(gentle music) - Hello, and welcome to a very special occasion.

The winner of Landscape Artist of the Year, Ophelia Redpath has completed her prize commission for the National Trust.

- And gathered here, full of excitement and anticipation, we're about to see the finished artwork for the very first time.

- We're ready, let's hope it's a triumph.

- [Woman] This year out of the thousands of artists who applied to take part in the competition, just 36 were selected.

- Their task, capturing on canvas some of the UK's most spectacular landscapes and throughout, one artist out on all others.

And the judges have decided this year's Landscape Artist of the Year is Ophelia Redpath.

- Winning is wonderful, I'm thrilled.

It'll take a while to sink in.

- [Woman] The prize is a £10,000 commission to create a work of art to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Dinas Oleu, the first piece of land ever donated to the National Trust.

And so Ophelia sets off for whale to immerse herself in the stunning countryside of Snowdonia and the glorious Welsh coast.

A wild scenery that has inspired artists for generations.

- Absolutely amazing, it's like something on a different planet.

- [Man] Ophelia's challenge is to produce a commission that is true to the landscape it depicts, whilst reflecting the founding principles of the National Trust.

- I've got my work cut out for me.

(woman laughing) - I think there's obviously magic in Snowdonia, and if anyone's gonna find it and draw it out and make it distinctly their own it's Ophelia.

- [Woman] This commission will put her artistic talent to the test.

- I'm not panicking, but I'm confused in terms of getting a painting done that makes sense.

- [Woman] Ophelia has four weeks before the formal unveiling of her painting.

- I do hope it's good enough because I'm gonna put everything that I can into it.

- The unveiling of the prize commission.

- Here we go.

(gentle music) - Landscape Artist of the Year, I never, ever thought that that would happen at all.

So it's a lovely title to have, really lovely.

And I'm just slowly taking it all in, yeah.

- [Man] Ophelia Redpath gained a place in this year's competition with her whimsical dreamlike oil painting, The Night Owls.

- [Woman] Her surreal take on London's west reservoir Stoke Newington, won Ophelia her heat.

- The way that she puts paint down, the way that she congers an atmosphere, I love the addition of the heron and the clock.

They're really, really useful components in the painting to take us to somewhere slightly different to today.

It's Stoke Newington, but very much kind of Ophelia's story of Stoke Newington.

- [Man] At the semifinal at London's Olympic Park, Ophelia took a gamble that paid off.

- I thought, should I try a big canvas?

And I thought, okay, I'll go for it.

And I think that made it a lot more, I just felt under much, much more pressure to cover it.

And the other challenge was that there was a big storm in the middle.

The water came flooding in, so that was challenging.

And I thought, well, I've still gotta keep painting.

I was painting the dog and I was painting everything else that I saw.

And there was kind of drips coming down the canvas.

- Ophelia creates these other worldly surreal stories, but that is not what they are actually about, her painting's about much something much more important, man, nature, us encroaching onto nature.

And this kind of spoiling of nature.

- [Woman] As one of three finalists, Ophelia was commissioned to create an artwork of the Japanese gardens at Kew.

This would be judged alongside the painting she made at the final, where she reimagined the London landscape to create an evocative story.

Ophelia's quirky, magical surrealism and extraordinary technique won her the title, Landscape Artist of the Year.

- Only one of you can be crowned as this year's winner.

- When we were waiting for the judges to announce the winner, I was aware of the fact that it takes a long time to actually say who the winner is.

- And the judges have decided, this year's Landscape Artist of the Year is.

- I was trying to kind of work out whether he had an O in his mouth or not.

- So I was kind of studying his face.

- Ophelia Redpath.

- Then I found out and it was lovely.

(audience cheering) - I think Ophelia paints in code and I'm just fascinated by this sort of fantastical code that she gives us.

And I just want to be transported into this weird and wonderful world that she gives us really.

- Ophelia is our winner because she intrigues us.

She paints in this way, that feels entirely her own, she's borrowing strange little motifs from art history, but also doing something a bit peculiar and really accomplished and peculiar.

That's a kind of winning combination.

- I'm one of these painters who does everything very slowly, quite meticulously.

The whole competition has taken me out of some sort of comfort zone that I was living in for a very long time.

- [Man] A professional painter for more than 30 years, music has always been a huge influence in her work.

- I've always really liked jazz.

In the past, I used to do pictures of people, usually quite colorful and vibrant.

And for me, they kind of felt slightly jazzy in a way.

So I couldn't think of anything to call myself.

So I thought, well, why not call myself a jazz artist?

Jazz is about improvisation.

And I suppose, kind of art in some sort of way can be an improvisation as well.

Quite often when I'm approaching art, I kind of map it out very kind of concretely to start with.

But then once you've got that concrete element settled down on the canvas, then you can start playing with it.

And I think behind jazz, there's always that feeling that you're not just copying something.

- [Man] Recently, Ophelia's focus has shifted to creating landscapes with a strong sense of narrative.

- I just like to do a little snapshot of something in front of me, which is either joyful or has some sort of immediate atmosphere.

It's like setting a stage and you do not know who's going to arrive on the stage.

And then someone pops up, and lands in your picture and you think, what are they doing there?

It's almost like they've got a character of their own.

- [Woman] Ophelia's highly individual style was honed from an early age, learning from her artist grandparents, both members of the Royal Academy.

- For me, these are inspiring because you can never stop looking at them and wondering how they did things, how they caught the light in a certain way.

My grandmother, she was a very, very inspired person.

She saw a lovely sky, she'd want to paint it.

She loved flowers, she loves people's faces.

She loved everything as far as I can see.

When I was very young, she used to paint and I used to watch her painting.

And she used to take me off to museums and say, choose something and draw it and then come back and show me.

- [Woman] Over the years, Ophelia has developed her own unique style, painting in oils, she likes to create a world where the boundaries between reality and imagination are blurred.

- I love to observe, I like to see things around me.

I like to not only observe things as they are, but I like to observe the effect that they perhaps have on me or the certain type of atmosphere that they give off.

What's particularly interesting and what's particularly motivating me now is the kind of dilemmas that wildlife and landscapes are facing and how human beings relate to our natural environment.

- This fascination with the natural world and her place within it will be crucial to Ophelia in the weeks ahead, as she embarks upon her prize commission for the National Trust.

To fully understand the landscape she will have to paint, Ophelia is getting ready to explore the place where it all began, Snowdonia.

- Sketch pad.

Charcoal for drawing, pencils, tracing paper here.

I'm so excited.

So excited, it's another adventure.

I'm just really curious to know what we're gonna be doing.

Probably feel nervous on the day that I get confronted with it, but I'm not feeling nervous now.

- [Man] To find out the details of her brief, Ophelia's first stop is Penrhyn Castle in Snowdonia where she's meeting the head of National Trust Wales, Justin Albert.

(car whirring) - So Ophelia.

- Yes, we want to commission you to paint a picture of Dinas Oleu, this gorgeous small bit of four and half acres of land above the fishing village of Barmouth.

a little place left to us by Fanny Talbot.

She was a philanthropist.

She gave things away.

She cared about making things accessible, about looking after beautiful places, but not letting progress get in the way of quiet.

(gentle music) - [Woman] In 1895, a small group of social reformers, concerned by the urban working class population's lack of access to clean air and blue sky founded a society to preserve and protect places in historic interest or natural beauty for everyone to enjoy, not just the privileged few.

And so the idea of the National Trust was born.

This vision was only brought to life when Fanny Talbot, a widow living in north Wales, bequeathed them her small plot of land, a rocky outcrop on the west Welsh coast.

It was this extraordinary act of philanthropy that started Europe's largest conservation charity.

- The idea is that we could have this piece of land, and we now have thousands of acres of land Britain for everyone to look at that and appreciate the beauty.

- I've always been interested in the difference between hardworking life and the hardworking communities and nature, which is always there and something that we should conserve.

And especially in this day and age where people want to get away from the grind and they want to see something that reminds them that the planet still exists.

- Now Ophelia, one of the essence of this commission, which I love to see is, that melding of people and landscape to combine them both together is the essence of what the trust is about.

- Oh, well, that's just my thing.

- People and landscape and beauty.

- I'm just looking forward to, I just want to see it now.

My appetite has been wetted.

(upbeat music) - [Man] Sitting above the small fishing village of Barmouth on the Malthak estury, Dinas Oleu is where it all began for the National Trust, and about to be the inspirational starting point for Ophelia's prize commission.

- Well, this is an amazing view, completely breathtaking taking, so big.

This is really worth the climb.

It's huge, 180 degree view.

Well the fact that I'm gonna paint this, you have to decide which elements you're gonna paint.

I've got my work cut out for me.

- [Man] Landscape Artist of the Year winner, Ophelia Redpath is on the west coast of Wales, preparing for her commission for the National Trust to create an artwork that celebrates their first land donation, Dinas Oleu.

(gentle music) - It's a really, really big, big scene and so many different ways of tackling it.

So I'm kind of going into the details, but at the same time, I'm kind of sitting back and seeing, well, actually there's the hills and the mountains in the distance and the distance, you want to convey by doing it slightly lighter so that the things in the foreground stick out, I'm kind of focusing on some houses, the shoreline houses, and at some stage I'll be doing a few little tiny dots, which are the people and the boats.

A few lines with a pencil is not gonna do this scene any justice whatsoever.

I've never done sand dunes before.

They're quite difficult.

I've got to try and kind of get the pattern from up here.

- [Woman] Although she usually paints in oils, today, Ophelia has chosen to use an unfamiliar medium, ink.

- Oh, come on.

Oh my God, it dries literally, as soon as I put my, so that's beautiful, this cloud.

Oh, that's nice.

I've just done something really nice there.

It's really quite tricky.

So at the moment I'm feeling quite overwhelmed.

It's really tricky to get a flavor of this.

And I feel very inadequate painting an inks here.

At least I've got something that's gonna jog my memory.

The light's changing hugely at the moment.

About 10 minutes ago, the sun was catching everything and now the sun is catching nothing at all.

So it looks as if I'll call it today for today.

I'm just trying to get a few finishing touches of the last little glimmers of light.

But yes, I think we've come to the end of today.

- [Man] The following morning brings a change of scene and a change of weather.

Ophelia is exploring the seaside town of Barmouth, with its vast Sandy beaches and rusting hulks, directly below Dinas Oleu.

(gentle music) (birds chirping) - I love these boats.

I'm sure they will inspire the picture as well.

So different in color, that one's obviously had all the color rubbed off it.

So these are wonderful.

- [Man] The opportunity to investigate every perspective of this multifaceted landscape is irresistible.

- You ready?

- Yeah, I'm ready, ready.

- Let's get off then.

(horn beeping) I love doing that.

- Lovely sound.

- It has a meaning on a boat.

Three blasts growing a stir.

- That's amazing.

- Dinas Oleu, fortress of light.

- So the fortress of light.

That's a nice name.

- It's the hill just behind the old buildings here, the old part of Barmouth, - Yeah.

- The locals call it the rock or little Gibralter.

- Thank you very much, had a lovely time.

(laughing) - [Woman] Poetically named Dinas Oleu or Citadel of light, the remains of this iron age enclosure provide the perfect vantage point to take in the stunning view and the moody Welsh weather.

- Well, they've suddenly been inundated by a flood.

It's quite interesting just to see what you can get with ink and loads of water.

And I don't have to put the water on myself.

So it's coming down in buckets at the moment.

Has a lovely effect.

That's the blur of the storm coming over the sea.

So if I just like put a little black on here, see what it does.

It's actually very descriptive of what's happening now, which is the water coming right over the sea and this is the horizon.

It's just completely dark, blurred.

You can't see the horizon at all now, tip it off now.

So it's amazing what paint effects you can actually get by actually putting stuff onto water.

- [Woman] To prevent the day being a washout, Ophelia takes the opportunity for further exploration of the landscape.

- We came up around this lovely winding path and next to the path is so many gorgeous trees and ferns and different types of, I think it's heather.

So you get white heather, pink heather, purple heather, it's like the Chelsea Flower Show.

And then you look further down and there's this lovely little woody path that gets into a very kind of cozy shaded area.

So that's what I'm trying to record now.

Just kind of getting the outlines of the trees and some of the leaves and then the little shady nooks and crannies behind the trees.

Yeah, I feel very torn at the moment because we've just seen the town, which is absolutely lovely.

So for me, it's the difference between the manmade structures and the natural structures.

And I'm not sure if they'll join each other into one painting or I might even be tempted to do two pictures.

I'm just gonna wait and just gather information at this point.

I think my fear is being spoiled for choice.

- [Woman] Winner of Landscape Artist of the Year Ophelia Redpath is in Wales, researching her commission to paint Dinas Oleu, the first land donation to the National Trust, a place that has inspired landscape artists for generations.

It all started back in the 18th century when Welsh artist Richard Wilson returned from traveling in Italy and applied European painting stars and techniques to the dramatic Welsh landscape.

to find out more, Ophelia is meeting Artist of the Year judge, Kathleen Soriano.

- The father of British landscape painting actually, was a Welshman who was born not too far from here.

And his name is Richard Wilson.

And this is one of his very well known views of a lake up near Cader Idris.

And you can see that he was really sort of getting the full drama of this sort of rugged landscape here in Wales, before that, people thought this landscape wasn't remotely interesting and he sort of elevated it.

- This is really interesting seeing a landscape which has only got very small figures in and a little bit of livestock here, but the rest of it is just dominated by huge crags and mountains and rocks everywhere.

So it's lovely.

- Well you picked up on all the important things actually brilliantly, the small figures.

- Yeah.

- That was a reference really to the notion of the sublime, at that time, a lot of the artists were dealing with the sort of enormity, the drama of landscape.

And Wilson was very much about landscape not just being about the mountain that you saw, but it was also about conveying mood and meaning.

- [Woman] First coined in the 18th century, the term, the sublime, refers to works of art that convey the power and spirit of landscapes and a man's place within them.

Wilson's sublime style led to his becoming one of the founding members of the Royal Academy.

Sadly, despite inspiring the more famous Constable and Turner, his reputation faded amid poor health and dwindling finances.

- After this was painted, hundreds of artists actually traveled out into the landscape to paint from exactly the position or to try and find the position that Wilson was painting from.

- Was this painted out in the open?

- Pretty much out in the open.

- Yeah.

- And also it was very much about being truthful to what nature presented, although he did play around with it a little bit.

It's not unlike what you try to do, really, in a sense that storytelling that you always bring into your landscape.

So I'm hoping that he will inspire you really.

- I am inspired already, I am inspired already.

- Great.

- [Man] Cader Idris, the spectacular mountain painted by Richard Wilson is now a nature reserve, managed by National Resources Wales.

(water crashing) - Richard Wilson's work, it's obviously in the old style, he's really captured an atmosphere here.

And it's very similar to the atmosphere that's around us at the moment.

(gentle music) It's a lovely feeling knowing that other artists actually kind of came up these pathways and looked at the views.

And I mean, it really does feel huge, this place, and it feels very, you know, so far away from civilization in the sense.

- [Man] At Nant Cadair slate bridge, Ophelia is met by the wild open terrain and the rugged beauty of the mountain.

It's an opportunity to try her own hand at capturing the sublime in this dramatic landscape.

- I'm trying to get a sense of the scale by doing as many little things on the mountain as possible, like trying to observe the little rocks and the tiny bushes and everything so that it makes the mountain look bigger.

I have no idea if I'm achieving this or not.

I think it'll probably take quite a long time to know if the sketch is going okay.

As far as the color's concerned, that's kind of the easier job really, because I'm just basically trying to get the colors that are in front of me, which are kind of a slate gray because obviously the slates come from the mountains itself.

So there's loads of slate there and the kind of dark, rusty brownie vegetation.

So that's the simpler part of it.

The most difficult part is actually to try and get the texture and the structure of the mountain.

I feel as if I'm fighting a losing battle at the moment, the mountain is always beautiful, but this picture is not.

I've lost the capacity to think in terms of the kind of macro and the micro, the large and the small, the scale.

'Cause it's just, I'm finding it impossible to kind of get the impression down on a piece of paper.

The light is changing all the time.

So one moment the sky will be dark in comparison to the light, the mountain, which is caught by sun, just at the top, and then the next moment, there's a massive cloud that literally is appearing just now, right at the top of the mountain, turning the mountain into a black mountain, the background is white, so it's yeah, it's a real challenge.

Just gonna stop, pack up now.

- [Man] In this rugged landscape, reaching the viewpoint Richard Wilson painted is no easier in the 21st century than it was in his day.

(upbeat music) Chasing the sublime is proving to be both an artistic and physical challenge.

- It's quite cold, very windy, tired.

Can't wait to get to the top, hope there's someone else up at the top selling cups of tea.

So high up, I think we're pretty much on the cloud line as well.

So we're gonna have our heads in the clouds very soon.

So look forward to getting to the top.

Yay, it's fantastic.

Got here.

Absolutely amazing.

It's like something on a different planet, very, very dark lake in a massive bowl of mountains.

So lovely, yeah, well worth for climb.

At the moment, we can't see half the mountain because it's covered in cloud and he's got this amazing high peak.

I'm trying to imagine this really high peak just above the lake.

It's lovely to be here in exactly the same spot and to see all the little crags that he painted.

Amazing.

- [Woman] This mountain, Cader Idris, is named after the mythical Welsh bard, Idris.

Legend holes that those who sleep night on the mountain will wake either a poet or madman.

Wary of pushing her luck, Ophelia heads back down.

- I'm amazed I'm still alive.

I haven't done anything this physically tough for a long, long time.

So it'll be, I'll have to look after my knees now.

And we actually did get up to that point, didn't we, or roundabout there, which is amazing really.

- [Woman] As struck by the awesome beauty of Cader Idris as she is by Dinas Oleu, Ophelia has collected a wealth of ideas and possibilities that will inspire her commission.

- A lot of people who like being creative actually don't mind confusion very much.

I think it's quite a nice thing to go through because it means that you've got a lot of stuff coming in and you've gotta let it just percolate a little bit.

I'm not panicking, but I'm confused.

So this is in terms of getting a painting done that makes sense.

And it's certainly not formed in my head at the moment.

- [Man] Inspired by the sublime style of 18th century local artist and the father of British landscape painting, Richard Wilson, winner of Landscape Artist of the Year Ophelia Redpath is in Snowdonia, gathering material for her prize commission.

- Seems to be pretty much exactly where the figures in the Richard Wilson picture were.

So it's nice to be sitting in the same spot.

We're just looking at the lake at the moment with, I think it's Snowdonia in the background.

So many different colors in the mountain, struggling to get things on because the paint dries very quickly.

So just dealing with the challenge at the moment.

I'd like to try and get the boats in actually.

(gentle music) I'm not used to this type of painting.

I'm not a watercolor painter.

And I think I've decided to in this picture, take it literally by using loads and loads of water.

So at one point the water, as soon as I put the water onto the paper, it was drying so quickly that I have no idea how watercolor painters do it.

So I'm full of admiration for them.

Because it's changing all the time isn't it?

There you go.

I struggled with the mountains because as ever, there's so many details to put in and I'm undecided as to whether to put lots of details in or just to give a little impression of it.

So for me, it's a kind of mixed painting.

Some bits, obviously I've learned from and other bits I would definitely do differently.

- [Woman] This timeless landscape surrounding Ophelia has remained largely unchanged for centuries.

Preserving our national heritage was one of the founding principles of the National Trust and remains an idea more relevant today than ever.

One of their flagship projects is land farm, where the land is managed in a way that benefits nature.

And 21st century technology has been harnessed to safeguard the area's future.

- This is an environmentally sustainable farm.

I was just wondering if you could tell me more about it and the ethos behind it.

- So above us, above the waterfall there, there's a small intake that takes a small percentage of the water out.

It flows down a pipe to the farm itself.

It makes something big and metal go round and round very quickly, and that makes electricity, completely renewable electricity.

The farm is so much more than just the hydro itself.

So it also makes energy from sunlight.

It also supplies heat through biomass and heat pumps.

So it's an encapsulation, it's a demonstration of what you can do in quite fragile, special places.

So we're demonstrating that you can do something, everywhere.

- Yeah, so as far as the power from the water is concerned, could you give us an idea of how much power that can actually give you in terms of electricity?

- It's enough power for hundreds of houses.

- That's wonderful.

I had a wonderful conversation with Keith.

I could have chatted to him all day because I happen to be very interested in sustainability and not only that, but in wildlife.

Quite often I do do paintings which relate to what's happening to the planet.

So I'd quite like to put something referencing sustainability into a picture.

As far as the commission's concerned, I've just got another layer of confusion to go through.

(woman laughing) (gentle music) - [Woman] In her state of creative confusion, Ophelia pays one last visit to the site of her commission, Dinas Oleu.

- So I've got a lot of information now, masses and masses of different viewpoints, of different places around this area.

I'm back on a completely different day with a completely different light.

And actually it's interesting.

The clouds are casting shadows over the sea.

Always when I've got information overload, which is like what I got at the moment.

I kind of trust in the process of just letting it simmer for a bit and just seeing what emerges.

So I don't know what I'm gonna paint at all.

I've been incredibly inspired by the whole visit.

So I just have to just wait and see what materializes.

There.

- [Man] Back at home, Ophelia is in her studio, planning her prize painting.

- I tend to get quite overwhelmed and that's why I'm not naturally a painter.

When I go somewhere, I feel like an owl, I want my head to swivel right.

360 degrees, but the nice thing about working in the studio is that you can filter a little bit and you can work out some of the things that actually, maybe I'm not going to include that, or I'm not going to include that.

- [Man] With such a wealth of inspirational images from her trip, Ophelia's collated her favorite photographs into a book.

- There's so many different cloud effects, different landscapes, different plants, types of heather.

You've got sunny days, rainy days, sunsets, details on the houses in the village below.

You've got the prevailing wind.

You can see the trees leaning upwards and bent over over the hill because obviously, the wind's coming in from the coast.

So this is going to be gold dust for me, this booklet, I think.

- [Man] Now finally, Ophelia is ready to put paint onto canvas.

- I was kind of toying between doing the town and making it much more rural and the kind of Prime Evil, there was a kind of Prime Evil feeling about the landscape around it.

And so I put the town into the background.

You can see hints of it, but I was so stunned by the vegetation and the landscape that I thought, well, I'll focus mainly on that.

So I'm going to use quite thin paint to start with to kind of get a feel for the place.

And then gradually layer by layer, I'll just increase the layers and increase the intensity of the colors and the shadows.

It'll go from being quite a kind of pale, insipid thing to kind of gradually adding more color, until at the end, I hope it's quite rich in color.

I've always felt very, very comfortable knowing that there's a thriving natural world around.

And so that's what I'm wanting to capture in this picture here.

I'm kind of wanting to incorporate humanity within the larger landscape.

- [Woman] The path to artistic success rarely runs smoothly.

And although a feeler is halfway through her four week commission, she still has many decisions to make.

- Initially, I was very confused trying to distill it all, but now I'm less confused, but I am finding areas in the picture where I'm not quite sure what's gonna happen in terms of the layout.

Dinas Oleu still is the central place, I'm bringing in different elements from where I was.

And I hope that the people from Dinas Oleu forgive me for adding water to their view.

(woman laughing) I'd really like to put some sort of creature.

So I'll be doing my research on animals around this area.

Quite often when I put an animal or a figure in a picture, I do leave it until last, because I like to kind of set the stage first.

It's such a privilege to do a picture for the National Trust anyway, my prime feeling is I do hope it's good enough because I'm gonna put everything that I can into it, because for me, landscape painting and the wilderness is something that I love.

(gentle music) - [Man] After weeks of work, Ophelia's returned to Wales with her daughter, Sally, to reveal her finished painting to the National Trust.

- This is seriously the biggest moment of my artistic career.

I can't kind of quite get my head around it.

It's always a little bit daunting when you've done a commission.

You have no idea what anyone's gonna think of it.

- Among those attending the unveiling is the National Trust commissioner, Justin Albert.

- I'm so excited.

(man laughing) I've been thinking about it for weeks.

What on earth's gonna be there.

I mean, it's a part of the world I know so well, it's a view I know so well.

Conversation I had was how are you gonna translate that onto canvas, has Ophelia turned something into a masterpiece that it is?

- [Woman] Also keen to see what Ophelia has created are the Landscape Artist of the Year judges.

- We really wanna see what Ophelia's has done.

That she genuinely puts storytelling and narrative first in her paintings.

Yes, they feel like they represent a particular landscape, but it's always through the prism of Ophelia's imagination.

There's always something unexpected.

There's always something which is a new introduction.

We can only see it as a Ophelia's landscape.

That's really exciting for us.

And it kind of reinvigorates what a landscape can be.

- I really want to convey the feelings that I had when I was up in the hills up there, because it really was a special place to be.

And if I feel that I can convey it to other people, then I'll feel pleased about that.

- Welcome everybody to this very auspicious occasion, the unveiling of the prize commission by Ophelia Redpath.

Ophelia, what was it like going out to do that painting in the countryside?

- Oh, it was a wonderful experience.

It was the most beautiful spot you can imagine.

- How're you feeling?

- I'm fine, slightly jittery, but there we go.

- I'm very excited for you, and as well for the National Trust.

It's a great moment.

- Well, let's not put it off any longer.

Ophelia, will you help me out here.

- Yes.

- Here we go.

(gentle music) (audience clapping) - Congratulations, that's just wonderful.

What a wonderful spot it is, you're quite right.

It's just glorious.

- First impressions Justin.

I think it's absolutely beautiful.

And you've done it proud.

You really have Ophelia, you've done it proud.

It's gorgeous.

- It's a triumph for you to have won that competition, which of course we all enjoy and we enjoy your triumph in painting this portrait.

Thank you very much for it Ophelia.

- Thank you so much.

- It's got this incredible timeless quality to it.

It could be something from the 1930s or even 125 years ago when the land was first gifted.

- I think magical is that word.

It means if it's magical, then it's Ophelia.

I mean, that's why we wanted her to be our winner.

She gave us these landscapes, but she just took us to that extra particular, peculiar, enigmatic, magical place.

And I think she's just absolutely delivered that here.

- We are very high up.

And I wonder whether we are in a sense floating with the bird and being invited in.

And then you get that swoop down, setting us up so high that we are given this access down through that swooping valley.

Well, I think that's astonishing.

- Ophelia's really delivered.

She's really delivered for us and for the National Trust.

- I think this experience has been quite life changing for me.

It's such a nice thing to feel that the judges love the piece.

- There's so much to discover visually.

I mean, it's just, it's a joy, it's just fabulous.

- Really nailed it, absolutely gorgeous.

- You see that's Barmouth, that's the view from Dinas Oleu, but it's also a fantasy version of it, the colors, the warmth, so it's real and it's not real.

And it's a whole story there.

And the more you look at it, the more you see in it.

- I'm feeling mixed feelings about the end of this journey, because you know, it feels like a bit of a beginning.

It's helped consolidate the type of thing that I want to be doing, which is at the moment, working on pictures about wildlife and the environment and the natural world.

And they all happen because I decided, yes, I will take part in this competition.

This is a funny how one little moment you make a decision can do all sorts of things to change things for you.

(gentle music)