- [Stephen] Hello from the classical splendor of West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire, where you find us in front of one of its many delightful follies, the Temple of Music.

- But the bucolic tranquility of the scene is about to be shattered as six artists pull out all the stops in their bid for landscape glory.

Let's hope they can strike the right note and come up with a harmonious composition.

- Oh, we should've worn cords.

Welcome to "Landscape Artist of the Year."

(melodic orchestral music) - [Joan] During this series, 36 talented artists have been challenged to capture some of the UK's most spectacular views from modern, architectural cityscapes to grand country estates.

- [Stephen] Today, amongst the landscaped grounds of West Wycombe Park, four professional artists have come to tackle the vista, Renata Fernandez, Shaun Morris, Dougie Adams and Sofia Brook.

- I've arrived charged up and ready, I hope.

- [Stephen] And braving their chances are two plucky amateurs, Kirandeep Green and Rosemary Firth.

- Starting off might be difficult 'cause I'll be shaking.

- [Joan] They'll be under the scrutiny of our ever demanding judges, Tai Shan Shierenberg, Kathleen Soriano and Kate Bryan.

- I love the disco temple.

"Right, we're gonna rave in this landscape."

- [Stephen] The artists are competing for a prestigious 10,000 pound commission of awe inspiring Snowdonia to celebrate the anniversary of the National Trust's first ever land donation.

- [Joan] Also trying their luck are our 50 intrepid wildcard artists, all hoping to make an impression.

- The only thing I don't love is painting greens and here we are in green city.

- [Stephen] So who's got the stamina?

- I'm a woman on a mission basically, that's how I'm gonna take this.

- [Stephen] As well as the strategy.

- I do have a plan, but I don't know if I wanna tell you yet.

(laughing) - Join us as we search for the next "Landscape Artist of the Year."

So there'll come a moment when you start splashing color?

- Yeah.

- Oh, I'd like to be there for that.

- Everyone stand back.

(laughing) (melodic orchestral music) (melodic piano music) - While the six qualifying artists set up their mobile studios for the day, the judges get the chance to examine the submission artworks, which until now they've only seen as digital images.

Welcome to the wall.

We're here in some classic English countryside, but we're gonna take you all around the world, but we start in what looks unmistakably like more English countryside.

- [Kate] I think what's great about this painting is it's so impressionistic, it's very slight, it's not overworked, it's definitely got freshness.

- And I think that's partly to do with the way in which the brush strokes have gone on, it's (gasping), you know, it's almost breathless.

- The second one looks like there's a story.

- Yeah, a really clever use of color as well, the way in which they use that orange to bounce around the canvas, you can see it just on the edge of the tree in the right-hand side.

- It's interesting because on a painting, the whitest thing you have is white paint or the surface of the paint and how do you make that glow?

It means you've got to push everything much further down in terms of tonality to make it feel like light's coming up.

- [Stephen] Right, well, let's leave these shores behind and head to South America.

- Yeah, you can feel the heat, you can feel the intensity, the humidity and all these different tiny brush strokes, that have gone in to create different types of foliage.

There's no sky, there's no real horizon and it's in this oval shape, so you feel as a consequence immediately sort of thrown into it, you can almost feel those bushes brushing up against your knees, you're right in the thick of the jungle.

- The feeling of the painting has got some sort of historical botanical feel to it and the idea of the whole thing being done in this one color, I think is extraordinary.

- Now for something completely different, the Bay of Naples.

- [Tai] There are some incredibly big brush strokes on there, aren't there?

- Hm, it's confident.

I think that's what I enjoy, there's a luxuriousness to it and that's partly to do with the quality of the brush strokes, the way they sort of sweep you across the Bay almost in the same way as you would, if you were walking along it.

But I think they've also observed the light really well here as well, if you look at the sides of the trees, the light is definitely coming from the right.

So even though it feels very reduced, it's also accurately observed from a light point of view.

- [Stephen] Asia now to the mountains outside Yangzhou.

- It's full of contrast, isn't it?

That's what I find really interesting, 'cause the hills in the background, they're not very literal and almost transparent, but then you've got this density of the paint, that they've put in the foreground, which sort of fights against it slightly, so it's as if you've got these two worlds colliding.

- It actually really convincingly takes your eye on this journey really far away, which is actually something quite hard to pull off on a tiny, little piece of paper.

It definitely feels like it belongs in a lovely kind of book of fairytales.

- And finally, as the warm winds of summer caress our cheeks, we head to the bleak mid-winter.

- [Kate] So this is someone who's using collage in a really nice way, these sort of painted passages, that they've then collaged together.

I think the treatment of the trees is fantastic.

- I think this art is sort of saying, "How do I paint a winter landscape without painting white and white?"

And they've just used color just nicely enough to add accents and lead your eye through the picture plane, so very inventive.

- Well, we've been all around the world, but today we're in Buckinghamshire, so let's see what they come up with.

(soft orchestral music) Artists, I hope you are feeling inspired by this wonderful view and that the muse is with you.

- You have four hours to complete your landscapes.

We wish each of you good luck, your time starts now.

(melodic orchestral music) The artists use various methods to help compose their work.

- [Kirandeep] Trees, stop moving.

(melodic orchestral music) - [Joan] In the landscaped grounds of West Wycombe, today's artists are facing a view of serene, classical elegance, featuring a serpentine lake fringed by mature woodland and at its center, one of the estate's many architectural follies, the Temple of Music.

- We've given the artists a real treat, I mean, it's heavenly, it's a lake, it's a temple, blue skies.

There are advantages and disadvantages to this landscape.

If they wanna really connect with nature, they can really be thinking about the water, the changing surface, but for the artists that want something gritty and strange and unpredictable, they're gonna have to do a bit more work to find that here.

We've got six very different artists, so they're gonna have to navigate their way through it.

- I think it's perfect for me, because I like to look through things into the distance and I was hoping there wasn't gonna be a building straight in front of me, I was terrified it was gonna be that, but this is perfect.

I'm gonna simplify the trees down into shapes and patterns, because of it being collage that I'm doing.

(soft orchestral music) - [Stephen] Former art teacher, Rosemary Firth is an amateur artist who now runs printmaking and life drawing classes from her home in Doncaster.

Her submission showing her local park in winter was made from collage, using materials repurposed from previous artworks.

- Rosemary, what are you trying to do?

- I'm just trying to do something in the sky.

It's just a bit, ah, what's the word?

- Boring, I mean, not that, I mean that.

(Rosemary laughing) - [Rosemary] Yeah, as soon as I rip a bit off, it does something new.

- [Tai] That is so exciting, I mean- - It is exciting.

- You use your palette and I'm just thinking, yeah, what my palette looks like is really boring, I mean, just thinking this.

But the inherent dangers are that has, there's a dynamic in what you're using, that makes the eye do something else.

- Exactly, exactly, that's why I like doing it.

- I think it sounds really fabulous.

- It's much more fun than painting.

(Tai laughing) (light orchestral music) - I decided I just want to do a whole landscape in four stages, one, two, three, four and I will place the composition in a way, that once they're together, you can read it either way.

I'm sketching with masking tape and want to use the color of the wood and the texture, so I'm covering it where I want it to show.

- [Joan] Renata Fernandez is a professional painter based in London who previously took part in "Landscape Artist of the Year," 2016, competing at Scotney Castle in Kent.

Her submission this year painted in oils, depicts the tropical plant life of Caracas in her native Venezuela.

Renata, what are you up to here?

You've got four panels.

- Yeah.

- So do you always work like that?

- I work in several works at the same time, as a result, I end up with multi-panel works.

I cannot just concentrate on one, I need to have several things going on.

- [Joan] And how do you feel about today?

- I feel confident, I'm feeling confident.

I might do a radical solution to finish them off and as a coherent kind of work.

- Are you going to tell me what it is?

- I just get a very bright color, really shocking and then I frame part of the work.

It's a little bit radical.

Everything goes right now, for me, everything goes, I'm ready to do anything to make it work.

- We need to keep an eye on you.

(melodic piano music) (birds chirping) - I took some photos over there, because I like to have a bit of a frame around my picture, but I also wanna get that building in as well, so I've surrounded that tree around that building.

(melodic piano music) - [Stephen] Amateur artist, Kirandeep Green is a makeup artist and beauty therapist from Birmingham.

Her submission painted in acrylics shows the mountains and forests of Yangzhou in China, re-imagined from a photo she took on holiday.

- Kirandeep, I was quite surprised about how much sky you'd given yourself in that composition.

- Yeah, I'm not gonna use a lot of sky, I'm using the tree.

- [Kathleen] Oh, so are we gonna see a little bit of foreground like we had in your submission?

- Yeah, I like that, 'cause it kind of makes you see something from another point of view.

- It's like you're looking through a window, isn't it?

- Yeah, exactly, it's like a dreamland.

- Okay and is that what you feel about here as well?

Do you feel it's a bit like a dreamland here?

- [Kirandeep] A little bit, that's what I'm trying to achieve.

- What's not working for you?

- It's not like my work.

(laughing) - But that's okay, I think the important thing is that you stick true to your own style.

- Yeah.

- I have confidence in you.

- Thank you.

- Focus.

(soft orchestral music) - [Joan] It's not just the six pod artists, who've come armed with easels and canvases.

50 more artists have descended on the country estate to try their luck at wildcards.

- Beautiful day, wonderful spot, so what could be better than this really?

- I suppose I'd better get some paint out for some drama.

(soft orchestral music) - The only thing I don't love is painting greens and here we are in green city.

- There is every kind of green.

- I know, I'm just finding out.

- [Joan] Should any of the wildcards catch the eye of the judges, they could be in with a chance of a place at the semi-final.

- Big, bold and beautiful, that one.

- [Artist] I'm used to painting quite fast.

- So there'll come a moment when you start splashing color?

- Yeah.

- Oh, I'd like to be there for that.

- Everyone stand back.

(laughing) - [Stephen] In their pods on the edge of the lake, the six heat artists have spent the last hour getting to grips with the classical perfection of their view and that's not the only thing ruffling their feathers.

- The wind is driving me potty, but you know, what can I say?

- I'm slightly worried about being outdoors with a collage material, because if it would be a disaster, if everything blew away.

- There is quite a breeze today and there's water very close, so what are the challenges of painting outside?

- My hair getting in my way.

(laughing) - I know exactly how you feel.

(melodic orchestral music) (soft orchestral music) Amidst the grounds of West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire, six competitive artists are one hour into their challenge to capture this tranquil view.

- Dougie, you've given us a really vast expanse of water, 'cause actually you've pushed your horizon line three-quarters of the way up the picture.

- Just so I can get a bit more depth and then elsewhere, the paint will be a bit quieter.

- Yeah.

- Just to move the viewer's eye around.

- [Kate] Are you quite excited about painting the water?

- [Dougie] I am, but panicky, 'cause of the wind.

- Ah, yeah, well, the wind's gonna keep you on your toes for sure.

- [Joan] Professional artist, Dougie Adams is an ex-Grenadier Guard who turned to painting in 2016 after completing three tours of duty in Afghanistan.

His submission painted in oils shows an abandoned golf course near his home in Nottingham.

- What about the color palette, do you like working in these slightly darker tones?

- Yeah, so even though it's quite a limited palette, you've got like a warm and cool of each.

- [Kate] Yeah.

- Opaque and transparent compared to the others.

- Yeah.

- So you can play around with it a lot.

- But you still veer toward the slightly- - Muted tone.

- Yeah, more muted tones.

- Yeah.

- Yeah and what about the time, is it a problem for you to make a painting in a day, have you done that before?

- Maybe not this size, normally it's quite a bit smaller.

- [Kate] Okay, have you practiced doing something this size?

- [Dougie] I have and I've failed twice.

- Oh wow, so you've wanted to challenge yourself then?

- A bit.

- Yeah.

- For today's competition.

- [Stephen] A classical landscape.

- Yeah.

- Classical building in a classically constructed landscape.

What are the tools at the disposal of an artist to painting a view like today to give it a spin that is not cliched, hackneyed?

- In a funny way, it's why we've chosen them to be in the competition and it's about their own language.

So we've got artists who rather than just reproducing what they're seeing, are taking what they see generally and interpreting it and in that action of reinterpretation, we get that shift that we're looking for.

- [Stephen] Does that favor one type of artist over another?

- I think the more classical artists in our competitor group will have to be careful of falling down that rabbit hole, where they're producing something that's art historical.

- So an 18th century landscape needs a 21st century eye to impress you?

- Yes.

What we're looking for is landscape going forward.

- We have a few swans.

- Oh.

- A swan is a dangerous thing in a painting, is it not?

- Boats, swans, people, you know what I'm like.

- Yeah.

- But then, you know, somebody might put a swan in here in a way that I had never thought possible and that would be delightful.

- Elizabeth Bennett strangling a swan in front of the folly.

- Yeah, are you gonna be Elizabeth Bennett?

- Sure, I'll play anything.

(Tai laughing) (light orchestral music) - One artist is bringing a distinctly modern eye to this traditional landscape.

Now Shaun, this isn't your normal stamping ground, you like industrial, edge of cities.

- Yeah, yeah.

- How do you feel about today?

- Yeah, a bit of a challenge today.

Building looks quite tricky, the columns and the details, but there's something about that that appeals as well, in a strange way, they remind me of some of the motorway concrete columns, that you see at Spaghetti Junction.

I'm seeing it with my Birmingham urban lens on there.

- So it's not quite your style, is it?

- No, no, it isn't.

- Shaun Morris is a lecturer in Fine Art from the West Midlands.

Fascinated by the desolate hinterlands between towns and cities, Shaun's vibrant submission painting shows an empty, illuminated bus stop.

It took him an hour and a half to complete.

Lots of bright color here straight on.

- Yeah, yeah.

- A bright pink?

- Well, that's just a ground, you know, so yeah, that's the idea of perhaps, maybe have it sort of flickering through, you know, it's something to work against, I'm already finding it a bit of a problem.

But I think with a building, that pink might really help.

(melodic piano music) - [Stephen] Relying on a bold approach is something another artist is also hoping will help her tackle today's view.

- My style is to try and be quite broad brush.

I'm trying to stay true to myself, so I'm not sort of fighting my natural instinct to kind of keep things quite loose.

- [Stephen] Former primary school teacher, Sofia Brook left her career to retrain as a fine artist and now paints plein air landscapes whenever possible.

Her large scale submission depicts the Bay of Naples and took 60 hours to complete.

- Sofia, is the sky problematic?

It's a large portion of the painting.

- Yes, I did decide to go quite big on sky.

I'm gonna continue to sort of adapt it slightly, 'cause it's just an ever changing feast of purple and white and blue.

- Do you want the sky to become more complex?

Do you want weather?

Would it make it?

- Ah, I think I do.

I feel at the moment, it's a little bit too pretty and I quite want to somehow rein in, it's a sort of vicious circle sometimes, I pull out color and then I try and knock it back again, so I continue to battle to the end.

(laughing) - That's what we want to hear.

- [Joan] Meanwhile, further along the lake and nestled among the trees are our 50 wildcard artists and the blustery conditions are not entirely unwelcome.

- I'm looking really carefully at the landscape and I'm particularly interested in the wind today, it's quite windy, so I want to try and capture that movement within the painting.

(soft orchestral music) - You've turned your back on architecture, you've turned your back on the water, you are here in the trees.

- I love trees and the light this morning across the trees at the back was- - Just incredible and the luminous quality of the green, which you've captured so beautifully.

(soft orchestral music) - I'm interested in your use of color.

We have a joke that our artists complain there's too much green and you certainly have just thought, "Well, I'm gonna use different colors."

Will there be more color coming into your painting?

- Hopefully as it builds up, I'll figure out where to maybe put more color in, but I'm a bit green phobic myself.

- Green phobic, I like that, that's a good, we'll be using that later.

(both laughing) - Good.

(soft orchestral music) - [Joan] The wildcard artists are hoping to impress the judges for a chance of winning a place in the semi-final.

- [Kathleen] This bunch of wildcards, they're having so much fun.

- I know, they're having a lovely day out.

- It's strange because they're all quite contained together, yet somehow they've all found very distinctive elements in the landscape.

- [Kate] There's a woman over there, who's just doing the fields in these very bright colors.

- And one over here just looking into the forest.

What's quite interesting as well today is that some of them are working on a very, very small, very detailed scale and then you've got the woman right over in the corner working on a huge, square canvas, really sort of taking lots of liberties with color, there are purple clouds and all sorts of things.

But she's having a whale of a time.

- Yeah, no, I think actually this is probably one of our most versatile wildcard locations.

- They're still complaining about green though.

- They can complain all they want about the green, but I mean, we've given them water, we've given them temples, follies fields, trees.

- All green.

(Kate sighing heavily) Yeah.

- We've given them sunshine.

- Yeah.

- We could bring on the rain if we wanted to.

(laughing) - In the stately grounds of Buckinghamshire's West Wycombe Park, the six pod artists are almost halfway through their four-hour challenge, but the Temple of Music is proving deceptively difficult.

Are you happy painting buildings?

- No, I like to have more time 'cause I have more detail.

- [Stephen] Why don't you just ignore the building?

- [Kirandeep] No, I can't do that, because that's another beauty within the landscape, I can't ignore it.

- Oh, you can ignore it, I mean, you're the artist.

- No, I don't wanna ignore it.

- Oh, okay.

(Kirandeep laughing) I don't wanna get into a fight about it.

- The building's there all in all, I just need to find the rest of it, just fully go for it.

- I've made bit of a mess of the building, so I'm just trying to repair that.

- I need to do quite a lot of work on the temple, so pressure's on.

(soft orchestral music) (melodic piano music) - [Stephen] Here at West Wycombe Park, six artists have spent two hours capturing the classical view across the lake, an element that's causing ripples of discontent.

- It's just so hard, because the water so keeps changing and I don't want to do anything at this stage, that now jeopardizes things.

- Water is notoriously difficult and it keep changing, it keep changing, you know, the texture, the light, it's a challenge.

- The wind keeps blowing the reflections away.

Maybe I need to work a bit more bolder, just put lots of paint on and just worry about it later.

- While the artists negotiate the shifting conditions, the judges have been observing progress all morning.

Well, the sun's shining, there's a lovely, refreshing breeze, so we're having a great day in the weather, but what's the weather like for the art?

- I think with a landscape that is this classical, this manmade, the artists have got to do quite a lot to stay true to themselves and not let it consume them.

- Well, let's start with Rosemary.

- Yeah, I must say Rosemary's language is very inventive.

It's quite interesting seeing how she's torn the paper and not being able to understand it and then as you step back, it sort of jumps into a reality and impression of water.

- I think at the moment it's a bit light, but it might just be that process of collage, you know, hopefully at the end of the day, Rosemary will bring it all together a bit more.

- Renata, I'm not very clear where Renata is going with her work, because she's got four different panels.

- She understands that in order to make herself stand out against the others, she needs to give us something, that's more than just what it looks like.

- [Tai] There's some panels which feel very underdone and I think they're rather magical and mysterious and I'm worried as the day progresses, if she tries to pin down each of the views, she'll start losing that magic quality.

- Well, Shaun knows what he's doing, it's very in your face.

What do we feel about that, Kathleen?

- [Kathleen] I like its colorfulness and its playfulness, the way in which he's replicated the reflections of the pillars on the water in color.

I think it's fun, but it's real and it's very him.

- He needs to sort of make sure that his language doesn't take over so much, that we completely forget that we're in West Wycombe, we still need to have a relationship to this particular landscape.

- Okay, Sofia, bold of brush and brush stroke, common to both her submission and today's painting, yes?

- I do see those juicy brush strokes.

It's looking like the bones of a really strong painting to me, I like this reduction, I like her approach, I'm confident.

- Okay, has Dougie fulfilled any of that?

- I was worried about Dougie, because his submission is very traditional and today, his composition is ingenious and that he's put the temple or the folly right at the top and what we're looking at is an expanse of water as we travel across and actually it's very much about the way he applies the paint.

- [Kathleen] And I'm loving these chalky, dry sweeps at the moment, I'm a little bit nervous, that it's all going to get sort of tentative and breathless before the end of today.

- So we come to Kirandeep, Tai?

- I couldn't see really where this drawing, painting was going and then she's brought the foliage in, which has framed the image.

Suddenly I feel I'm in a place and I'm somewhere and I'm discovering a landscape beyond, which is of course exactly the magical property she brought to her submission.

- It seems to me that overall, they're all on track to do what they want to do.

- We've got a very straightforward day and I want them to find another chord just to make it a bit more interesting.

We've been very demanding today, I want a bit more.

(Tai and Kate laughing) (melodic piano music) - I think the temple and the water needs a lot of work and if I can somehow pull those elements out, I may find that I don't need to do a huge amount in tightening up the looser sky.

So I'm nearly at panic stage, but I'm gonna try and save myself from that happening.

- I'm still like advancing two and then I need to work on two more and I might sacrifice the last panel, I might, I might not, that's fine, I might.

- [Stephen] What's next?

- Well, I'm adding bits to the parts that I find boring every time I stand back and see bits that are totally awful, but now I've got most of it down, I'm gonna faff now.

- Okay, good, oh, well, I look forward to seeing the results of your faff.

- Nothing.

(laughing) (soft orchestral music) - [Joan] The Palladian stately home and grounds, where we've sited our artists today are largely the vision of one man, Sir Francis Dashwood, the 2nd Baronet.

Just 16, when he inherited the estate and title in 1724, Sir Francis, like other adventurous, aristocratic, young men of his era set off on a grand tour of Europe with contemporary tales revealing his mischievous character.

- We constantly have accounts of him getting up to high antics on his trips abroad.

There's the occasion of when he let a baboon out of a box during a church service and it jumped on Lord Sandwich's back when he was praying and Lord Sandwich thought that this was a devil coming to accost him.

Another account is when he was visiting the Vatican and he dressed up as a devil and he wore a hooded robe and went up and down the aisle, whipping all the penitent sinners and again, they thought the devil was amongst them.

- [Joan] Inspired by the Grand Renaissance art and architecture he encountered during his European travels and with access to a vast fortune, Sir Francis created West Wycombe Park to impress and entertain.

There's been much speculation on the kind of licentious entertainment he provided for his guests.

An example of his ribald nature is one of the many architectural follies, that dot the estate, the Temple of Venus.

Intended to celebrate and represent the female form, the folly features a replica of the Venus de Milo, while the provocative, oval entrance to the cave underneath suggests female sexuality.

Few English estates reveal the character of one man as West Wycombe Park does, the grounds a monument to his rakish nature, lavish means and artistic style.

(soft orchestral music) - [Stephen] And amidst this well-groomed park, the 50 wildcard artists have been demonstrating their own artistic styles.

- Oh, someone painting our fellow competitors.

Yeah, I love it when the other wildcards are in, that's great.

(soft orchestral music) - Oh, it's definitely.

- [Kate] What a good bunch of wildcards, we've had everything.

- I quite like the fact that some of them are working on quite the small scale and they're not being too shouty and noisy and they're just either doing their little ink drawings or they're doing their little watercolor pencils or whatever, so that's level of focus and they've all found somewhere in this great landscape.

- That interests them.

- I think that's the trick actually, you give them enough and they all find a little niche, even some who are very antisocial and turn their back on everybody to find their own scene.

- [Kathleen] Would you do that?

- Funnily enough, I would.

- Of course he would.

- You know me so well.

- He'd be half a mile away, if Tai was a wildcard.

Have you seen the artist, who's working in black ballpoint pen?

- [Kathleen] It's very sort of Gothic and dark.

- Yeah, I think that's good.

- Yeah, I like that.

- [Tai] And nice, a close up with the sun.

- [Kathleen] Yeah, yeah.

- Completely leaving the trees out, 'cause he doesn't like trees, fine.

- And then there's a woman sitting down at the water's edge, who started with some very unrelated colors and has found the ugliness in the landscape and produced something really rather stark with a lot of ink drawing or black drawing.

- Yeah, gorgeous.

- That's actually lovely.

- [Kathleen] Very, very sort of textural and inky and dark.

- There was a woman down the hill a bit, who painted just the trees and she caught this absolutely majestic burnt orange color, that the ground had this morning, I thought that was great.

- I think we've got a winner in there, don't you?

(soft orchestral music) - I'm waiting for the artist to return.

Hello.

(laughing) I caught you off guard.

You're our wildcard winner today.

- Oh, wow, thank you.

- Congratulations.

(crowd applauding) Well done, we loved it, it's such a good approach and we love the way that you found all the colors and it feels like it's here, but very moody and evocative and yeah, congratulations, well done.

(crowd applauding) - Astonished, really surprised, but that's lovely, really nice, really great.

It just confirms that I'm going in the right direction.

You're never quite sure whether what you like is what other people like, so yeah, that's lovely.

- [Stephen] Susan Isaac from Nottinghamshire 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 semi-final.

(melodic orchestral music) - [Joan] A short distance away, our six heat artists are into their final hour of the day's challenge.

- The time's just flown.

My worries are now trying to get the depth with the water.

If I change too much, there is a lot that could go wrong.

(melodic orchestral music) - The reflection of the building is difficult and the sky, I'm gonna come back to, 'cause it keeps changing anyway.

It's all difficult.

(laughing) - I'm chasing specific details, that's when I've lost it.

(melodic orchestral music) - Well, I've kind of messed it up a bit, 'cause of the wind blowing.

Some of it, I'm happy with, some of it, I'm disappointed really.

(laughing) (melodic orchestral music) - Presented with the archetype of an 18th century landscape, our six artists competing at West Wycombe today are nearing the end of their challenge.

With time fast running out, there are some bold moves being made.

You are making me slightly nervous, 'cause that's very orange and you're really going for it.

- I need to make it stand out.

- You'll see that from space with that orange.

(Renata laughing) - [Rosemary] I've added that bit, which ruins the depth to me, if you've got one color against another color.

- Now I'm using bigger bushes than I ought to just to sort of get a bit of different energy into it.

- I've just noticed one thing I can do, that might revolutionize the whole picture, so I'm gonna put in a tree.

- Artists, it's time for those finishing touches now.

You have five minutes left.

- Hey, yay.

(melodic orchestral music) - My heart is racing, there's always something else you could do before you put your brush down.

- Trying to adjust colors and shapes and just trying to bring it together a bit more.

- I've just roughed up the bushes a little bit, I've just made them look a bit more bushier.

(melodic orchestral music) - Okay, okay.

Don't know what I'm doing anymore.

- Artists, your time is up.

- Please stop work and stand away from your easels.

(crowd applauding) (soft orchestral music) - You've got paint on your face.

- I've got paint everywhere, I think.

- Tired, now the adrenaline is dropping down and nothing but relax anymore, like chilling.

(laughing) - [Joan] The artists get the chance to unwind, while the judges cast their critical eye over the completed landscapes.

- You know, I think all our artists struggled a little bit today and part of me just wonders whether it's 'cause we gave them something, that's quite traditional, even in shape and form.

- I don't think anyone's gone 100% purist classical, they've all just found a different strategy, some more successful than others.

- [Kathleen] I think Rosemary's possibly been the most inventive, because there are so many literally layers that are there.

- I've never seen water reproduced like that and I think that finding an equivalence, that is unusual, but absolutely believable is quite close to genius in a sense.

I really like this triptych by Renata.

You have the boathouse, you have the temple and then the far right one is just about foliage and I like the idea of looking at different aspects.

There's something magical about the first panel, where you have this circle of lighter green and in a funny way, the red leads your eye through.

I don't see the red, I just see the landscape.

- I think that Shaun's given us the kind of disco temple.

There was something sort of foreboding about his submission, whereas this one feels like, "Right, we're gonna rave in this landscape."

I like that, I like the energy, I like how vibrant it is.

If this was just shrunken down a few inches, I think we would feel that it was more resolved.

- I think Sofia's given us something quite lyrical, quite elegant, but we haven't got those lovely, abstracted, lickable colors and forms, that we had in her submission.

- I'm not mad on Sofia's sky, but other than that, I love it, it feels exactly like this place, but also it's got her language, it's got her stamp on it.

- [Kathleen] Dougie, I think he's dealt most successfully with the water, that lovely looseness, that's what captivates me, I find myself much more interested in the way he's treated that.

- Now I must say what draws me to Dougie's work is the phenomenal composition.

I mean, just to put the temple up high and have you in a sense fly across the water, it works very well for me.

I think Kirandeep is very good at creating an atmosphere, not dissimilar to her submission in that you get this sense of magical fairytale.

- [Kathleen] And that focus that she's given us on the temple through the foliage takes it outside of the landscape tradition and turns it into something much more about narrative.

- Well, I think I'm quite pleased, that we've got so many different variations of something, which is very specific and very classical.

- [Stephen] The judges must choose three artists to shortlist.

- I really love this, that's the best water for me.

- I mean, I think, yeah, no, it has its merits.

- And I thought that was quite a good one.

- Okay, so I think we need to just spend a bit more time, because it's one of those days, where we're coming at things from a different perspective.

- Yeah.

- After much deliberation, the judges finally reach a decision.

Artists, I hope you've enjoyed the day as much as we have.

It's been a real pleasure watching your creativity at work.

- Sadly though, only three of you can make the shortlist for the semi-final.

The first artist on that shortlist is... (gentle orchestral music) Rosemary Firth.

(crowd applauding) - The second artist is Renata Fernandez.

(crowd applauding) - Wow.

- The third artist is Dougie Adams.

(crowd applauding) (soft orchestral music) - I hope the rest of you aren't too disappointed, because we believe you've all done remarkable work, well done.

(crowd applauding) - To help them decide on who will go through to the semi-final, the judges review the shortlisted works alongside the artists' submissions.

Well, we had a beautiful 18th century view of a folly and a lake, six works of art, how difficult was it to narrow it down to three?

- It was tricky today.

I think each of us found merits in different works, so there was quite a lot of arguing and debate to get to this point.

- [Stephen] Rosemary deserves a medal for just hanging on to all those scraps of paper in the breeze.

- What did she capture of the scene today, that impressed you?

- [Kate] It was Rosemary's handling of the water, you know, she showed us the strange surface of it, the kind of murky depth and it was really effective.

- And I'm just realizing, as I look at her winter landscape, she gives me clues as how to read today's painting, how she plays with perception and how she creates form in a very unusual way, so you have to try hard to understand it and read it, but when you do get through, it is absolutely believable.

- Renata gave us "Pac-Man Trilogy," how do you view the orange?

- Well, I think all three of us saw this in different ways.

I found that it creates a rhythm of how your eye wanders through the landscape on today's three submissions, so it works very well for me.

- I find myself looking first at the orange and then I look at the bare board and only right at the end, do I see the little vignettes, having said that, I love seeing it side by side with the submission, because you see that consistency of the window, that she gives us looking into the work.

- Now we have Dougie, now it has an enormous amount of depth to it.

- [Stephen] I get a sense of vertigo looking at that.

- [Kathleen] Dougie's cleverly taken us into the water, there's no bank there in front of us.

- Yeah and I'm really pleased, that Dougie did focus on the water, 'cause actually the water is one of the most compelling passages of the submission.

So here today we see it exaggerated and I like the sweep of water.

I think it's a really, really perfect painting of today.

- So there we go, you've got three artists left, three very different styles and we need to find a winner.

- Hm.

(gentle piano music) - Rosemary, Renata, Dougie, congratulations to all of you to making it onto the shortlist, but as you well know, only one can go through to the semi-final and the judges have made their decision.

- The artist they have selected is... (tense orchestral music) Dougie Adams.

(crowd applauding) - Well done to Dougie and great sympathy and commiserations to the other two, well done too.

- Oh, absolutely amazing.

Something I didn't think I would achieve and I've achieved it and this is gonna give me a huge confidence boost with my painting.

- Dougie's work today really moved on from the submission, it's a lot freer, it's a lot looser and I hope that he takes that newfound confidence of winning today forward into the next round, because I want to see him open up even more.

- You made a really good compositional choice to just bring it up high like that, yeah.

- Yeah.

I'm just over the moon.

All the works that I've put in over the years, I think it's really paid off.

(soft orchestral music) (melodic orchestral music) (light melodic music)