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