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00:00.
00:13Hello, and welcome to St. James's Park in London,
00:16where eight artists are looking out over the lake
00:19towards Buckingham Palace.
00:21My lords, ladies and gentlemen,
00:22it's time to put the oils into royals.
00:25It's a brand new episode of Landscape Artist of the Year.
00:30It's heat, too, and today's eight artists
00:32are faced with a truly regal view.
00:35It's got the architecture and the bling of the gold sculpture.
00:39I couldn't really ask for more stuff.
00:42But if painting this in four hours wasn't difficult enough,
00:46they'll be under the scrutiny of three kings and queens
00:49of the art world.
00:50Director of Frees London, Eva Longre,
00:54independent curator, Kathleen Soriano,
00:57and award-winning artist, Taishan Shirenberg.
01:00Your place feels otherworldly and deserted.
01:04Will it stay like that? I hope.
01:07Alongside our 50 Landscape Artist wildcards.
01:11You haven't seen a corgi, have you? I've lost a couple of corgis.
01:13But I have had a change in regards a couple of times.
01:14Oh, right, OK.
01:15That's quite exciting.
01:16It's a backdrop, yeah.
01:17The prize our artists are competing for
01:20is an incredible £10,000 commission
01:22to paint Ireland's holy mountain, Crowpatrick,
01:25in County Mayo for the National Gallery of Ireland.
01:30But working amid the buzz of London
01:33on one of the hottest days of the year won't be easy.
01:36Squeeze the paint down, it's solid before you even get to use it.
01:39So, wish them luck on this scorcher of a day.
01:42Pots. I'm feeling hot.
01:44As we search for the next Landscape Artist of the Year.
01:50There is a certain sort of fragrance of goose poo, isn't there?
01:54That's my aftershave.
01:55The shapes in those trees are great.
02:13Lots of brins.
02:14As sun breaks through the cloud, here come our eight artists.
02:19Tanya Faruja, a semi-professional artist
02:22and family support worker living in Solihull.
02:25Professional artist and psychotherapist
02:27Nigel Glaze from North Wales.
02:30Andrew Saunders, a retiree from the Isle of Wight.
02:34And Hong Kong-born part-time artist Alice Kwan,
02:37living in Oxford.
02:38It's so lovely to meet other artists,
02:41to meet people who do the same thing today.
02:43It's just amazing.
02:45Also excited to be here are...
02:48part-time solicitor Chris Scott from Shrewsbury.
02:51Architect and interior designer Peter Morris from London.
02:55From County Durham, civil servant Mike Lum.
02:59And Jess Shrub, a recent art graduate from Northampton.
03:02To be taking part in Landscape Artist of the Year,
03:04it feels really surreal.
03:06I would never imagine myself to actually be here,
03:08but here I am, I suppose.
03:10Each of our artists secured a spot in the pods
03:13by sending in a standout landscape.
03:16The very piece they've brought with them today.
03:18And as some inquisitive geese give the pods the once-over,
03:22it's time to settle in and contemplate the challenge ahead.
03:26I've never painted outdoors before.
03:28I'm very good at inventing excuses not to do it,
03:31but looking forward to starting painting.
03:33How are you doing?
03:34Oh, pretty well, thanks.
03:35Yeah, feeling good? Relaxed?
03:36No.
03:37No.
03:38Not at all.
03:39Four hours of panic, I think.
03:41That's what it's gonna be.
03:50Artists, you have four hours to paint this world-famous view,
03:53and your time starts now.
04:01Today's artists are looking out towards Buckingham Palace's
04:0419th-century western facade
04:07and the gilded Queen Victoria Memorial
04:09shining in the strong sunlight.
04:11The pods are angled at the edge of St. James' Park Lake,
04:15giving each a slightly different perspective on the view.
04:18I think it's a beautiful view, actually.
04:20I'm not really confident with buildings,
04:22but it's really majestic.
04:23At the moment, the sun's out, which I hope it stays out.
04:29It's probably the most important building in Britain,
04:32but I don't like it because it's quite complicated,
04:34so it could be quite difficult to try and get down in four hours.
04:40I use AI to inspire me in terms of what I paint.
04:44You type in some words just to get an image of a place
04:48or something different.
04:49I take little bits from it as inspiration,
04:52and then take little bits from the view,
04:55and then take little bits from my imagination.
04:57Peter Morris studied architecture at the Royal College of Art,
05:01but only started painting in the last year.
05:03Peter's submission, a fictional landscape that came to him in a dream,
05:07features architectural detail, overly lush planting,
05:11and a surreal perspective.
05:14So, Peter, tell me, do you always wear the same colours that feature in your paintings?
05:18Pretty much, yeah.
05:19And you can see those in your submission as well.
05:21One of the reasons why we loved it is it reminded us a bit of post-modern architecture.
05:24Oh, that's interesting.
05:26OK, you're going to have to tell me about your story here.
05:29I remember coming here as a kid and seeing the guards.
05:32Yes.
05:33In the Busby hats.
05:34They're called bearskins, but when we were kids, they were called Busbys.
05:37And my narrative for today is the Busbys have got the day off in St. James' Park and Buckingham Palace.
05:45So I enter the text into AI, and then that will help me imagine the Busbys have taken over.
05:53You've clearly got an incredibly fertile mind.
05:57What is it that the AI gives you that you wouldn't get just standing here using your very busy brain?
06:02I'm playing with it, and it's a new tool, and I find it fascinating.
06:07I like to notice things that are different, and I suppose I lean towards psychological themes.
06:18So it could be the atmosphere of the place generates a feeling and mood, and it's that type of thing that I'll focus on.
06:28Professional painter and therapist Nigel Glaze has a Masters in Art Psychotherapy from St. Albans School of Art.
06:35His submission of scaffolding outside a museum in Shropshire initially seems bleak,
06:41but makes a striking focal point of the vibrant blue covering.
06:45Hello, Nigel. How do you feel about the scenery today?
06:50Because from your submission, it felt that maybe you're more drawn to urban landscapes.
06:56I like the unusual, and so the submission was based on noticing something that people would walk past,
07:03a scaffolding scene.
07:05What did you notice today that you feel goes unnoticed?
07:09It's Buckingham Palace.
07:11There's something about a home, as well as a residence with lots of toys looking at it,
07:16and so it's on public display.
07:18And I suppose seeing the landscape emotionally is really quite important to me.
07:23Great.
07:24When I look at Buckingham Palace, only one thing goes through my mind.
07:36The change in the guards of Buckingham Palace.
07:39Is that the only thing?
07:41It's a big lump of Hanoverian stone.
07:43Like limestone.
07:44Yeah, I mean, but as a shape, it's kind of interesting.
07:47And we've got a lot of elements here to work with.
07:50We've got the Queen Victoria monument.
07:52We've got the willow.
07:53Things you could use to make a really interesting landscape.
07:56It's typical London park, and it is a tourist venue and Buckingham Palace in the background.
08:02But the artists are all on a kind of weird angle.
08:06So it makes it easier for the artists to make something interesting and not cliched.
08:11So you don't like people in painting.
08:12There are a lot of birds around.
08:13Are you happy with birds?
08:14If you can bring a bird into a painting without it becoming a cliché, bring it on.
08:18There is also a certain sort of fragrance of goose poo, isn't there?
08:23That's my aftershave.
08:36I like working with pencils, alcohol markers, sometimes a little bit of watercolour,
08:41anything that's going to add a bit of pop.
08:42But hopefully, with this very pencil here, I can get all the details I need.
08:46Recent art graduate Jess Shrub studied fine art and drawing at Falmouth University.
08:52Jess's submission, created with pencil and black marker, captures her interest in typography,
08:58heavy shadows and contrast.
09:00So Jess, you've actually taken us right the way across the water, haven't you?
09:03You've got rid of all of this.
09:04Is that because you don't like dealing with the water?
09:06So I really wanted to hone in on Black and Palatinate's details and there's so much detail.
09:10I'm doing all the depth and shadows first, so when I go with colour, I don't have to worry too much
09:13about depth because it's already there.
09:16Now, you're taking the risk really because we loved your motel building, very architectural,
09:20mono colour.
09:22Yeah.
09:22And today you're going with colour.
09:24I am.
09:24I mean, why?
09:25I can see you've got pens as well as pencils.
09:27I guess I wanted to show my range.
09:29I work with coloured pencils quite a lot, so I want to show you that I'm just as good
09:32as colour as I am at black and white stuff.
09:34Excellent.
09:41I've gone for portrait format.
09:43The palace probably won't be in the picture, but it also creates some nice shadows on the lake.
09:47The light is a bit more settled at the moment, so it's actually making it a lot easier to do the work.
09:52Civil servant Mike Lum studied fine art at Manchester Polytechnic and paints in his spare time.
09:59Framed by the striking interplay of light and shadow, Mike's submission of a road in Teasdale,
10:05County Durham, creates a powerful sense of depth, drawing the viewer into its quiet drama.
10:12Mike, you're racing ahead. Tell me what's going on here.
10:15There's a nice U-shape going by the side of the monument on the right side, down towards the lake.
10:20I don't see a lot of strong shadows, but we'll say possibly in the far trees on the side of the monument.
10:25I want the eye to move through, catch maybe the depth of the reflection, the water there.
10:30And how much is atmosphere? Because your fantastic submission, it's quite low and it's gritty.
10:36Yeah.
10:37Will this become quite gritty?
10:38Possibly, yeah. Depends if I feel gritty.
10:40Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:44It's not just our eight artists getting creative in bustling St James's Park today.
10:50Setting up along from the pods, it's our 50 landscape artist wildcards.
10:54And they've come prepared.
10:58I've got tiny little tubs of paint with me today because I've flown over to be here from Dublin
11:03and couldn't bring everything that I would normally bring with me.
11:06So I have exactly what I need in small little amounts.
11:12I've brought my daughter with me today, who's sitting behind me.
11:15So she's been a good help already, moving bags and stuff like that for me.
11:19So it's really good. She can look after me for the day for once.
11:25I have some tea.
11:26My gosh.
11:27So I have a decaf.
11:28Decaf with the tea bag still in. How long has it been in there for?
11:31Erm, quite a while.
11:34And some wildcards haven't let anything get in the way of being here today.
11:38I fractured my air ball, so I need to try to use a lot of hindsight to finish my painting today.
11:45Just one of these wildcards will win a place in this year's semi-final.
11:49And with the stakes this high, fortune must surely favour the brave.
11:53You're painting a bridge?
11:54Yeah, I'm hoping the sun will come out and turn it pink.
11:59There's one thing I've learned doing this show is that the artist is never wrong.
12:02Okay.
12:03Apart from when they're wrong.
12:11Our pod artists are now an hour into creating their artworks.
12:15I'm a bit behind where I need to be, however, that's not a bad thing, because I need to get this stage
12:33correct, because I'll be chasing myself later otherwise.
12:40I'm feeling okay, to be fair. Pretty calm, pretty collected. I'm not trying to stress myself too much.
12:45At St James's Park in London, the sun's out, and things are heating up for our eight artists.
13:05It's getting quite hot, isn't it?
13:07Yeah.
13:08Yeah. The paint dries very, very quickly now.
13:11But our next competitor is keeping her cool under pressure.
13:15I usually paint in pastel. I capture the mood using the colour and different brush strokes to paint what
13:22I can see and what I feel at that time.
13:25After completing a diploma in fashion and textiles in Hong Kong, Alice Kwan moved to Oxford with her husband,
13:32where she works at the Ashmolean Museum. Her submission of Oxford University's Radcliffe camera
13:38shows her signature impasto technique and romantic colour palette.
13:43So, Alice, tell me about your submission.
13:45We were really interested in how heavy and thick the paint feels with your brush strokes and heavy impasto
13:53on the canvas.
13:54Yes, I think painted it very thickly. I can really express how I feel at that moment.
14:01And so, tell me about today then, and what you've done so far.
14:04Today, I have a lot of trees. I want the subject. I can palette, of course, but you're surrounding by nature as well.
14:11I just want to wrap it all up in one painting together and having a cozy feeling about it.
14:17So, I hope people can feel the same.
14:19It looks really good already.
14:20Thank you very much.
14:29When I paint the landscape, I look for differences in tones and colours.
14:33I might start off darker and then build up and do more muted colours and then add the lights at the end to make them pop.
14:41After completing a foundation course at Central Saint Martins,
14:44Tanya Ferruja studied children's book illustration at Cambridge School of Art.
14:49Her submission, a view she discovered on an Easter Sunday walk,
14:53conveys the sense of warm sunlight through colour without relying on fine detail.
14:58So, Tanya, you're painting this rather beautiful colourist dream. Is this your thing, colour?
15:05Yeah, colour and the colours that come out when the light shines on it.
15:08So, not about people, narrative, swans?
15:12I have left that little space there for maybe a duck.
15:17Depends if a duck comes back and it fits, but I might have to cut that out because I'm not sure
15:20about the composition. Can we just talk about your submission, which is a beautiful,
15:23light-filled alleyway. Yeah, it's an alleyway full of trees. We've just moved to the area of Solihull.
15:28It's really green around there and all the light was just coming through the trees and
15:32it just felt magical. Well, look, it's working very well
15:34and I think some of the colours are really singing. So, yeah, don't mess that up.
15:37Across from the grandeur of Buckingham Palace, St James's Park is a lush green oasis in the heart of London.
15:49As the oldest of the Royal Parks, its story is one of remarkable transformation from Royal
15:54Playground to Urban Sanctuary. If we were standing here in medieval times, we would be standing on a
16:01swampy marsh. And it was King Henry VIII who decided to take over St James's Park so that he had a place
16:09he could ride from his palace in Whitehall up to Hyde Park to his hunting grounds.
16:15Over the centuries, a succession of monarchs have left their mark on the park.
16:20Charles II created a rectangular canal, almost half a mile long, that was tree-lined. We would have
16:28had cows. It was quite strange. We had this very formal water in a pastoral park with cows coming
16:34to drink at the edge of the canal. Over time, the canal was transformed into a sweeping lake.
16:41And while there are no longer cows roaming the park, there are still some rather unusual residents.
16:48The first pelicans were a gift to King Charles II by the Russian ambassador at the time.
16:53We have six today. They are the most mischievous and the most entertaining pelicans that I think
16:59we've ever had here. On two or three occasions, they've been with all the crowds, watching,
17:03would you believe, changing in regard to the railings of Buckingham Palace. And we've had to send
17:07someone up to go and pick them up and bring them back again. Lately, the emphasis has turned from
17:13keeping formal gardens to reclaiming nature and welcoming wildlife back into the heart of the city.
17:19We're much more sustainable now. We're thinking much more about wildlife and biodiversity.
17:26We started letting the verges grow slightly longer. Our rewilding of the park is so,
17:31so successful when you think of all the additional wildlife species we've brought in.
17:36So it's exciting times for St James' Park.
17:38And some of the park dwellers are being very curious indeed.
17:48I've got things to do. I get on. Reality left the building a long time ago when it comes to my
17:55colour choices. I'll start off with a layer of bright colours, mainly reds and oranges, and then I'll go
18:00over the top with quite thick gloopy paint, and then I'll scratch through so that you can see the underpainting.
18:06Andrew Saunders took early retirement after years working in insurance and now spends his time
18:12painting. Andrew's submission, a view in acrylics of Tennyson Down on the Isle of Wight, was painted
18:18over two months and uses a technique of scratching through the top colour to reveal vibrant underlayers.
18:25Gosh, Andrew, it's so interesting actually to see how your thing's structured. The stripes are the paint behind.
18:31Yes, I scratch through with palette knife.
18:33Oh, I see. Okay, so you cover the area and then you scratch it out.
18:36Cover the area, scratch it. I like the texture. I like the immediacy. If you do it, it would be
18:40a bit of like, there's a certain amount of energy. I'm not worried too much about the accuracy of the
18:44marks or anything like that. Yeah.
18:45Yeah, I think we really like the technique in your submission, actually. It does give it an energy.
18:49I think you're absolutely right. Thank you. Yeah.
18:51The challenge will be to replicate that in four hours. Oh, that's right. Yeah. As everyone has.
19:03When I paint a landscape, I start with realism and then add some abstract elements. What I'm going
19:10to try and find is shadows, dark and very moody light. Alongside his day job as a solicitor,
19:19Chris Scott enjoys painting on evenings and weekends. His submission, painted from a photograph of
19:25Hammersmith Bridge and the River Thames, is a shadowy scene which captures the stillness of the river at
19:31first light. Hi, Chris. How's it going? I'm trying to keep it simple in terms of colors and work
19:39out as much as I can. I started off in pure monochrome black and white. From there, I've gone to sort of
19:46orange and blue. In your submission, one of the things that struck us alongside your use of tone and color
19:54is there were moments of detail in the painting, but there are moments also of almost complete
20:01abstraction. Yes. And it feels like there's always this tension between the two. I think that going
20:06for detail and abstraction, if you get it right, I think it makes for an interesting picture. I've never
20:14done plein air painting before and so much can go wrong. Well, today's the perfect day. It is, yeah.
20:19Down from the pods, our wildcards are getting settled in.
20:28I started off the day a little way over there in the sunshine, but I just
20:33was getting too hot and uncomfortable. I'm too British, so I've moved into the shade.
20:40I'm a lot lower than you down here, James. I know. Who normally sits here?
20:44My behalf, Patrick. He's here supporting today. Did you deliberately buy him a short chair so you
20:48could tower over him? I did. Yeah, I'm 5'8", so this is the best height difference I've ever experienced in my life.
20:58The sky and the water are really striking, and then there's also this emphasis on pink, I guess.
21:04I used a pink background, which really helped with all the greens that we're using. It helped them pop,
21:08because this scene was very green. Really successful painting. Thank you.
21:19As the wildcards forge ahead with their artworks, further down the lake, things are a bit more
21:25tense. The weather keeps changing, so I just try my best to capture the colour we have now.
21:30I am feeling very hot. My paints are drying very quickly on my brush, not just on the palette,
21:39so I'm having to work very quickly. I'm a little concerned. I'm not ready to throw myself in the
21:46lake quite yet, but I'm just going to have to make bigger marks, bigger shapes, be a bit bolder in the
21:53remaining time, I think.
22:06As the lunchtime crowd descends on St James's Park, eight artists are halfway through painting
22:12Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria Memorial. Wow, that is a riot of colour, Peter.
22:18You having a ball? Yeah, I'm having a great time. Some people would say that you've drawn
22:22a lot of people with my haircut, but not me. No, me neither.
22:30The most difficult thing for me at the moment is just getting the colours right. I've dialed it up to
22:3411. It feels like it's the right approach to take on a hot sunny day. I'm going to finish the grass,
22:39and then that will leave the reflections and the water.
22:42Shall I be mum? Okay. Milk first. Really? Milk second, you weirdos. Milk went in first,
22:52only when the china wasn't good enough to take the heat. Oh, really? So when the china was top-notch,
22:58it could take the heat without cracking, so then you could pour in tea first and then the milk.
23:02So Peter, Peter really is changing the guards at Buckingham Palace. There is a kinship between
23:08what he does in his life as an architect and how playful the buildings that he builds are and
23:15his art making. And there's something gorgeous, I think, about this imaginary practice for someone
23:20whose work is very much rooted in reality. Peter's having a great time.
23:24A great time. You know, he's having great fun. He's a great fan of post-modern architecture,
23:28which you can see in his submission as well. But there's so much going on in the Busby painting that
23:33is a bit distracting. That said, there are some really interesting, beautiful passages.
23:39Michael's giving us long, thin slip of a painting for a very wide view.
23:44If you look at his submission, the yellow really, really sings. And I think once he starts tightening
23:50things up over the course of the afternoon, he might really be able to elevate the sculpture at the top,
23:54which would just pull the whole thing together very effectively, I think. It's got a lot of promise.
23:58Michael's putting on paint quite thinly and it was looking really beautiful. And now he's in the
24:03process of bringing it to the same style as his submission, I presume. But he has got this problem
24:07where to do that, he's got to add a lot of stuff. Yeah. Tanya's trying to stay loose with her
24:12painting. Is she too loose? Do we need more detail there? No. Right. No. Tanya, as a colorist,
24:20she's got a sublime sense of what works and the blues are slightly violet. That gray dark of the lake is
24:26just the perfect tone. I agree. Her colors are just gorgeous. She really is a colorist and
24:30you can really feel that also in the submission. It was like an explosion of joy. And I think she's
24:35going for something similar now and it looks really good already. Nigel, the psychotherapist looking for
24:40a psychological connection with the landscape. How's that going? Nigel is someone who's interested in
24:46looking in the areas where other people don't necessarily look. So it's tricky with what we've given
24:52him today because this isn't a landscape that people don't think about. Interestingly, I think
24:56today he's the only artist who has mentioned the wider meaning of Buckingham Palace culturally,
25:03the people who live in it, what it might feel like as a home. And I'm interested to see how that comes out
25:10in his painting. He's painting as if he's sitting in the middle of the water looking up. And when I look
25:15at his submission, I realize he likes that sort of glancing side. So he's replicated that slightly,
25:21that view where you just catch something. What about Alice? Is it too straight down the line for you?
25:26Looking from her pod, that's, you know, the view she's got and she's obviously obeyed us and
25:30produced the painting of Buckingham Palace. Put something like that in the center of the image,
25:35suddenly you get problems with symmetry and stuff like that. I do wonder if she made the right choice
25:39at the beginning in sticking Buckingham Palace right up in that top section of it. She's given
25:44herself an awful lot of water and greenery to cover. I mean, maybe she'll revel in that more
25:49this afternoon. Chris's painting is, to my eyes, quite muddy. I love his tonality. I love the dirtiness
25:55of it. It's unclear what you're looking at. And I like the very narrow breadth of tone he's using.
26:01The registry is very dark. Yes, he's much like his submission. He's working with a really limited
26:08color palette and thinking a lot about tone. I feel like he's a painter of opposites where he's really
26:13thinking about the contrast between lightness and darkness. But he's also thinking a lot about
26:18the relationship between abstraction and figuration. And I'm excited to see where he goes.
26:24Jess is giving us this quite clean drawing. Is that the right format to capture this view?
26:28Obviously, she's very happy with the architectural stuff, the straight lines. And I was interested to
26:34see how she gave the organic stuff a presence, the trees and everything else. And I thought that was
26:37working quite well, actually. The submission was an abandoned building, a deserted scene.
26:42It felt really atmospheric. And then we've given her here, like, a very busy scene,
26:47centre of London. So I think there's some questions there about how she's going to imbue this scene
26:52with a sense of atmosphere. Andrew's given us a riot of color. Is it the right color?
26:58Well, I don't even know if Andrew knows if it's the right color. He's only beginning to develop
27:03a confident sense of understanding of what color you need to have underneath when you're painting
27:08the sky as a counterbalance. But, you know, he's having fun. You can't really find out what the
27:14final image would look like until everything's down because there's so many layers. Nobody knows.
27:20I might have to eat this now. Isn't that terrible? No, no, no. That's the idea.
27:23Oh, nice. I've been working out the relationship between those big shapes and these smaller ones.
27:36The mood and atmosphere, that's also changed over the day, but it's still the same theme of trying to
27:44pick up that feeling state. I just caught you with the smallest brush known to man.
27:53What are you doing? I'm doing the things that stand out that,
27:56because before it was just a mesh of greens and just general colors, and now I'm going into
28:00things that pop a little bit, like maybe people, the gaps in the trees.
28:04I'm trying to refine the picture slightly. Not too much. I am trying to give more definition to
28:17the Victorian monument, and everything else is various levels of vagueness, really.
28:24I think it works, but I don't know whether anybody else will.
28:27With neoclassical Buckingham Palace as their backdrop, the wildcards are adding the final
28:36flourishes to their work. It's been fantastic fun being a wildcard here today, and it's lovely to
28:42have the public just coming around saying nice things about it, really. And as their challenge
28:48draws to an end, the judges are checking on their efforts. So do you think you're finished?
28:54Yes, I think that's it now. I don't want to overwork it and push it over the edge.
29:00But as always, they can only pick one winner.
29:03I'm really looking to impress the judges. It's certainly not my main focus. My main focus is
29:08just to have a nice day, but it's a bonus for sure.
29:18Congratulations, young man. You are a wildcard winner today.
29:22Thank you very much. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure.
29:25And Neil Muldowney's dynamic depiction of St. James's Park is the judges' favourite.
29:30We were really impressed with it. There's a lovely sense of difference to it. We really
29:34understand the sense of place. It's lively. It's got energy.
29:36Thank you very much. So well done.
29:43I wasn't prepared for this at all. So it's great. Big surprise. Definitely worth popping over.
29:48This wasn't an American I thought of. So I'm over the moon.
29:51Neil from Dublin enters a pool of wildcard winners from all the heats,
29:55one of whom will be picked to paint in the semi-final.
29:58Back in the pods, our artists are soldiering on in full view of the growing audience.
30:10I got mostly like nature instead of just the building. It is because I want to make people
30:18feel like they are standing here, right here where I am. You want them to have the experience you had
30:24today. Yes, exactly. Not as much as how nervous I am, but yeah. I can feel it. No, I can't.
30:30And when nerves get the better of our artists, it's always good to have a friendly face in the crowd.
30:36I feel like I'm running out of time. Oh, really? Yeah.
30:39You're doing really well. Don't worry about it. Thank you.
30:42Okay. You can finish my lunch. Thanks.
30:45I want to add more colour because it's a colourful scene. It's bright. It's lush.
30:54There's not a lot of deep shadow there, so it lends itself to more of a colourful painting.
31:01I think the most challenging aspect of this is the architecture of Buckingham Palace. I thought
31:05I would struggle with the trees the most, but I'm liking the trees more than I am the palace.
31:11So that's been a weird one, actually.
31:28Eight artists are nearing the end of their four-hour challenge at St James's Park in London.
31:35Are you going to finish in time? I hope so. Any scenario that doesn't involve me
31:40leaping into the lake is a win as far as I'm concerned. Right.
31:43What's the main area to be worked on? The huge bit. The main bit.
31:51I've just got to a point where I'm not going to do anything else because I know I'm in danger of
31:55Yeah, yeah, overpainting. Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. It's good to know when you're done.
31:59So hopefully towards the end of the day we can make our way towards that lovely shady glady spot
32:10and hopefully there'll be a little table with two pints of beer sitting on it. Lovely.
32:13We won't ask Ty or Ava, so we'll share the beer. Sounds good. That sounds good.
32:17I'm a little bit worried about the goose, but I think it'll be okay because I've not done too much detail.
32:32I think we've got quite a lot of things at the moment in front of me.
32:35Even ducks are coming, so I just want to capture as much as I can.
32:39Right now I've got these gel pens, which are really fine. So they add some lovely detail.
32:55Artists, you are knocking it out of the park today, but you only have five minutes left.
33:03The masking tape has ripped my paper. Not sure what I'm going to do.
33:10I'd like to refine it a lot more, so I'm worried I've got enough time to do that.
33:20Artists, your time is up. Please stop what you're doing and step away from your artwork.
33:30Who's Austin? I can hardly remember my own name, frankly.
33:40To find myself in one of the iconic pods is just extraordinary to me.
33:44My tiny little mind is blown by all of this, so I'll be on cloud nine for a long time to come.
33:58Just one of today's eight artists will win this heat and be one step closer to the title of
34:03Landscape Artist of the Year. Oh, I would love one. Hi.
34:09Ducks are so cute. Our winner will travel across the Irish Sea to the west coast of County Mayo
34:17to paint a view of Ireland's holy mountain, Crow Patrick, a site with a spiritual history dating
34:23back almost 6,000 years. Our artists will explore the mountain's pagan story, as well as its famous
34:30association with St. Patrick, in order to create their final work for the National Gallery of Ireland.
34:36For now, in London, it's time for the judges to look at the eight finished works. To help decide which
34:48artists to send through to this year's semi-final, their selection is narrowed to a short list of three.
34:54Artists have been very obedient today. They've all given us the monument, and most have given us
35:02Buckingham Palace itself. I thought some of them might just go, no, I'm not interested,
35:06I'm going to go straight across, but they didn't. But in a way, that's what Peter is doing, I suppose,
35:10taking us to a different world of its own, right? I can see in this work the influence of AI, actually.
35:17There's a joy to this work, for sure. You know, it's almost thinking about, I guess,
35:21the seriousness of the scene, and the pomp around Buckingham Palace, and turning this into its head,
35:27and taking this into a childlike universe. It feels like I've entered Peter's mind,
35:32which could be scary, but with him it's quite benign and playful, so I feel quite safe.
35:39The completeness of Mike's vision, it really is about light bouncing off certain surfaces,
35:45and he does it very well. It's really harmonious as a painting, and there's a softness to it,
35:50as well. There's a haziness to it. I think he's done a really great job.
35:57Tanya's given us a lovely pathway with that reflection in the water that leads us right up
36:02to the palace, and then the fabulous gold statue as well. It's just perfectly balanced.
36:08I think Tanya's a sublime colorist, and she very quickly had some harmonies going. The blue of the sky,
36:14the slightly purplish water, the gray of the reflections, and those sandy bits. I mean,
36:19I always get a bit frustrated with artists who don't know how good they are.
36:25I find with Nigel's work, I feel slightly uncomfortable. Even though everything around it
36:29is so measured and balanced, I feel unsettled somehow, and then I go up to the top of the painting,
36:37and I see that beautiful blue sky, and I can relax a little bit. I feel like he's really minimized
36:42the grandeur of the scene today, and turned this into something intimate, in terms of our relationship
36:50to those really grand, really powerful monuments. Whereas Alice is sort of, it's the view that people
36:57come here to see, isn't it? I get a feeling she gave us the public space, actually. She's gone for
37:02the brightness, but with the brightness come shadows as well, and she hasn't dealt with them
37:06quite as effectively, so I think the composition works very well. I just don't quite believe the
37:11light running from the front to the back. I can feel there's a push and pull there between that
37:15willingness to be detailed, but also her own way of painting in a more gestural way, so I feel like
37:22in how she's approached the palace itself, this was quite challenging.
37:26I wonder whether that's an age thing, because Chris has got no compunction in doing whatever
37:30he wants, does he really? Alice was trying to give us Bucking Palace as she saw it, and Chris was
37:35thinking, we're going to just whack it in. It's a messy old painting, but there's distance,
37:40there's a gloomy light. And it is a beautiful, muddy, romantic, but also gritty thing. But of
37:49course, what we know as well is it's full of complex layering, it's very careful brushwork,
37:54a lot of it is suggestion rather than definition.
37:59Well, Jess wanted to show us her range by introducing colour, and you can see that lovely
38:03distinction between the architectural, which she likes to treat with black or charcoal or pencil,
38:07and then the way in which she's treated the organic areas with her colour. I think she's done a really
38:13good job today, but I miss the boldness and the moodiness of what she gave us in submission.
38:21I think she wasn't able to imbue the landscape with the same level of emotional load. We do have to
38:29recognise the craftsmanship that goes into this work. You know, I think this is a young artist who's
38:35going to develop and continue to find her voice there.
38:39When Andrew was halfway through this painting, I didn't see this coming together at all. I just
38:44didn't quite understand those bright magentas and purples underneath. And now he's finished it. I just
38:49love the surface I'm getting. There's a lot going on at times, the texture within the texture,
38:54the drawing colours, but it certainly works. And there's some really beautiful moments in this painting.
38:59So I've got a top three-ish. I've got top three. Yeah? Me too. Okay.
39:12Artists, thank you for your work today. We've really enjoyed watching you capture this
39:16amazing scene. The judges have now selected a shortlist of three artists, and those artists are...
39:22Michael Lum. The second artist on the shortlist is... Tanya Farrugia.
39:42And the final artist on the shortlist is... Nigel Glaze.
39:48I'm feeling really surprised. To be honest, I think I need a drink.
40:00I can't believe I've gotten to the final three. For people to value what you do,
40:04I just find that really encouraging.
40:10The judges now have the task of picking today's winner. To help them, they also consider the
40:15selected artists' submissions. The most royal of days. And I've lived in London my whole life. I
40:22don't think I've ever spent this long looking at Buckingham Palace. And looking at the monument
40:26more than anything else, that seems to be the thing that really captivated most of the artists today.
40:29Hardly surprising when it's got a great big gold thing on top, really. I want to live in the England
40:33that Michael lives in. It looks great. That's because it looks like Ireland, Stephen. That's why.
40:38Yeah. They're both really about light and the qualities of light. And there's that wonderful
40:43brightness that sits across the hill in the distance in his submission. And today, you know,
40:48there's an incredible light that bounces on the water. And it is. You're right. It is about quality
40:53of light. And on a cold day, the light is sharp. The shadows are sharp. And today in this midsummer heat,
40:59everything does vibrate slightly. Okay. What do you make of Tanya's gold Victorian reflection?
41:04Tanya's work today really was a study of colour. It's interesting because those qualities aren't
41:11as visible in her submission. It's a much more straightforward painting. It's wristier,
41:16but it doesn't have the subtlety of today's painting. I think there's a clarity in today's
41:20way of painting that wasn't in the submission. And then today also feels very much about the water,
41:27you know, the colours within it, the abstraction that happens within it, the reflection of the
41:31monument. There's so much happening in Tanya's water. Nigel, I think, I see my very untrained eye.
41:38I see similarities in his composition. That central vertical line in both the scaffolding on the left
41:44and then the reflection and the monument, the up and downness of it. There's a wonderful softness,
41:49which is a beautiful quality in painting, but also lends it a certain flavour. The scaffolding,
41:55it's not an attractive subject, but the choice of the blue and the softness makes the thing an
42:00interesting thing to look at. And today, the softness takes us elsewhere in time and place.
42:06I feel that there's a similar commentary as well in telling us where to look. You know,
42:12the monument isn't the monument and it isn't the palace. The monument is the nature here. So inviting
42:17us to look and think about this in a different way. And I think he was doing something similar with
42:22the submission where, again, the thing that we should be looking at is the cover of the scaffolding,
42:26which isn't something that people would normally pay attention to. We've placed these artists today
42:31in front of an incredibly artificial landscape. This entire place has been man-made with a man-made
42:37building. The winner of this series goes to the west of Ireland and paints the least artificial thing
42:42you can think of. Do you get enough clues today from these paintings to tell you who might be able to
42:46handle that challenge? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. And you get three very different
42:50paintings. They'll be great. You'd get a colourist or you get somebody responding to the subtleties of light.
42:54You get somebody finding a part of the mountain that people don't really look at. All their styles
42:59are adaptable to that particular task, yeah.
43:08Michael, Tanya, Nigel, a great achievement to reach the shortlist. So congratulations,
43:14but only one of you can go through to the semi-final. The winner of today's heat is...
43:24Nigel Glaze.
43:35I'm speechless. I'm over the moon. The winner, wow. That's very surreal.
43:44Well done, Nigel. Congratulations. You've done a really good working.
43:48It's a grand building that we've given the artists today. It's also the landscape that's
43:53been looked at a million times. Today's assignment was to think about how you can reinvent something
43:58that's so familiar. Nigel was really able to think about where do we normally not look and inviting us
44:05to think about that. And I'm pretty sure that next time we meet Nigel, it will be an unexpected take on the landscape.
44:15See you in the seventh final.
44:18Wow. I'm going to try and see if my wife's in. Hello, sweetie. Just to let you know, I've won.
44:25Woo, woo, woo, woo. That is so exciting. How on earth are you going to hit your head through the door?
44:34We'll talk to you later.
44:36Big congrats.
44:37If you'd like to be a pod artist in next year's competition or find out more about
44:50the work of our featured artists, visit our website, skyartsartistoftheyear.tv
45:00Next time we dock at the Port of Dover and welcome eight new artists ready to navigate
45:06the choppy waters of competitive painting. You'd rather be doing that than talking to me,
45:10wouldn't you? Yeah. With a changing view keeping everyone on their toes. I made a selection to
45:16paint the ship which is there, but it left. So who will rise to the challenge? I'll just keep on
45:23going until you tell me to stop. And who will drift way off course? I've covered my hands in paint,
45:29just knocking things back.
45:36...
46:02Transcription by CastingWords
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