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00:13The Fulkerk Wheel
00:13The Fulkerk Wheel
00:13Hello and welcome to the Fulkerk Wheel.
00:16This magnificent feat of engineering
00:17is the only one of its kind in the world
00:19and today is home to our three remaining artists.
00:23And if that doesn't float your boat,
00:25then I don't know what will.
00:27It's the grand final of Landscape Artist of the Year.
00:33Over 2,000 gifted artists applied to take part
00:37in this year's competition.
00:39I don't usually paint buildings,
00:41so this is going to be interesting for me.
00:44The drama of the mountains and the sky is a big area.
00:50I'm not painting that.
00:53Now, after battling their way through a heat
00:55and a semi-final, just three artists remain.
01:00Kim Day.
01:03Libby Walker.
01:06Tom Winter.
01:10Our talented trio are just one landscape away
01:14from the chance to travel to spectacular County Mayo,
01:18where they'll undertake a £10,000 prize commission
01:21to paint the country's holy mountain, Crowpatrick,
01:24for the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.
01:27But first, today's painting and an artwork our artists
01:32have completed in their own time
01:33need to impress our three demanding judges.
01:38Not really convinced.
01:40Ooh.
01:41By the wheel or by the art?
01:42So sit back and relax,
01:44because the wheels are already in motion.
01:47The winner of Landscape Artist of the Year is...
02:12In Scotland's central lowlands,
02:14the pods are ready and waiting for our final three artists.
02:19Yeah, yeah.
02:20Thanks for coming to me, guys.
02:22Yay!
02:24Yeah.
02:25Glaswegian Libby Walker.
02:27We've just arrived at the Falkirk Wheel,
02:30some fine Scottish engineering.
02:32It feels kind of overwhelming, exciting,
02:36just amazing to be at the final.
02:38Tom Winter from Bournemouth.
02:40When we were in the semi-finals,
02:42my nerves were not as bad
02:44because I was just elated to be there.
02:46So, actually, now it's sort of like,
02:48right, this is really it.
02:49Yeah.
02:50So...
02:50And from near Wareham in Dorset, Kim Day.
02:54I don't know how I would feel if I won.
02:56I think I'd just be really proud of myself, actually.
02:58Yeah.
03:01I'm pleased we were up here a bit
03:02because I think it's such an imposing structure.
03:05Yeah.
03:05I'm actually really glad it's not the front.
03:07Yeah, you've got much more dynamic sort of perspective as well.
03:10Yeah.
03:11Enjoy.
03:11Good luck, guys.
03:16Under a largely cloudy Caledonian sky,
03:19our finalists are confronted with both a marvel of mechanical engineering
03:23and a fitting test of their landscape painting skills.
03:29From their pod position on a bank behind the Falkirk Wheel,
03:33the concrete and steel structure dominates the view.
03:36Most strikingly,
03:38its enormous pair of rotating axe-shaped arms
03:41which lift boats to and from the raised aqueduct twice every hour.
03:46In the background, beyond the wedge-shaped visitor centre,
03:50farmland stretches away to the distant hills.
03:57We've had an incredible journey,
04:00and we're down to the final three.
04:02These three are the best of the lot.
04:04And it's interesting we brought them here.
04:06It's man-made, it's in the landscape, and it moves.
04:10If I'm honest, I wouldn't know how to deal with it as an artist,
04:13so I'm really intrigued at what these three are going to do.
04:15How much will they succumb to the pressure of what we're expecting from them,
04:20and how much can they navigate around that and produce the work
04:23that is really true to them and makes them the exceptional artists they are?
04:33There's so much engineering, there's so many kind of graphic lines,
04:37and my work is quite soft.
04:42Steampunks would have a field day,
04:44you know, because there's loads of cogs.
04:46There's, you know, circles.
04:48But I think, yeah, and here's it, it's moving.
04:51Sorry, just distracted by the...
04:57The main thing is there's a lot of grey,
04:59so I'm looking forward to finding some colour in amongst that grey today.
05:09Before they attempt to engineer a winning work of art
05:12and the site opens to visitors,
05:14our finalists have a chance to explore today's location.
05:19This sketch is helping me familiarise myself with the forecourt wheel,
05:23so just from looking at it from a different angle,
05:25see what shapes it makes,
05:27it's good to get that contrasting viewpoint underneath.
05:33I want to get up and have a wee look.
05:37I can hear lots of nature and birds singing, so...
05:41Yeah, it's quite magical up here, I quite like it.
05:44Can we move the pods?
05:48My composition is definitely going to be drawn to the top of the structure
05:52before everything starts moving,
05:54so there's a contrast between the calm and to the excitement of below.
06:00Which is where Kim is pondering her composition.
06:04Hmm.
06:06I really love the reflection of the forecourt wheel in the water.
06:11It just feels really strong compositionally,
06:14and that's what I want.
06:15I really want it to feel strong.
06:19.
06:31Artists, it's the final,
06:33so I hope you're going to do something wheelie good.
06:39You have four hours to complete your artworks and your time starts now.
07:04As the pods begin to attract the interest of the morning's visitors,
07:08our first finalist is already getting herself into a spin.
07:13I've decided to focus on the movement of the wheel,
07:16and then I'm going to have some of the canal going up,
07:19just to kind of get a feeling of propelling in to the action.
07:25It's moving again.
07:29An illustrator by trade, seasoned plein air painter Libby Walker
07:34works in expressive brushstrokes with a focus on colour and light.
07:38Her vibrant submission showed a jumble of undergrowth in Glasgow's Pollock Park,
07:44while in her heat aboard HMS Wellington,
07:46she took on London's skyline in her loose lyrical style.
07:50This whole thing makes sense in terms of space where the bridges,
07:54where the buildings are, in this very sort of poetic sort of language.
07:57In the semi-final, Libby's painting of a train passing over the Ouse Valley Viaduct
08:03booked her a ticket to today's final.
08:06She found a great source of inspiration in the arches.
08:10I think it's a great work, you know.
08:14So Libby, when I think about your semi-final piece,
08:17you use the foreground and the distance really effectively
08:20to sort of give that sense of movement.
08:22And today, I can feel it in the composition already.
08:25You've got a fantastic sense of revolution.
08:26Well, you've set us a challenge with the moving structure today.
08:29But actually, that's where it's all exciting, where the story is.
08:32So, yeah, I feel like I'm getting the sweeps of the movement.
08:35There's a lot going on.
08:36And these sort of sweeps that you've got, will they disappear over time,
08:38or will you leave them almost like sort of echoes
08:40of something that might have happened, do you think?
08:42Yeah, I can definitely see that happening as the day progresses.
08:46Wow.
08:46Well, look, I love the swirliness of it already.
08:48Yeah.
08:49Just need a bit more colour and you'll be gone.
08:50Bish bosh bang.
09:00For me, I mean, the real exciting thing is the way the curve
09:04at the top of the wheel points down towards the landscape.
09:07So it's not just blocking your view.
09:09It's actually pointing to another part of the composition.
09:14Tom Winter has been a life-drawing tutor for over 30 years.
09:19Instilling his work with bold colour and form,
09:22his submission is a view of his children's school mid-renovation.
09:27At his heat, also aboard HMS Wellington,
09:30he made waves with his dynamic depiction of the Thames
09:33and London's South Bank.
09:36It's this beautiful balance of painting and drawing
09:39with this glow, this interior light.
09:41It's fantastic.
09:42As the strongest runner-up from the heats,
09:45Tom made such an impression on the judges,
09:46they made an exception and gave him a place in the semi-final.
09:51There's energy in every single brushstroke.
09:54It's literally like it's alive, like it's vibrating.
10:00I mean, why you're here, Tom?
10:03Yes.
10:03It's because of your fantastic mark-making.
10:06Yeah.
10:06I mean, we've given you this landscape.
10:07Is this something you can work with?
10:08Oh, very much.
10:09The curve, you know, the way that that sort of curve
10:12leads the eye into this bit.
10:14Oh, so you're using this as a dynamic to lead your eye
10:17into the fur...
10:18Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:20OK.
10:20It almost makes it sound like a glorified frame.
10:23So just to sort of, yeah, lead.
10:25No, no.
10:25Look, we love your process.
10:27It's exciting.
10:28So, I mean, it's looking good at the moment.
10:33While Tom and Libby take on the main bones
10:35of the Falkirk wheel, our third and final artist
10:38has taken a different tack entirely.
10:43The composition is really kind of quite abstract.
10:47So I've got just the base of the wheel
10:49and then it's the reflection in the water.
10:52So it's going to be really playful and nice
10:54and I'm really going to enjoy it.
10:58Film scene illustrator Kim Day
11:00entered this year's competition
11:01with an evocative mixed-media depiction
11:03of sand dunes at Studland Bay in Dorset.
11:08In her heat at Derwent Water,
11:10her layers of muted pastels, saturated acrylics
11:13and imaginative mark-making
11:15saw her through as winner.
11:18She's picked up on the purpley
11:20and the pinkish undertones of this landscape.
11:23It feels so harmonious.
11:26In the Ouse Valley, Kim showed the judges
11:29she could adapt her style to the viaduct's rigid architecture.
11:33I get the sense of the light coming through the trees,
11:37but what the whole thing lives off is the structure
11:39of the composition, which was laid down very early on.
11:45Hi, Kim.
11:46Hello.
11:46Is that a photograph?
11:47It is, unfortunately.
11:49What's gone on? Why?
11:51Um, just because I just wanted to do water, I think.
11:54I would prefer to be painting what I'm looking at.
11:57Right.
11:57But I was just very taken with that composition.
11:59Okay.
12:00So you've gone right in.
12:02Yeah.
12:03You've just got the bottom bit of the wheel.
12:05Yeah, yeah.
12:06And it's mostly just...
12:07Mostly reflection.
12:09Yeah.
12:09But what's interesting, I suppose, is here we have
12:12the most man-made thing you can think of.
12:15Yeah.
12:15But actually, it's about water, isn't it?
12:18Yeah.
12:18It's literally...
12:19They're trying to get from one body of water
12:21to another body of water.
12:22Yeah.
12:23And that's where it happens.
12:24That's where it happens.
12:33I think Kim's been super tactical because she knows
12:37that she's given us nothing but distance in the past.
12:40Yeah.
12:40And what's she done today?
12:41She's really zooming in on specific details.
12:45Yeah.
12:45And I think it's going to look really, really wonderful.
12:48Yeah, I think both she and Libby are really interested
12:51in this idea of movement and rhythm.
12:53And I really like the way Libby's got these marks
12:56that give that sense of the turn.
12:58And I'm hoping that the way in which she used colour
13:00in her original submission,
13:01I'd love to get close to that again.
13:03I agree.
13:04I worry with Tom, though,
13:05that he's gone in so close on one singular shape.
13:08He's sort of gone in for the big slab.
13:10Mm.
13:11I think the big slab is only the foreground.
13:14Ah.
13:14So let's see how he fills up
13:16and what he does with this right-hand side of the canvas
13:19and how he inhabits this.
13:20So we might get mountains.
13:21We might get mountains.
13:23I don't know.
13:25But as they reach the end of the first hour,
13:27our three finalists still have their own artistic mountain to climb.
13:34Got quite a large area of the space to just deal with the water and the reflection.
13:39It's always a bit complicated because you're in the early stages.
13:42So it's just having that bit of faith that it's going to be okay.
13:46Yeah.
13:49What's on the canvas now is just like the beginning foundations
13:52of where things are going to be.
13:54But that hour went very fast.
13:57I'm finding it tricky just to settle
13:59and I feel like I need to go back up there in my mind.
14:08The lines themselves are quite graceful.
14:11So actually that's something that's quite nice
14:13when I'm sort of starting to move the paint around.
14:15But I don't feel like I'm ever on track.
14:17Although I'm sure a lot of artists will say that.
14:32In Scotland, just three artists remain in our search
14:36for the Landscape Artist of the Year.
14:39And although they've made it this far,
14:41faced with the full Kirk wheel,
14:43they're not afraid to take a risk and change their approach.
14:47Tom, we've got used to seeing you with the yellows.
14:50Here you've got a lot more oranges, a lot more reds.
14:52Yeah, yeah.
14:53When we're essentially looking at one of the greyest scenes
14:56I've ever seen.
14:57Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:58So where does this colour come from?
15:00Generally I've used a lot of yellow in my past couple of paintings,
15:03but that's sort of mainly dictated by the heat.
15:06That's not appropriate today.
15:07So I've tried to mute my palette a bit more.
15:10Well, I love the structure of it, the bones of it.
15:13It's got a real power.
15:24Well, the sort of engineering geek in me is loving this.
15:27I mean, what a great thing.
15:29Good to paint.
15:30Terrible.
15:31Right.
15:32That's why they're here.
15:33Right.
15:34It is unlike anything I've ever seen.
15:37The shapes of those sort of axe-headed kind of pointers.
15:41So you've got this strangeness of it.
15:43And then you've got this complication of the basin
15:47and the people at the bottom.
15:48And then you've got the distant mountains.
15:51The light is flat.
15:53The concrete is grey.
15:55It's a difficult one.
15:56But what is beautiful about it is the way it frames the landscape.
16:00The hard-edged engineering and the organic next to each other.
16:05It's an interesting thing to be dealing with.
16:07But never mind the art.
16:08Let's talk about the engineering.
16:09So it works on the Archimedes principle.
16:13That a boat or a weight displaces the same weight of water as it weighs.
16:19This is from a physics lesson.
16:21This is starting to go...
16:22OK, OK, OK.
16:23I can explain it in 45 minutes.
16:26Hang on.
16:27While I run Thai through the finer points of ancient Greek physics,
16:31our artists are searching for their own eureka moment.
16:36Slightly anxious and nervous, but we're getting there.
16:39Don't be anxious.
16:40Don't be nervous.
16:41It's looking really good.
16:42Tell me a little bit about your work with colour today.
16:46Yeah, so there's a lot of grey,
16:49but I've been finding some yellows and pinks and blues,
16:52and that can help me bring it out from the grey sky.
16:55Yeah.
16:56It feels really, actually really joyous.
16:59The wheel itself, with the cement and the metal,
17:02you know, you've taken us to a completely different universe there.
17:06Well, it's a very joyous thing to be standing here
17:08painting outside on telly.
17:10So I hope that comes true in the painting.
17:24I've been watching you work.
17:26OK.
17:27And you're working on the water, and you've got the image on your phone.
17:30You're not looking at either of these things.
17:32No.
17:33Are you already responding to the painting?
17:35Yeah, so I'm like, OK, I know where the bits are meant to be.
17:38Mm.
17:39And then it's like, oh, it's a bit, feeling a bit safe.
17:43I need to push it a bit.
17:45That idea of playing it safe, is it more about you as an artist
17:48or is it about you in the final of this competition?
17:51No, it's just me.
17:52It's just me.
17:53Oh, good.
17:53It's the right answer.
17:54Very good.
17:57The designers of the Falkirk Wheel also refused to play it safe.
18:04Opened in 2002 and built to replace a series of abandoned 19th century locks,
18:10it's the world's only rotating boat lift,
18:13employing an ingenious mechanism to transfer vessels
18:16between the Upper Union Canal and the Forth and Clyde Canal,
18:20which lies 35 metres below.
18:24Once the Falkirk Wheel was open,
18:26that reconnected Edinburgh to Glasgow,
18:29bringing this canal system back to life.
18:32Fish can actually commute from Glasgow to Edinburgh
18:34and we see them coming through the Falkirk Wheel on a regular basis.
18:38The wheel functions by harnessing modern technology
18:42alongside very long-established principles of physics.
18:48Archimedes worked out that anything that floats in water
18:51displaces its own weight in water.
18:53You can have a giant boat in one gondola,
18:56and you can have a canoe in the other,
18:57and it will still be in balance.
19:00And that's the magic that allows it to operate efficiently and sustainably.
19:05It only requires the power of eight kettles to move 1,800 tonnes of steel and water.
19:12This miraculously efficient system is best understood from the inside.
19:21This is the control system in here.
19:24And then over this side, we've got the really simple engineering mechanism.
19:28You can start to see those giant cogs.
19:32This is where the magic really happens.
19:35This is the heart of the Falkirk Wheel.
19:37It's like something out of a sci-fi novel.
19:43Drawn by its unique imprint on the landscape,
19:46half a million people now visit the wheel each year.
19:50It has changed Falkirk and put it on the map internationally.
19:55And what we want is people to be inspired to do more projects
19:58that think about the future, think about their carbon footprint.
20:02And I think the Falkirk Wheel is a beacon towards that.
20:14And as our three finalists reach the end of their second hour,
20:18they're also starting to find their spark.
20:22I am feeling OK.
20:25I think for me it's always if the image just doesn't come to life in some way,
20:29that it's just a bit, you know?
20:36I think when I'm working, it comes that initial panic
20:40because at the end of the day I've just got to make the painting work.
20:43That's my goal, really.
20:50I've got things in the right place, I think.
20:53My boy went past, he said it actually looks like what it is,
20:56so that was a good start.
20:59I think it's a good start.
21:05I think it's a good start.
21:06I think it's a good start.
21:07In Scotland, our three finalists, Tom, Kim and Libby,
21:12are taking on the otherworldly engineering of the Falkirk Wheel.
21:16And having been riveted to the view for the past two hours,
21:20with the crowds enjoying the sun that's now made a welcome appearance,
21:24our artists are taking stock.
21:27It's not raining in Scotland.
21:31I think now that we're at the halfway point,
21:34I'm feeling a lot more settled.
21:36A blank canvas is never good for the anxieties.
21:41It's in a funny stage at the moment,
21:43because it's kind of very soft and undefined,
21:46so now it's more about colour choices.
21:48I've used more subdued, slightly heavier colours before,
21:53but I think, because it's the last one,
21:55I'm just going to do whatever I like.
22:02Tom, it's the final.
22:03Yeah.
22:04It's so close now, isn't it?
22:06Well, exactly.
22:07There's only three of you left.
22:08I know, I know.
22:09Well, I can't believe it's come to this, really.
22:10One of you is going to be landscape artist of the year.
22:13Oh, gosh.
22:14Yeah.
22:15Yes, yes.
22:21So, halfway through the day,
22:23we're here at the Falkirk Wheel.
22:25Are we witnessing an art revolution?
22:29How's it going, in other words?
22:32I'm not really convinced.
22:35Ooh.
22:36By the wheel or by the art?
22:37The wheel is definitely here, isn't it?
22:39This is very difficult.
22:41At the moment, I see some very good painting,
22:43but nothing that sort of jumps out as,
22:45here I am, I'm going to be the winner.
22:48So, Tom gets off to a flyer with that sort of thin paint,
22:51so you can see the brush strokes.
22:53Do you think he's heading in the right direction?
22:55I think this is where aesthetics comes in.
22:57You know, Tom is a messy painter,
22:58and actually, I think where Tom's really seems
23:01is that he's really reaching out into the landscape,
23:04so out of all of them,
23:05I think you're going to have this combination
23:06between the man-made and the landscape.
23:09And also the way he paints himself,
23:11which is so gestural and so energetic,
23:14like, I'm getting all this sort of mechanical energy,
23:17you know?
23:18And then, I think the other thing that's really interesting
23:21is how he's using the wheel itself,
23:23almost like a device to frame what's going on
23:26in the background,
23:26and so you get that sense of depth.
23:29So, Libby's giving us a very recognisable Falkirk Wheel.
23:32It feels to me she's slightly lifted us up.
23:34She just tinkers with reality, isn't she?
23:36Is that working for you?
23:38It's working for me.
23:39She's thinking about movement,
23:41and she's got this lyrical way of approaching reality,
23:45which I feel is really suited for today's assignment,
23:50because one way of looking at this wheel,
23:53I think, is almost like a utopian piece of architecture.
23:55It's totally dreamy, and it is totally futuristic,
23:58and I feel that it's really working
24:00with this particular subject.
24:01I think that's what I like about Libby's work.
24:03It suspends you between reality and imagination.
24:08You see it has its roots in reality,
24:10but she takes you on this journey
24:11where it's on the verge of being almost too much
24:15and changes your perception of the landscape
24:18and feeding of the landscape.
24:19Kim has taken this very mechanical scene
24:21and given her serenity and calm.
24:24Is she painting what's here today,
24:27or is she painting where she'd rather be?
24:29It's kind of interesting.
24:30She's gone and found this corner to suit her purposes,
24:34and I think now, in that corner of reflection,
24:37there's an internal logic that hasn't come into focus yet.
24:40Yeah.
24:40It has to make sense within itself,
24:42and then we'll be able to understand
24:43what is reflection, what isn't reflection,
24:45what is the actual wheel itself, what is water.
24:48It hasn't quite happened yet.
24:49Is any part of you thinking,
24:51we gave you a very complex, difficult thing?
24:54You've sort of bypassed it all
24:55and found a little corner that makes it easier for you.
24:59No, I don't...
25:00She's doing exactly what I'd hoped an artist would do.
25:02She's gone and found something and made it her own.
25:05But, you know, they need to paint...
25:07Well, exactly. Pro Patrick.
25:08Are we going to get a corner of the car park
25:11and the mountain reflected in a crisp packet or something?
25:13But why not?
25:14I think the value of working with an artist
25:16is asking them to show us the landscape
25:18that we don't see.
25:19And I think when you think about the commission,
25:22which is a spiritual site,
25:24you know, there's so much there to think about
25:26that isn't going to be visible.
25:29Along with creating a work today,
25:32each finalist was asked to create a commission landscape
25:35close to their home
25:36to demonstrate their artistic skills
25:38without a four-hour time limit.
25:42In Dorset, Kim has chosen a view near to her studio,
25:45looking up at the dramatic ruins of Corfe Castle.
25:50Whenever I'm travelling back home,
25:52I have to go past the castle,
25:53and I always feel like this sense of,
25:56oh, I'm home now.
25:57I'm really hoping to convey a sense that this is my home,
26:02this is where I love to be.
26:04Up in Glasgow, Libby has ventured
26:06to one of her favourite places to paint,
26:08Pollock Country Park.
26:11I live really close to here,
26:13but I'm in a small flat.
26:14I come here all the time as my outdoor space.
26:17It feels like my own garden.
26:18When I come into the park,
26:20I get into the wild as soon as I can.
26:24If I see a bit of rubbish, I'll pick it off,
26:25and I think it's really important to leave the wild
26:28as wild as it was when you found it.
26:31In sunny Bournemouth,
26:33Tom has found inspiration right on his doorstep.
26:37I hadn't looked twice at my own road,
26:40and I sort of actually took a photo
26:42and thought, really quite nice,
26:45pleasing division of space in it.
26:47What I love about living here,
26:49it's sort of, it's very, very wide.
26:53You're not close up to everyone,
26:54so it's a very, I feel very lucky to live in this place.
27:01The view I've decided to go with
27:03is just really an obscure view through to the castle.
27:09I like these two tree lines
27:11to create a slightly more dynamic composition.
27:15Sometimes I'll push something back slightly
27:17or bring something in.
27:19It's really playful.
27:20That's why I love painting,
27:21is because it's like you're playing all the time.
27:24And I like that, yeah.
27:28My composition is going to definitely include this tree.
27:31I'm looking at the base and I'm looking at the top,
27:34and you can't ever take a photograph and capture that.
27:37So my challenge is to try and express
27:40what it feels like to be standing right in this spot.
27:43What I'm drawing at the moment
27:45is the sort of buildings in the background.
27:47I'm minimising the sky and maybe playing with
27:50of the way that the driveways
27:52and the sort of diagonal of the road
27:54cuts across the space.
27:56I'm using a lot of, like, negative shapes
27:59in between the houses
28:00to maybe judge the spacing of them,
28:03one part from the other.
28:07I think the biggest challenge for this piece
28:10is making the composition work
28:13and just conveying that story of, you know,
28:17this being home.
28:18Once I get this bit done, I'll be raring to go.
28:23The sort of previous parts of the composition I've been in
28:27have been blessed with really hot days,
28:29and I think actually I'm wary of drifting
28:32towards the same palette.
28:34My main concern is obviously showing my range, really.
28:38I'm very excited to get going.
28:41The rain today has created, like,
28:44such an amazing kind of atmosphere,
28:45the sounds I can hear,
28:47the raindrops that are on my painting.
28:49I want this painting to convey
28:51just how much I love trees and nature
28:53and our dear green place Glasgow
28:56and what that means to me.
28:59With a week to complete their landscapes,
29:01the final paintings will be revealed to the judges
29:04at the end of today's challenge.
29:20Libby, talk me through the kind of details you're putting in,
29:23for example, on the concrete supports for the aqueduct.
29:26It's sort of realism but slightly abstracted.
29:29I think I start with the realist feel
29:31of just trying to draw what I see as well as I can
29:34and then just playing once you've got that down.
29:37So you don't know where it's going to finish up either?
29:38I have no idea.
29:40Really?
29:49I can see the sun's given you some fantastic shadows
29:53that you're now popping in.
29:55Were you waiting for this moment?
29:57No, no, no.
29:58You just hoped it would happen?
29:59I hoped it would happen.
30:00I think the great thing about this is...
30:04I'll tell you, no, one of the really bad things about it as well
30:07is how much hostage you are to responding to it as it happens.
30:12Light, you mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:13Because I was kind of worried,
30:14because you'd calibrated the landscape to the red underpainting,
30:18you'd lose that sort of carefully constructed harmony,
30:20but you're finding lights and darks, so it's still working.
30:23Yeah, well, I hope...
30:25Thank you. Yeah, I hope so.
30:29Kim, meanwhile, has already licked her landscape into shape.
30:34And this is the bit of the competition where everyone's stressed and panicked
30:37because it's the final of Landscape Artist of the Year.
30:39We're just eating ice cream.
30:41I know.
30:41Kicking back.
30:42Yeah, that's the way it should be, no?
30:44I think this is better, actually, to be honest.
30:46Peter, you're Kim's husband, is that right?
30:47That's right, yeah.
30:48How's she gone today, do you think?
30:50I'm sure excellently I haven't looked.
30:51Can't be bothered, or...?
30:52Oh, no, no, I just know not to interfere.
30:55Right.
30:56So I think we'll just leave the stress strain to everyone else, shall we?
31:00Yeah, why not?
31:01Just enjoy our ice cream.
31:02Yeah.
31:08But with the contest now entering its fourth and final hour,
31:12all three artists need to keep their cool.
31:17I'm at the point where I can't seem to see my painting anymore.
31:23I'm getting nervous to add stuff in case I knock something else out.
31:30It's very easy just to go over the edge, and it's just like, ugh.
31:34Maybe some tiny tweaks here with some bright spots, but not much more.
31:39Yeah.
31:41Yeah, time is always an enemy, really.
31:44I'd never change.
31:45I was stressed in the last hour.
31:58By the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland, our three artists are putting the finishing touches
32:03to their final landscapes.
32:06But whose painting today will lift them up into first place?
32:11Wow, well Libby, look, you kept a lot of that movement going.
32:14Have you gone over it in the white, or have you sort of rubbed it away
32:16and this is the canvas that we're seeing now?
32:18Yeah, you're seeing the canvas.
32:20We're seeing the canvas.
32:20I'm kind of rubbing it off and letting it blend in a bit.
32:22I think it's more about just playing with what I've got now
32:25and seeing where it ends up.
32:32I'm trying to resolve the various bits that I think aren't quite working.
32:37I think you've done a great job with the wheel.
32:39It feels really monumental and powerful.
32:41Yeah.
32:41You get that sense.
32:43I'm going to leave you to it, but I think it looks really good.
32:46Don't be stressed.
32:53I suppose the question would be, if someone came to this without knowing place,
32:57would they be able to understand it?
33:01That's the first question.
33:03The second question is, does it matter?
33:05Yeah.
33:05And I'm guessing with your work, a lot of the time it doesn't
33:07because it's about mood.
33:09Yeah, and I don't feel like I need to give people that.
33:13Yeah.
33:14Be some tweaks, but not many, I don't think.
33:20Artists, you have five minutes left.
33:22Five minutes.
33:28I'm looking at one bit and then another bit.
33:31I'm just kind of trying to fill up the picture all at once.
33:33I think we're going to do okay.
33:35I've got a painting on the board.
33:37Yeah.
33:40Don't think there's any danger of overworking it.
33:43Definitely not.
33:44I'd say.
33:46Do I think I've done enough to win?
33:49It's anybody's game, I think.
33:51But, yeah, I've tried my best.
33:53You never know.
34:01Artists, your time is up.
34:03Please put down your equipment and step away from your artwork.
34:14Yeah, I feel good.
34:15I ended up choosing a composition that was quite simple.
34:19I don't know whether I made the right choice, but, yeah.
34:22This is not the normal situation that you paint a painting.
34:26So I was really happy with what I managed to produce at the end.
34:33I'm feeling exhausted, but, yeah, I feel I've done the best in the time.
34:39For me, at least.
34:47The title of Landscape Artist of the Year isn't the only thing awaiting today's winner.
34:52They'll also earn a prestigious £10,000 commission to create a landscape of Crow Patrick in County Mayo for the
35:01National Gallery of Ireland.
35:04Crow Patrick is represented in the collection already, but in photographs, so we don't have a painting of it.
35:09And it's a landmark of huge significance and has been over hundreds and hundreds of years.
35:13So this is a great opportunity to add this place that's so well known to the collection.
35:20What's really exciting about landscape painting is how individuals respond to the environment around them.
35:26So I suppose the ideal for the National Gallery is to have a piece of work drawing on the importance
35:31of the place itself,
35:32but also on the individual character of the artist.
35:40I think whatever happens, I think it's just...
35:43Experiencing it.
35:44Experiencing it has been such a blast, really.
35:47Yeah.
35:49While our artist takes some well-earned time out,
35:52the judges now have the chance to see their commissioned paintings for the first time.
35:59Fabulous. Look at this. Wow.
36:02Wow. That's extraordinary.
36:16I enjoy painting the commission. I've lived at that house since 2016,
36:21and I don't think I've ever drawn my road.
36:23I think it got me to look at it again and appreciate it.
36:29Tom's been really clever.
36:30He's taken something really, really simple and unassuming,
36:33but you feel the sensitivity and the warmth to place, don't you?
36:36Which, clearly, this means an awful lot to him.
36:38It's a place he's very familiar with.
36:40But it's interesting seeing him finish a work.
36:43Yeah.
36:43We're so used to the sort of gestural paint,
36:46and here it's very clear where he goes and how he uses light to say what he has to say.
36:50Just stunning.
36:54With the commission, you're looking through some kind of dark trees through to a lighter area,
36:59and I think for me it was just like a bit of a story of my own journey,
37:03going from one place to another, and yeah, so that was what I was thinking about when I was painting
37:08it.
37:11I just think Kim has shown us what, working with Pastel, just how magical and transportive it can actually be.
37:22You know, and here she's really sort of gone into the detail, the reality,
37:27but she's still managed to hold on to mood.
37:29I think it's really interesting also, you know, where she falls between abstraction and figuration.
37:35We've seen her pretty much everywhere along that spectrum, actually, throughout the competition.
37:41This is somewhere in between that feels really harmonious and really gorgeous.
37:48What I wanted to get across was the feeling of being immersed by the landscape.
37:53Even in the pouring wet rain, being sheltered by nature and being in amongst it all.
38:01Libby transports me somewhere far, far away.
38:04Yeah.
38:05It's steamy and light above you, and then you're sort of caught in this really intricate undergrowth,
38:10and when you start looking at it, it's kind of magical, that sort of abstraction.
38:15The language itself of painting is changing throughout the work in this sort of vertical evolution.
38:21You know, it starts being fairly detailed, and then as we go up,
38:25it sort of disappears into this sort of abstract smokiness,
38:29and this is really so harmonious and such a playful way, I think,
38:33to speak about those different ways of painting.
38:35So, does this make our decision easier or harder?
38:39I think it makes it harder.
38:43Now the judge's last task is to view the commissions alongside the work our artists produced today.
38:54Well, what a day here in the tropics.
38:58This incredible view that's just had everything really, isn't it?
39:02Yeah, real testing ground.
39:04I don't think artists get the chance to paint something like that very often.
39:08I think there's something in today's landscape that somehow has allowed each other's artists
39:13to really explore their languages and their visions,
39:16and I think you can really see this in the three works that they've made today.
39:20I mean, Kim is serene, isn't she?
39:22There's a serenity and a calmness and a gentleness to her,
39:26and looking at the two paintings together, she can convey a sense of mystery, can't she?
39:29Mmm.
39:30They're very resonant.
39:31The colours sort of move very elegantly in tonal harmony,
39:38that beautiful mauve patch on the edge of the water.
39:42She found this really quiet passage, you know,
39:45and that's what she gave us in her commission as well.
39:48I think today's work is very much about, you know,
39:52am I actually looking at a landscape or is this an abstract painting?
39:55And I think there's something really gorgeous in that state of confusion.
39:58So, for me, this was really a sign of someone having a really singular vision.
40:03So, yeah, I'm into it.
40:06Mmm.
40:08Libby's works are just full, aren't they?
40:11They're so vibrant, there's so much going on.
40:13What did you like about what she did today?
40:15It's so alive.
40:17It's alive in every single detail, much like the commission.
40:20And I think today's work, it's all about movement.
40:23She's managed to make this structure, which is really full of metal and cement,
40:28into something that feels almost organic.
40:30And the commission of this rainy park in Glasgow.
40:35That's Glasgow?
40:36Yeah, yeah.
40:37Looks like Narnia.
40:39I mean, that's what you initially think,
40:41because of the colour saturation.
40:43And then you start looking in the undergrowth,
40:45and you suddenly see, no, it's just gnarly, wet ground.
40:48So, yeah, just a magical painting.
40:50I'm looking at Tom's.
40:51It's so interesting looking at them side by side.
40:53You have to fight your way through a foreground,
40:55then the foreground just ends up being more interesting, doesn't it?
40:57Today, is he telling us to look at the background,
40:59or is he telling us to look at the wheel?
41:00He's telling us where we are.
41:02I mean, it's incredibly well constructed, the painting today.
41:05You really get a sense of where we are,
41:07where that ground is, where the water is,
41:09and how your eye crosses that landscape.
41:11So, just a phenomenal understanding of how to create space.
41:14Yeah, I think he knew right from the start
41:15that there were elements that needed to be put in balance.
41:19And similarly, in the commission here,
41:20that grass in the foreground,
41:22and then the detail of the light
41:25and the way it falls differently on the houses
41:27at the different points along the street.
41:29It's little touches like that that hold the whole thing together.
41:33Right, well, there we go.
41:34You've seen all the painting you're gonna see.
41:36Now you have to do your final job
41:38and select the Landscape Artist of the Year.
41:47Kim, Libby, Tom, thank you for all your hard work
41:51throughout the summer.
41:52It's been an absolute joy watching you progress
41:54through the competition.
41:55You are all wonderful and talented artists,
42:00but the judges have made their decision.
42:03The winner of Landscape Artist of the Year is...
42:12Kim Day.
42:18I can't, I can't believe it.
42:21I feel really overwhelmed and emotional.
42:23Yeah, it's amazing.
42:35I'm so happy for Kim.
42:37I think she kept it quite simple.
42:39I think the painting really was very strong
42:41for just making that very simple decision.
42:46Being part of this competition has just absolutely been brilliant.
42:51I elevated my artwork and, yeah, hearing from the judges
42:56has just made it all complete.
43:02Well done.
43:04I'm kind of happy and sad.
43:06Now it's all over.
43:07Oh.
43:08Traveling around as a happy family, looking at art,
43:11talking about art non-stop.
43:12With our new daughter.
43:14Yes.
43:14I'm so sad.
43:16But I think the entire process has been extraordinary
43:19and we should be proud of our work here.
43:21But we had to anchor this decision in, you know,
43:24who would do the best job with the commission
43:25and, and it's Kim.
43:27One of the things I think that Kim showed us
43:29throughout the competition is the range of what she could do.
43:32And then to give us that magical, enchanted glade
43:37that is full of poetry and elegy.
43:40I thought the commission was just a step above
43:43what we'd seen from her.
43:44It had a kind of finish and a solidity to it,
43:46but still imbuing with that lyricism and magic.
43:49And for that, it feels like a particularly appropriate choice,
43:53really, for tackling Chorepatrick,
43:55which is a holy mountain.
43:59The experience has been amazing.
44:01I don't know how things will change,
44:03but I really hope it just means
44:04that I get to do more of what I love more often.
44:08I think I might just lie on the floor for a bit
44:11and just take it all in, just hug my son and my husband
44:15and, yeah, maybe we'll go and get a bit bubbly.
44:18Yeah.
44:20If you can picture yourself in a pod
44:22during next year's competition
44:24or would like to find out more about any of the artists,
44:27visit our website, skyartsartistoftheyear.tv.
44:35Next time, Kim travels to the west coast of Ireland.
44:39I feel quite emotional about it.
44:42Genuinely, it just takes my breath away.
44:44To make her own artistic pilgrimage
44:46up Ireland's holy mountain, Crowpatrick.
44:50It casts light and shadow,
44:52not just on us, but within us as well.
44:55Before her painting is unveiled
44:57at the prestigious National Gallery of Ireland.
45:00Right, here we go.
45:02Three, two, one.
45:07This is the end of theæ—….
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