.

Are you the dark brooding one?

- Always.

- And you're the light sunny smiley one?

- I wouldn't go that far.

- There you go.

Oh really?

You're both moody.

- Yeah.

- Enjoying respite from the rain, our 50 wildcard competitors are working on their interpretations of the medieval castle, vying for the chance of just one place in the semifinal.

- Well, that's great.

I mean, I think you're the only person who's had the guts to take on the whole castle.

So well done.

- What I find interesting is there's a lot of color.

I mean, and given that it's a gray day, I mean, I know there's a lot of green, but there's a lot of psychedelic color as well.

There are people playing with bright colors.

- The way the castle's reflected in the brown water, I mean- - Pink water.

- I'm sure the water's brown and it's pink because the castle's reflecting it, but whatever.

There are, you know, you're talking about colors.

I mean, I'm looking and it looks like a very drab day, and even this great castle looking pretty drab, but I think you're right.

People are compensating because as they're looking or finding their way into the painting, they're finding these colors to work with.

- Over your shoulder, I can see an amazing picture, which is mainly sky and just the turret of the castle.

- They've all cracked on at an incredible pace.

- Everything you do, do you put that black line?

- I'm not really interested in a landscape in a conventional way, but I like the shapes.

So the black line helps me to kind of pull out the shapes really.

- Works so well, well done.

I like your umbrella as well.

- The fact that water's running down your painting, you know, adds to it somehow.

- Basically you just got your back to this castle, you're bossing the castle out because you're saying, "I'd rather not paint the castle."

We've got the tiniest sliver.

- I don't particularly like the building, but I think it works reasonably well the way I've just put it on the edge like that.

- [Joan] Back at the observatory, our selected artists are also feeling the effects of the meteorological mayhem.

- The weather has been so crazy.

I've changed the sky a million times.

You kind of hear claps of thunder, and you think, "Oh yeah," and you kind of try and get the dark clouds in, and now I might as well just catch the rain on my canvas and see what happens.

- As the weather is changing, so are the colors, so are the tones, and you have to just do what I saw earlier, as well as what I see now.

- Every time I look at the balls, again, they've changed in color or pattern.

Of course, the sky's done the same, I'm gonna have to rework that.

Plenty to do.

- Our eight artists are nearly halfway through their challenge to depict the renowned observatory at Herstmonceux in Sussex.

With just over two hours left, one artist is still struggling with her composition.

- Pippa, here, I'm looking at the center and there's an emptiness to it.

- Yeah.

- [Kathleen] You still need to give your work a sort of a focus, don't you?

- Yeah.

- So, I mean, where would you say the focus is at the moment?

- [Pippa] I don't know, that's the problem at the moment.

- [Kathleen] Might you introduce an object or a thing in this middle ground?

- Well, I was thinking of painting the- - Oh, the camera?

- Yeah.

- And totally uninterested in that copper roof of the observatory, it doesn't appeal to you at all?

- Not really.

- What is it that put you off it?

- The shape of it, the color of it, where it is in the background.

- You're screwing up your nose at this observatory, you're just absolutely not having any of it.

Well, good for you, I mean.

- Sorry.

- [Kate] No, we want you to paint a version of what's in front of you, and you've chosen your very particular quieter corner.

So good for you.

- [Joan] Clearly not at a loss in the landscape is Chi-Yien, who's already completed one canvas and is now working on another.

- Chi-Yien, you're on your second painting.

- I am.

- It's a different composition, tell me why.

You got bored.

- This was more of a study.

This is me having fun.

It's like sitting an exam.

You kind of, you do your best very early on, make sure you get everything done, and then you kind of go, ah.

- [Joan] Also having artistic fun is Roy.

- [Kathleen] I love the way that you've got the echoes of the silver balls in the sky.

I love that.

- I don't know whether they're gonna stay in there or not.

- Okay.

- [Roy] I'm not averse to pushing a bit towards the abstract.

- [Kathleen] Okay.

- [Roy] I don't know, I think we'll have to wait and see.

- Oh, so even you don't know.

- I'm really not sure.

- So what do the judges think of our eight artists' progress so far?

Is there anything nicer than coming to the British countryside in the summer?

- I think it's the worst we've had.

- It's definitely the hardest rain.

- [Kathleen] But possibly the best quality of work in the pods that we've had.

The complexity of the vista that we've given them has actually made them all put a lot more thought into it.

- [Stephen] How is Patsy coping?

- [Tai] What is beautiful is the red ground she's used that's all coming through.

I think what we liked about her work was a sense of her color palette being slightly off.

And at the moment, I'm not getting that enough.

- Roy's been here before.

Is his experience telling?

- The way he puts his paint on is consistent and it's very beautiful.

Very strange that the orbs are reflected in the sky, which I don't think is necessary.

- But I quite liked seeing him this morning with his compass, you know, making sure he got everything right.

And then as he paints, he sort of paints a lot of life into it.

- Pippa's not interested, it seems, in the spheres or the observatories particularly.

Is that a problem?

- [Tai] She's struggling, but in this struggle, she's reduced the whole thing down to just a field of green and one orb, and I think it's looking rather elegant.

- I worry though that it's a bit dull in color.

It just seems a bit flat.

- [Kathleen] I love the color and the density of that color, the sort of chalkiness the opaqueness of it.

The palette that she's chosen today is really attractive.

- Chi-Yien's interesting.

She's on her second canvas, very vivid, her painting.

- Very vivid, and she uses color really well, she plays around with the paint on the surface, lets it skid around different, brush marks.

There's very little drawing, and a lot of it is done through this big gusto act of painting.

- The second composition I think is slightly stronger, but she works so fast.

I think she just needs to back off a bit and slow down and really sort of tighten the things up a bit, because at the moment I think it's too energetic.

- [Stephen] How'd Drew do?

- He starts with what's furthest back, so when he paints something over the top, it is physically in front of what is behind.

So the actual paint is following the same regression as- - [Stephen] Rather than just sitting side-by-side.

- I don't know if we've had anyone paint like that really on this program before, but I think it's quite an interesting way of doing it.

- Some fine work out there.

Let's see how they get on before those orbs hatch and our alien overlords rule the earth.

- [Joan] The view of the observatory our artists are painting today only came about in the 1950s.

The original Royal observatory was based in Greenwich, founded by King Charles II in 1675.

By the mid-19th century, light pollution in the capital prompted proposals to relocate the observatory to a rural location.

In 1957, it moved here to Herstmonceux.

Individual domes were constructed on the site to house six large telescopes, their green copper cladding designed to blend in with the Sussex landscape.

At its busiest, 200 astronomers and support staff were based at the Herstmonceux site monitoring the night skies.

The seven-meter long Thompson refractor is one of the largest telescopes in the world.

In 1969, it was used by a team of astronomers assigned by NASA to map the surface of the moon ahead of the Apollo mission, and it's still in working order.

Every night, the Herstmonceux astronomers mapped the position of the sun and stars, and were even responsible for generating the Greenwich time signal, more commonly known as the BBC pips.

In 1990, the Royal Observatory moved again, this time to Cambridge to be close to the university, but the old telescopes and their iconic green domes remain here at Herstmonceux.

The site is now a science education center, inspiring the next generation of stargazers.

- [Stephen] Today, down the hill from the observatory, 50 wildcards have spent their day dodging the downpours, capturing the castle on canvas.

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

- Two ladies in purple.

Did you deliberately set out around?

- No, totally accidental.

- Except we both like purple, obviously.

- [Joan] Now, yours is not purple.

- No, but there are elements of purple there.

- So this is yours.

- It is.

- What do you say she should do now?

- Scrap it and start again, I think.

- So which of our wild cards has impressed today?

- They've been amazing, and some really good work has come out of this dreadful day.

- [Kate] There was a guy at the very far end, and he did a large landscape, and he was using masking fluid, and actually he really allowed the rain to literally tell the story of the morning.

- And that fantastic tree, did you see the?

- Yes, with the rope swing.

- I loved that.

- [Kate] It's beautiful.

- The one that stands out for me in terms of picture-making is the woman who's got a sliver of the- - I love her, do you like that one?

- I do like it.

I think the way in which she structured the trees with the colors I thought was very effective.

So yeah, let's go for her.

- Okay, good.

- Yeah, cool, okay, we got a winner.

We really like your painting.

It's caught enough of the castle to get away with it.

Well done, congratulations.

- Thank you very much.

- I'm absolutely delighted, thank you.

(applause) It's always a boost really to know that somebody else likes what you are doing.

It's an absolute thrill, and it makes you think, "Yeah, "I can do this," and I'll just carry on doing it.

- [Joan] Sue England from Chichester will enter a pool of wildcard winners from all the heats, at the end of which one will be selected for a place in the semifinal.

- [Stephen] Back at the observatory, our eight artists are into their final hour.

- The only thing that's worrying me at the moment is will I get it finished?

But it's an interesting challenge.

I'm not defeated by it yet.

- Right now, I have no red brickworking and rusty red doors.

I've got those to do.

If I don't get those in, then it's gonna look weird, so I must get those in.

- There's a couple of things that I can't quite right, which I'm kind of just gonna run with.

Domes haven't been easy, but it's too far on to undo them now.

(upbeat orchestral music) - Here at Herstmonceux observatory in Sussex, our eight artists are coming to the end of their landscape challenge, with final make-or-break decisions being made.

- I've got 10 minutes to go, and I'm just trying to paint the camera crew.

They're quite difficult 'cause they keep moving around.

- Filling up the obvious gaps, the details, bits and pieces.

- My main concern is choosing the right painting.

I need a big hand to come along and push one over or something like that.

I can't make a decision.

- Artists, you have one minute left.

- Another half hour would've been nice, but I've done what I can, I think.

(upbeat orchestral music) - Artists, the laws of space and time cannot be broken.

Your time is up.

- Please put down your equipment and stand away from your easels.

(applause) - Well done, mate, nice one.

- Thanks.

- Very well done.

- Well done, you.

- [Joan] For our artists, the hardest part is over, but for our judges, it's just beginning.

- I think Patsy's been really clever.

Sometimes when people have a seductive under-color, they overplay it, and I think she's just given us enough of that fantastic deep rose pink.

- There's a kind of distance also in Patsy's painting as though you've come across a very strange scene.

I think the circus tent, you don't know what it is from a distance.

It just gives it a certain mystery.

What I particularly like about Roy's painting is the color of the copper.

It's so well-observed.

You've even got the sense of its age, but also it's wetness from the rain, and he's just caught it perfectly.

- [Kathleen] Yeah, and that echoing of the spheres, the whole thing is just wonderfully weird, really, but also precise and accurate.

- I love Chi-Yien's mark-making, the way she puts paint on.

I'm glad she went for the first version because it's more contained.

You know, with that kind of painting, you need some control, and I think this has just about got it.

- [Kate] It's a kind of "Alice in Wonderland" trippy version of being here today.

I'm really pleased that James chose this composition.

I mean, the sky is a tour de force.

You really get the sense of that sun doing its best to break through this thick cloud.

- [Kathleen] A lot of them reduced that area of sky 'cause it was just too much, but he's just reveled in it.

- I love Stephen's scratchiness.

I thought that Stephen used line to construct space, but here he seems to use line to construct atmosphere as well.

It's sort of rainy and uncomfortable.

- [Kathleen] It leaves an awful lot to the imagination in a very sort of poetic way.

Tamara's all about reducing form and color and shape.

- There are really unusual shapes in here, which are very much Tamara's making, you know, these are not spherical.

I do wonder, though, how successful this kind of green lawn is.

- Finally, the unsung heroes of "Landscape Artist of the Year", the valiant camera team.

This side of the canvas was crying out for something, and actually, you know, she resolved it with this inclusion.

- [Tai] Pippa's such a master mark-maker with gouache.

If she'd picked a more complex composition, she would have pulled off something quite amazing today.

- Drew made a very quiet, honest painting about today.

He might be one of the most successful artists to deal with the orbs.

The way that he kind of swirls the paint inside.

- I like it, it's got a freshness.

I could spend a lot of time looking at it.

- [Stephen] The judges can only pick one artist to send through to the semifinal.

So they initially narrow their selection to a shortlist of three.

- It's all about the balls today, isn't it?

And the three that I feel have been most successful in dealing with that sort of luminescence that you get from them, those two.

- Yeah, they're great.

- And that one.

- And those three, which really stand out, for me, used the orbs to their advantage.

- The ones that we've picked are believable, and I think if you took the painting away from here, anybody's seeing it would understand what's happening.

- Absolutely.

Okay, good day painting.

- Artists, you've all done exceptionally well dealing with this extraordinary scene today.

- Sadly, only three of you can be shortlisted, and the judges have made their selection.

The first artist on the shortlist is Roy Carlos.

(applause) - The second artist is Patsy Moore.

(applause) - The third artist, Drew Carr.

(applause) - Commiserations to all of you who haven't made it, but we have really enjoyed watching your efforts today.

They have been exceptionally good.

- Well done.

(applause) - It was an amazing experience.

I will keep painting in my speed with the same vibrant colors.

I feel very encouraged.

- [Joan] Taking into consideration the artists' submission paintings, the judges must now make their final decision.

- Well, our painters today struggled through some difficult conditions.

- All these three have really risen to the challenge, actually.

- So let's talk about each artist in turn, and starting with Patsy here.

- I think I like Patsy's work today more than I like this.

There's something about her submission that is very sort of staccato and precise.

There's a more organic nature to the work that she made today.

- [Kate] The choice of the ground is really, really sensible, and just the way that it comes through just enough.

- [Tai] With that beautiful red ground coming through, and that sort of the purple in the sky, she's a really great colorist.

- Tai, earlier in the day, you were worried about Roy's reflecting the orbs in the clouds, but has he resolved that for you successfully?

- It seems to make sense.

I got some sci-fi soundtrack coming through the clouds there and I think those vibrations, they make the painting more interesting.

- And I'm pleased to see that he's just taking one step into something a bit more surreal, and I think it really raised his game for us today.

- Drew, Drew came through.

- Drew, I think Drew's painting has a language that makes sense, and the subdued color and simplification works very well, but I would've liked a more vital surface.

- He didn't put a contrivance on top of the work, he didn't just have a trick of seeing something through something else, he really painted what he saw today, and he's got this fantastic sense of distance.

- I think all three of these artists today didn't just really nail the orbs, but they really thought carefully about the kind of sky that we had.

This is not a characterless sky.

- Well, the English summer's finally arrived a few hours too late.

You need to pick a winner, I'm gonna go and get my Speedos on.

- Patsy, Roy, Drew, it is of course a fantastic achievement to have made it to the last three, but there can only be one winner.

- And the judges have made their decision.

The artist they have chosen to put through to the semifinal is Patsy Moore.

- Wow.

(applause) - Thank you.

I'm stunned that I've got through.

The fact that the judges recognized something in my work is a big confidence boost.

(applause) - On a wet, miserable, cold day, Patsy sort of outshone the others.

Beautiful colors, beautiful sense of mood.

She gave us that slightly surreal nature of the scene, but also the reality of it at the same time.

- Winning this heat means the world to me.

It's fabulous, tremendous.

(upbeat orchestral music)