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Landscape Artist of the Year - Season 11 - Episode 05: HMS Wellington
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00:08Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
00:14Ahoy there! Welcome to HMS Wellington.
00:18This mighty ship hasn't seen action since 1945,
00:20but that's all about to change.
00:23All aboard! It's a brand new episode of Landscape Artist of the Year.
00:30On the River Thames in London,
00:32eight new artists are setting off into uncharted waters.
00:37This is a cityscape and there are currently no buildings in my painting,
00:42so, yeah, a little bit stressed.
00:44With their hands on the tiller are our esteemed judges.
00:48Independent curator Kathleen Soriano,
00:52director of Freeze London Ava Longre,
00:54and award-winning artist Taishan Schierenberg.
00:58Isn't TV art mad?
01:01It is absolutely bonking.
01:02It's been non-stop.
01:04Also on board are wildcards,
01:07each with their own particular take on today's view.
01:11This is the toilet porthole, Stephen.
01:13OK. But it's good that you're looking out.
01:15It is, rather than in. Yeah, absolutely.
01:18A life-changing prize awaits this year's winner,
01:21a £10,000 commission for the National Gallery of Ireland
01:24to travel to County Mayo and paint Crowpatrick,
01:28the country's holy mountain.
01:32So who will keep their head above water?
01:35I asked myself for this challenge, so I have to do it now.
01:39Nearly there.
01:41And who will be swept away?
01:44I try not to think what's in that water, because...
01:46Yeah. You see a few things floating by.
01:48Yeah.
02:10Today, eight artists are embarking on a landscape painting adventure.
02:14Have you been doing this a long time?
02:17Not painting on a boat. How about yourself?
02:19This will be your first time.
02:21They are...
02:23Libby Walker, an illustrator from Glasgow.
02:27Norwegian United Nations investigator Michael Gibb.
02:31Tom Winter, an artist and tutor from Bournemouth.
02:35And from Manchester, oil painter Amanda Mulquiney.
02:40Taking part in Landscape Artist of the Year means everything to me.
02:43I'm petrified, nervous, excited.
02:47Yeah, I just can't believe the day's finally here.
02:49So you're looking forward to it?
02:51Yeah, yeah.
02:52Be good when it gets started.
02:54Yeah.
02:54All this sort of lead up makes you a bit nervous.
02:57Also taking part...
02:59Lucy Bristow, a massage therapist and painter from Brighton.
03:04Chinese printmaker and author Viola Wang.
03:07Andrew Briggs, an IT data architect from Derbyshire.
03:12And from Surrey, documentary director Nicola Tremain.
03:17I have never painted on a ship before, so I don't know how steady my hands gonna be.
03:22Or my stomach, to be honest with you, so.
03:25The rocking ship isn't the only thing that could make our artists green around the gills today.
03:32With space on deck in short supply, for the first time ever in a heat, we've left the pods behind.
03:40Today we are really in element and there are sunshine and the wind and the sound around.
03:47So it's going to be the biggest on plein air challenge I ever did.
03:52Oh dear, sorry.
03:55It's the unpredictability.
03:56It did sort of dictate what sort of thing I was gonna paint on, because I was worried it was
04:01gonna blow away in the wind without the pods.
04:04Being from Glasgow, I'm used to being in a space where it could be raining one second and bright sunny
04:08the next.
04:09So I'm ready to get going.
04:18Artists be warned, all those who haven't completed their artwork within four hours will be made to walk the plank.
04:24And your time starts now.
04:33Today our artists are positioned along the port side of HMS Wellington, a former Royal Navy ship moored at London's
04:41Victoria Embankment.
04:43Across a busy stretch of the Thames, they're confronted by the sweeping panorama of the South Bank,
04:49with its assortment of architectural styles and structures stretching from beyond the Shard in the East to the London Eye
04:57in the West.
04:59It's a really exciting view.
05:01There's a lot of surfaces reflecting that light from the sky and making those all agree, I think, is gonna
05:06be really important.
05:08It's a case of sort of trying to edit down and paint the thing that probably most impresses on me.
05:14All that sort of area.
05:16Yeah.
05:17Don't know exactly yet.
05:30When I paint landscape, I will like to get things proportionally correct.
05:35So it's more about good composition rather than it just being a pretty picture.
05:40IT professional Andrew Briggs discovered his creative side during lockdown by taking online oil painting lessons.
05:49Building his composition in dark tones before applying thick oils, he painted his submission from a photograph taken on a
05:58blustery day in the South Downs.
06:01Andrew, welcome to the craziness that is the landscape artist of the year.
06:06Let's quickly talk about your bucolic submission.
06:09Beautiful greens.
06:10It feels very liberating and sort of verdant.
06:12And we brought you to the centre of the great metropolis.
06:15Have you worked in an urban environment?
06:18Er, no.
06:20But, er, the one thing I look for is a strong composition.
06:24Oh, okay.
06:25And we're afforded with a lot of strong compositions.
06:27The bones of the painting are already there, and it works already, so obviously you're not that uncomfortable.
06:33No, I guess that's a carryover from photography.
06:36I like photography, so I'm looking for strong composition.
06:39Well, it's a great start.
06:40Yeah, thank you.
06:49I work as an illustrator and use a lot of small, pen-detailed artwork, but when I'm painting, my brushstrokes
06:56are a lot looser.
06:57Illustrator Libby Walker's lyrical painting style sits in stark contrast to the meticulous drawings she produces at her nine-to
07:05-five.
07:07Working alla prima in water-mixable oils, her submission shows a summery tangle of undergrowth in Glasgow's Pollock Park.
07:16Libby, what I really loved about the submission was that you were right down in there amongst the vegetation.
07:21There's a lot of organic form.
07:22Yes.
07:23But this is very sort of architectural, it's very, very precise.
07:26Do you have to adapt your style when you're painting?
07:29So the challenge here is to try and keep the loose abstract shapes rather than the lines that I'm used
07:35to as an illustrator.
07:35So, yeah.
07:37So, is there a sort of different part of your brain that operates when you're painting?
07:40Yes, definitely.
07:41The fun part.
07:42The fun part!
07:53So, Ty, we've looked at water a lot.
07:56Yes.
07:56We've never been on it before.
07:58No.
07:58I mean, I love the fact that we're on a boat on the main artery of this great city.
08:05I mean, it's incredibly noisy, it's incredibly busy, it's full of people, it's the hub of entertainment, culture, commerce.
08:11I mean, it's really exciting.
08:13And they're not in their pods.
08:14They're not in their pods.
08:15It has a certain freedom, the sky is open, they have this whole view.
08:20Right.
08:21To choose from.
08:22But where do you go?
08:22I mean, you can't, there's too much, I mean, it's huge.
08:24Yeah.
08:25But it is about rhythm, it's about finding a way to make something feel monumental or vast.
08:32Yeah.
08:32You know, with meaning.
08:34So, there's a lot for them to work with.
08:36I know you and your boats and paintings, it's a very complex relationship.
08:40But here we are, we're on one.
08:43Yes.
08:43We're surrounded by them.
08:44But they're not pleasure craft for the high and mighty.
08:48Right.
08:49This is a horrible river and they're all working and it's real.
08:52Yeah.
08:52I like that.
08:53I love it.
08:53Yeah.
08:54You're a real, you're a real man of the people.
09:05I almost wanted to work something contra to all the blues and the greys really.
09:10And obviously the yellow sort of breaks it, fragments it a bit for me.
09:15An art tutor and painter with over 30 years experience,
09:18Tom Winter's work is characterised by his bold approach to colour.
09:24His vibrant submission in oils built up gradually in semi-translucent layers
09:29to pick scaffolding erected at his children's school.
09:34Hi, Tom.
09:35Hello.
09:35Hi.
09:36So, tell me about your day so far.
09:39You're going for super bright, right?
09:40Yeah.
09:40Lots of yellow highlights.
09:41Well, it's trying to break up all the slatey greys really.
09:44Yeah.
09:44So, the yellow is nice as a contrast with the purples and the blues.
09:48So, it's not overwhelmingly dystopian.
09:51So, Tom, tell us a bit more about your submission.
09:55It feels like you're working with oils but you're working with very thin,
09:58almost transparent layers.
10:00Yeah.
10:00Yeah.
10:00And then the blending of the colours feels like it's happening
10:03in the actual layering of the paint.
10:04Yeah.
10:05So, that's how I did the scaffolding.
10:06So, yeah.
10:16I'm drawn to the natural world and how man interacts within the natural world.
10:22So, sort of a man versus nature type thing.
10:25Lucy Bristow, a massage therapist from Brighton, is inspired by the contrasts
10:30found at the point where urban life meets the countryside.
10:34Her submission, rendered in acrylics with large expressive brushstrokes,
10:39shows a view through foliage of a hotel where she stayed on a recent trip.
10:45So, Lucy, night scene, lots of trees, beautifully painted.
10:51Here we are in the bright sunlight, wobbling around on a ship.
10:54I mean, it's a real contrast, isn't it?
10:56Yes.
10:56And today's view, you're committed to your composition already.
10:59Yes.
10:59You know exactly what's going in it.
11:00Yes.
11:01I've gone for the view straight across the river here at the National Theatre.
11:06I love that contrast between all the straight lines and angles
11:09and then the roundness of the trees.
11:11I find that interesting.
11:12Nice.
11:13Nothing wrong with that.
11:16Boarding HMS Wellington, also ready to tackle today's vista,
11:20a 25-strong crew of wildcard artists.
11:27I don't think I've ever painted on a ship before, but there's a real buzz
11:32and it's just a joy to be here.
11:39Usually, if I'm painting, we're going to Brittany a lot and I'll use the sea water, but I don't think
11:43I'll be using the Thames water.
11:47If any of them come up smelling of roses, they could have the chance of a pod place in this
11:52year's semi-final.
11:54So, Jean, what window is it?
11:56Oh, this is the toilet porthole, Stephen.
11:58The toilet porthole.
11:59It is.
12:00OK.
12:01But it's good that you're looking out.
12:03It is, rather than in.
12:04Yeah, absolutely.
12:13Up on deck, our artists are already an hour into their task.
12:19Time is flying past quite fast.
12:21There's a lot happening, but I'm actually really enjoying the paint in a very painterly way and what it's doing.
12:26So, illustration is going out the window today.
12:31I mean, just the Indian yellow, it's quite nice, it's got a bit of depth to it.
12:35I feel more confident when I sort of, yeah, get some more down, really, but I think it's fun, actually.
12:44So, I've gone from composition to now applying the colour.
12:49I'm OK at the moment, no panic setting yet.
13:00On board HMS Wellington in London, eight artists, podless and buffeted by the wind coming off the river,
13:07are competing for a place in this year's semi-final.
13:11And our next is charting a course all of their own.
13:16I have bought my printing press with me today.
13:20I'm a printmaker and this is my great companion.
13:27Viola Wang specialises in printmaking using recyclable materials.
13:33First tracing her composition onto kitchen foil to produce a printing plate,
13:37she'll then apply ink and feed it through a press to create the image.
13:42This may come as a surprise to our judges as her submission is a pastel sketch of London's Leadenhall Market.
13:51So, I love this mission because it was so full of colour, it was chaotic, it was really, really busy,
13:55but today it's a completely different medium. What are you trying to show us?
13:59I think it's a great opportunity to actually do printmaking outdoors.
14:03OK. I think it's a great challenge.
14:05But what I'm seeing here is something that's very paired back, quite clean and quite clear.
14:12Is that what the end product will look like or will you bring your crazy busyness to it as well?
14:18I think I can't avoid the crazy busyness.
14:21OK. And I can see lots of paints ready to go on.
14:24Yeah.
14:24How many times are you going to run it through the press, do you think?
14:27I'm going to build the image layer by layer.
14:30So, I think I'll start with three.
14:33Great. Very exciting.
14:44I enjoy simplifying more complicated scenes, so I tend to shy away from extreme detail
14:49and really try and distill down what I think the most important components of that are
14:53and convey it in a way that's painterly but still sort of recognisable.
14:57When not deployed to war-torn countries in his role as a UN investigator,
15:02Michael Gibb finds peace in front of an easel.
15:05His submission, rendered in his distinctive simplified style,
15:10portrays residential tower blocks in Oslo, the city in which he grew up.
15:15The submission is clearly not from here.
15:18It felt Northern European. It felt different.
15:23Yeah.
15:23It's graphic and flat.
15:24Yeah, I really like to simplify.
15:26And have you found in this business here things you can manipulate the way you want to?
15:32Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, lovely sort of organic shadows from the trees.
15:36And then behind it you've got the National Theatre with sort of big brutalists,
15:39very geometric shapes.
15:40So, perfect for you.
15:41Yeah, in a way.
15:42Like, I like to paint in gouache and gouache has this sort of matte, sort of flat texture
15:48which offers this opportunity to leave yourself just with the sort of real essence of the image or the scene.
15:53Well, you know, I'm not allowed to say this because I'm a judge,
15:57but I think the beginning is looking absolutely fabulous.
15:59So, I don't know how you work more on it without messing it up.
16:02Yeah.
16:05The ship our artists are on today, HMS Wellington, has been a fixture on the Thames since it was moored
16:11here after the Second World War.
16:15Launched in 1934 with a crew of 107 men, the ship was originally commissioned for the Royal Navy New Zealand
16:22and named after the country's capital.
16:24But a few years later, the Wellington took on a different role.
16:29In 1939, the war drums in Europe were beginning to rumble and she, along with her sister Imperial patrol ships,
16:36were recovered to UK to begin their duties.
16:39The Wellington was deployed to the waters off West Africa, where it protected vital trade routes, earning its nickname, the
16:47Good Shepherd.
16:51She steamed over 250,000 miles and escorted over 103 convoys of heavily laden merchant ships whose goods and produce
16:59would not have made it to UK without the efforts of this ship.
17:02The Wellington also rescued hundreds of personnel.
17:08The cargo liner Highland Patriot was torpedoed off Ireland in 1940 and this ship rescued 169 passengers and crew from
17:17her.
17:18She also took part in the evacuation of the British Army and Normandy and she shared the surrender of a
17:24U-boat off Gibraltar in 1945.
17:27After the war, HMS Wellington was saved from the scrap heap by a London livery company who employed it as
17:34their headquarters.
17:36Then, 20 years ago, it was repurposed one final time.
17:41In 2005, the Wellington Trust charity was formed to preserve and maintain the ship and to explain her role in
17:48the Battle of the Atlantic.
17:49And, of course, she's now open to the public.
18:08I'd say my style is semi-abstract.
18:10I never start painting with a plan, so it will evolve on the canvas.
18:15And I'll just maybe play around a little bit and then just see where it takes me.
18:21This is Nicola Tremaine's first time painting an urban landscape.
18:26Applying paint broadly with large decorator brushes before working more finely into the surface,
18:32her submission, an abstract view of her Surrey garden, was produced over multiple sittings.
18:40So, Nicola, let's talk a bit about your submission.
18:43There's a strangeness to it. This view, is this a real landscape?
18:46So, it started as an abstract and then it started to resemble the view from my bedroom of the garden
18:53with the fields beyond.
18:55So, I just decided to lean into that.
18:57So, is this normally how you paint? And then, how does that work today?
19:01So, the composition has to come together much more quickly.
19:05I need to start to bring in the abstract feel of some of the elements of what's actually in front
19:09of me.
19:10But, yeah, it's a challenge. It's a different way of painting for me. So, it's tough.
19:18They look like they're having a nice time, don't they?
19:29I would say I'm a colourist at heart. So, whatever I'm doing, whether it's a portrait, still alive, I just
19:36love a pop of colour whenever I can.
19:39Amanda Mulquini recently resigned from her marketing job to pursue a career as an artist.
19:45Her bold oil landscape of reflections on Lake Garda in Italy should stand her in good stead today.
19:52But, she'll need to work fast. It took her 18 hours to complete.
19:58So, Amanda, we love the very large slice and the heat you got in the landscape. How does one do
20:06that?
20:07It's kind of a chartreuse-like lime green that I've kind of popped in throughout, and that wasn't really there.
20:12So, I kind of ramp it up a little bit.
20:14Ah, yeah, that's very good, because I was thinking today's colours aren't very poppy.
20:18But everything from the murky brown of the water to the grey concrete, is colour important to you?
20:25Colour's so important. It's like the thing that I look for in everything that I'm working with.
20:30I always try and get, like, a punch of bright colour in there somewhere.
20:36Down in Steerage, our wildcards are bringing the full range of their creativity to bear on today's view.
20:45Gary, in the wildcards, I'm a sucker for any new or weird technique.
20:49What are you doing with all these bits of tape?
20:52Well, basically, I'm trying to mix up little bits of hard edge with something a bit more fluid.
20:56I quite like geometry and painting anyway, but I've never been in the centre of London painting this huge amount
21:01of buildings before.
21:02No.
21:02So, this is all new.
21:11Sherry, we've given you this fantastic vista, and you've gone for sort of grubby corner, old-school Y.
21:21Oh, there's something about the colour of the brick that I've picked there.
21:23That's really nice.
21:24That is very nice, yeah.
21:26Well, look, it looks great. Evocative, the working river, it's fabulous.
21:34Shazia.
21:35Yes.
21:35How are you doing?
21:36I'm OK. It's coming along. It's just a lovely scene.
21:40It's a lovely scene. Do you ever go mudlarking?
21:43No.
21:44I love it. You never know what you're going to find.
21:46It's a bit like coming down to the wildcards. You never know what you're going to find.
21:59Back on the foredeck, with two hours of the competition now gone, our artists are finding their way.
22:07At the moment, I'm introducing colour into the composition. I don't really know what's going to happen yet.
22:14Just try to keep my heart clear and then just keep going.
22:21I am so far behind where I would like to be at this point and this is insane.
22:25Like, this is a cityscape and there are currently no buildings in my painting.
22:30So, yeah, a little bit stressed.
22:35So, I've just been ramping up the colours to try and make it a bit more exciting because it's quite
22:40muted,
22:41but it's looking a bit too much, actually, in places. I'm just really struggling right now.
22:59Aboard HMS Wellington, eight artists are depicting a busy stretch of the Thames.
23:06Exposed to the elements and with the tide now rising, all they can do is go with the flow.
23:13Pretty much everything has changed. That's the thing about working, obviously, on a boat with changing tides.
23:20So, it's trying to get a sort of combination of all the different elements which first attracted me to this
23:26view, really.
23:29I came with a bit of a game plan. I haven't really stuck to it. I've just put down every
23:33colour.
23:34Mainly because the light keeps changing, but I'm feeling reasonably relaxed compared to what I expected at this point.
23:43Trees are my happy place, so I've managed to get a few of those in, but the river at the
23:47moment I'm having a bit of a struggle with.
23:50I need to just focus on it. It's been a bit of an afterthought so far.
23:56For printmaker Viola, having now etched and inked up her foil plates, it's time to pull her first set of
24:03prints.
24:09Viola, so we've got two colours down, the green and the blue.
24:12Yep.
24:13So, how many of those initial prints have you got?
24:15Six. So, this is layer one. So, we have the water and the sky.
24:21I love your mark making. You can keep it very painterly, can't you?
24:25Yes, you can.
24:26Well, I'll let you get on with it.
24:27Thanks.
24:34It's an unusual day, isn't it? Because being on a ship, we don't have the pods, and it is very
24:40sunny, it's very bright.
24:41And also, I think the nautical term is windy.
24:45Yeah, I mean, it's like gladiators for artists, isn't it?
24:47You know, here we are, sort of swaying backwards and forwards.
24:50So, it's a really big challenge, I think, we've given them.
24:53So, Nicola has never painted a building before. How's she going on?
24:57Yeah, I think Nicola's having problems.
24:59Her submission was very rich and organic.
25:02This is, in its way, is very ordered.
25:05And she has vast amounts of sky to fill and lots of water.
25:10And it's very difficult to react to nothingness in a painterly way.
25:15I really love Nicola's brushwork.
25:16I think there's a lovely abstraction to her painting.
25:20And it's quite nice to see her just almost suggesting the presence of the buildings rather than actually defining them.
25:26Libby's an illustrator by trade, but her painting style is fairly loose.
25:29How's she getting on with the junction between those two things today?
25:33Yeah, I think Libby's work is very lyrical.
25:35And she's just found a beauty in the landscape that I certainly don't see.
25:39I mean, it's full of poetry. I think it's gorgeous.
25:41I think it's a challenge for her being in this context.
25:44You know, someone whose work naturally feels really organic.
25:47But we're still going to get a painting that's going to have that similar feeling.
25:50And somehow it's going to come out of this very urban landscape.
25:55Michael must have skipped for joy when you put him in front of the National Theatre.
26:00Well, basically, it's a playground for him.
26:02He's got this brutalist architecture of the South Bank,
26:04which completely lends itself to that play with volumes, shadows and blocks.
26:10It's made London look very clean.
26:12No, but Michael's schtick is simplification.
26:15Yeah.
26:15There were some really interesting things happening early on,
26:18and now it's become more literal,
26:20so I'm hoping he will simplify even further and we'll get that edge back.
26:25Amanda's clearly interested in colour.
26:28Is she finding the right ones today?
26:30Yeah, she found little kicks of colour that really make it sing.
26:35I think the whole thing is very strong, and so does the bird.
26:40I find with Amanda everything's just a little bit too far away.
26:43That's a heavyweight skyline.
26:44You know, Tate's in there next to the Shard.
26:47But I feel like I just want to get a little bit closer.
26:50So Viola's probably suffered the most not having a pod,
26:53causing her all sorts of difficulties.
26:55Is she overcoming them?
26:56It's just hard to know, isn't it?
26:58You can't possibly tell at this stage because so much of it is hidden.
27:01The anticipation of what's going to be revealed has me on tenterhooks.
27:05I loved her pastel drawing.
27:07There was a looseness to her mark-making, but it did coalesce into an image
27:10that was easily readable.
27:12At the moment, the print isn't doing that.
27:13But we always have that with printmakers.
27:15You can't tell to the very last pull of the day.
27:19Lucy feels like she's just having a great time, really enjoying herself.
27:22Are you enjoying looking at her painting?
27:24I really like where it's going.
27:25I think she was drawn to this particular corner of the landscape
27:29because this is where you can really feel that connection
27:32between the built environment and nature.
27:35So I enjoy this tension and how she's resolving those two things there.
27:40I worry about the pink ground because she didn't do that in her submission.
27:45And I just worry that the pink is going to be a bit distracting.
27:49Andrew, working just below us here, can you tell where it's going?
27:53Yes, he's got a good composition.
27:56The eye is led in from the right with the far river bank.
28:01But it's become very topographical.
28:03I agree.
28:03I felt like Andrew's submission was all about movement.
28:06And then, of course, today he's really focused on the buildings
28:10and he's approaching them in a really static way.
28:13So I'm not sure where this is going to go.
28:15That yellow looks like it's staying on Tom's painting.
28:18Good.
28:19I thought that the underpainting was just sublime.
28:23Yeah.
28:23The whole thing was alive and vibrant.
28:26And then the realistic colours started being put in
28:29and I just felt sad for the yellow painting.
28:32But what you get with Tom is this incredibly powerful thrust,
28:37partly to do with the format he's gone with,
28:39but it's partly to do with the dynamism and the energy
28:43that he's got sort of going over that side of the river.
28:46It's getting windier, isn't it?
28:47What?
28:48I can't hear you!
29:03Nicola, the London Eye is just such a sort of cheesy symbol, isn't it?
29:07Yeah.
29:07But you've suggested it in a really beautiful way.
29:11Oh, thanks.
29:11Are you going to go in and poke it about a little bit more
29:15or are you just going to leave it?
29:16Oh, it's hard to know because when I poke about
29:18I've got the tendency to lose something.
29:21You shift the balance.
29:22Yeah.
29:22Because it feels quite balanced at the moment.
29:29Libby, is that a balustrade I see going in?
29:32A balustrade?
29:33Is that where there's a railing?
29:35That's good.
29:35So we're on a ship?
29:36Yeah.
29:36Thought I should include that as part of the day.
29:39Because, I mean, listen, we spent all day doing this.
29:42We might as well reflect it in the artwork, couldn't we?
29:44Exactly.
29:44Yeah.
29:50Packed together at the ship's stern,
29:52our wildcards have been battling away all day for artistic glory.
29:56It could have gone worse.
29:58It was tricky to start with,
29:59but it's sort of come together in the last ten minutes, maybe.
30:10I'm deciding on a few colour changes, maybe.
30:13I'm debating whether or not I put the wheel in
30:15or whether I'd chicken out and leave it.
30:17So, yeah, some small things.
30:20You know, it'd be good if my work impressed the judges,
30:22but I told myself before coming that I just need to let go and have fun,
30:26and I have had a lot of fun.
30:29But which of our wildcards will be jumping for joy?
30:33Time to discover today's winner.
30:35Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh!
30:39Well done!
30:41Woo-hoo!
30:43Congrats!
30:46And it's the rich combination of acrylics and oils
30:49in Sherry G's boat moored on the river
30:51that's enthralled the judges.
30:54We were really taken with the painting.
30:56I think she's done a really good decision with the cropping of the work,
30:59and it's really lovely.
31:01It's done really well.
31:02Congrats!
31:03Congrats, congrats!
31:05I'm not sure when it's going to sink in.
31:07I'm still, I don't know, in denial or buzzing or something.
31:12I think there's safety in numbers down there.
31:15If I end up being in the semi-final,
31:18that'll be a whole interesting experience if that happens.
31:22Sherry from West Sussex enters a pot of wildcard winners,
31:26one of whom will be chosen for a pod place in the next round.
31:37Back in the open and into their final hour,
31:40our main artists are keeping things in perspective.
31:43Is this more stressful than your day job?
31:47No.
31:47What is your day job?
31:48I work for the United Nations as an investigator.
31:51Right.
31:51That sounds like quite a serious job.
31:53What do you investigate?
31:54I investigate how conflict is financed.
31:57Wow.
31:57You don't do conflict resolution, do you?
32:00I don't do so much of the resolution.
32:02I was hoping you could speak to the judges, never mind.
32:08I'm struggling with everything at the moment.
32:10I'm not getting the detail that I usually enjoy,
32:13so it feels really flat, but I'm hoping to look back, yeah.
32:21This is the third layer.
32:23I'm going to add all the key information for the image.
32:29I asked myself for the challenge, so I have to do it now.
32:33Nearly there.
32:47In London, eight artists have spent the last few hours
32:50depicting the view across the city's famous river.
32:55It's muddy, but not too much.
32:57Yeah.
32:58Your version of the Thames.
32:59Yes.
32:59You could just go mad on that one and keep layering up,
33:03but you can really feel it in the water, actually,
33:05and how you've treated it.
33:06It's really golden and full of yellows and oranges.
33:09It's really gorgeous.
33:15Tom, this morning you had this fantastic dynamic yellow underpaging.
33:20You've gone in with realistic colours.
33:23Yeah, yeah.
33:24But is it working?
33:25Are you happy with it?
33:26I need to do something to bring it together, because we're running out of time, I guess.
33:34Artists, you have five minutes left. Five minutes.
33:42I've added two little figures, so I'm just seeing if I can find a way of suggesting them without going
33:48into too much detail.
33:52I'm just trying to make it feel alive with dappling water.
33:57Be done when the time ends.
34:04It's just bringing it all together.
34:06I can slap paint on, but it's making it look halfway decent.
34:13I'm kind of trying not to touch it, because I could ruin it and then not be able to claw
34:18it back.
34:25I'm done.
34:35I could really do with another, like, three days, to be fair.
34:48Artists, your time is up. Please stop what you're doing and step away from your artworks!
34:56We did it!
35:00I think it's a really unique experience, but I made it. I finished it.
35:06I'll definitely do it again, but maybe a less windy day.
35:16Just one of these eight artists can go through to the semi-final
35:20and be in the running for the title of Landscape Artist of the Year.
35:25Our winner will travel to the western edge of County Mayo
35:29to paint the magical Crow Patrick, Ireland's holy mountain.
35:34They'll explore the coastline and the power of the Atlantic Ocean,
35:38absorbing the rugged natural beauty and changing light
35:42in order to create their winning commission for the National Gallery of Ireland.
35:50For now, on the deck of HMS Wellington, the judges have to decide who will make it through to the
35:56semi-final.
35:58First, they must narrow down their selection to a short list of three.
36:05Quite a breezy day today, isn't it?
36:08Do you think you can feel it in the paintings?
36:10I feel lots of different weather, but I also feel rather moved to live in a city that can be
36:16interpreted in all these different ways.
36:18Mm. And I think that really comes out in the painting today.
36:21The artists had so much to choose from.
36:23Yeah. And I think that's given artists, you know, lots of room to play and be inspired.
36:28I mean, Nicola's sort of taken us to a very romantic, very moody part of London.
36:35I like the near abstraction.
36:38I love the balance in the palette, that lovely band of green that shoots across.
36:42This painting is full of drama and darkness, and it sweeps you off your feet.
36:49The brushstroke work is really incredible.
36:52Libby's painting sort of fizzes with energy.
36:55The water is in motion, the city is in motion.
36:58She's seeing what's in front of her, she's reinventing it constantly in these very beautiful, lyrical marks.
37:03I think my favourite bit of Libby's painting is the fact that we are clearly on the ship.
37:07You've got the balustrade there, and I think she's the only artist that actually did that.
37:11I love Michael's reductionist style.
37:14It tells you everything with giving you very little.
37:17I do have a problem with Michael's people on the beach.
37:20I would, wouldn't I?
37:21Yeah.
37:22I think his style feels quite suited to the urban landscape, and he's really done, you know, an extraordinary work
37:29in terms of, you know, tuning out all the noises and really focusing on, you know, what are the building
37:35blocks of this landscape.
37:37Amanda, I think this painting really well constructed.
37:41If she'd had a bit more time, we would get more of these kicks of colour, and the whole thing
37:45would really start to sing.
37:46So I think a painting on the way to being very good.
37:49It feels incomplete, but actually there's some beautiful passages and some really interesting moments.
37:55Based on Viola's submission, I was a bit surprised with the choice of medium for today.
37:59And I think she's done a really good job. I mean, she's gone for a sort of vignette style format,
38:04which really suggests we're on a boat that sways and rocks, there's been all this wind.
38:11So I really get this.
38:12I really love it as a piece of work. I love the mark making. It's full of vitality, but it's
38:20incredibly hard to read.
38:23Andrew, he's produced a very competent painter. I mean, you do get a sense of space, you get a sense
38:28of light. He's got a good composition, and I love the density of the city beyond the bridge down there.
38:36You can feel the movement in the clouds, and that lovely sinuous line that we saw in his submission is
38:42present on the surface of the water, so I think a lot of movement and energy.
38:48Mm.
38:49Tom's is sort of ugly, isn't it?
38:52But I really like it.
38:54It's got so much energy, so much colour in that river, but it's not a pretty thing to look at.
38:59I love the colour scheme, which all started with this layer of bright yellow, which is sort of dirtied throughout
39:07the day.
39:08And I feel like that creates an interesting commentary on, you know, what London is as a city. You know,
39:13it is dirty, it is grubby, but it also shines, and it's full of beautiful bright moments.
39:20Streets paved with gold, London, innit?
39:23I love Lucy's mark-making, the layers, the dripping. When you go closer, there's some sublime pieces of painting.
39:30Yeah.
39:31You can really feel that tension between the built environment and nature, and, you know, those trees are almost disappearing
39:40under the weight of the buildings around them.
39:53Artists, thank you so much for what has been a very different kind of day for us.
39:58The judges have selected three of you to go through to the shortlist, and those three artists are...
40:08Nicola Tremayne.
40:10APPLAUSE
40:16Libby Walker.
40:23And the final artist on the shortlist is...
40:28Tom Winter.
40:34Libby, thank you so much Michael for having a good day.
40:38Our judges now have to agree on today's winner.
40:41To help them choose, they take another look at the artists' submissions.
40:47Fantastic day, but you have to say, we haven't made it easy for them today, but some good art.
40:52Great art, yes.
40:53Nice to see that if you give the artists enough to work with, they respond in kind.
40:58So, Nicola, so much atmosphere in both those paintings, then you put them side by side.
41:03I think there's a strangeness to Nicola's work that really carries through.
41:09I mean, the submission feels really strange and really quite hard to read, and I feel like there's similar mechanisms
41:15today in her work, whereby you clearly know that it's London, but it's also not London at the same time.
41:21It's another place, and it's a place of dream or nightmares, I'm not quite sure.
41:25Maybe it's more about storytelling.
41:27Maybe we're used to narrative painting being slightly smaller, slightly more intimate.
41:31This is sort of storytelling on a much grander scale, and she's looking for meaning and mood and drama.
41:37So, Libby, this is a sort of fantastical submission.
41:41Today, she gave us the railing to sort of cling on to, and then all hell breaks loose beyond it
41:47in a wonderful way.
41:49There was a sort of joyous lyricism to the submission and the way she was making this forest sing and
41:57dance.
41:57And I feel like today, even though that is absolutely not present in the landscape, she still found it, and
42:04I think she really found it in the water.
42:06Yeah, I mean, that's brown sludge we've been looking at all day, and look at that.
42:09And look at this sort of psychedelic party that's going on in the water here today.
42:13This whole thing makes sense in terms of space where the bridges, where the buildings are, in this very sort
42:19of poetic sort of language.
42:21That's magic, I love it.
42:23First thing I notice about Tom's when they're side by side is these shadows at the bottom of both the
42:26paintings.
42:27The shadow on the left seems to anchor the building to the ground, and the vertical shadow on the right
42:32-hand painting.
42:33I think Tom is all about light and shade, but he's also about precision and chaos.
42:38You've got this combination of detail in the mark-making, but then slightly chaotic in the way in which he
42:45allows the paint to sort of slide all over the place.
42:47I think it works incredibly well.
42:49It's interesting looking at Tom's painting today and his submission.
42:52It's this beautiful balance of painting and drawing with this glow, this light coming from interior light. It's fantastic.
43:10Nicola, Libby, Tom, you've done amazingly well to get this far at what's been, frankly, quite a challenging heat.
43:17Sadly though, only one of you can win today and go through to the semi-final.
43:21And that artist is...
43:30Libby Walker.
43:38It feels exhilarating to be the winner. I'm still shaking a little bit.
43:43The fact that I can now be a painter, I can now be that, is just...
43:52Erm...
43:52Yeah.
43:53Feeling a bit teary.
43:55Oh, Libby's a fabulous painter.
44:03She's just inventive. She's a great colorist. The way she puts paint down is new. It's playful.
44:11And if we think forward to, if she goes all the way and wins a submission to paint Crowpatrick, she
44:18has a kind of joyful lyricism as part of her artistic DNA.
44:23And I think she's shown she can apply it to wherever she makes a painting.
44:29Hiya, erm...
44:30I'm calling you because I just won.
44:33Oh, yeah!
44:35I won, I won, I won!
44:37That's amazing.
44:38Love you!
44:42If you'd like to discover more about the work of our artists, or apply for next year's competition,
44:48push the boat out and visit skyartsartistoftheyear.tv
44:56Next time, we're on England's south coast.
44:59I don't usually paint buildings.
45:01So this is going to be interesting for me.
45:04As eight new artists take on a monument to the Middle Ages.
45:10And the elements.
45:12OK, we get some help.
45:14So who'll lead the charge?
45:17Trust the process, as they say.
45:19Trust the process.
45:21And who'll find it all a bit of a battle?
45:24Too many rush decisions, too much paint.
45:27And I'm very hot.
45:57And I'll be back!
45:58And I'll be back!
45:58Don't be back!
45:58Want to be back?
45:58And we're on the road.
45:58So who's the one?
46:02Transcription by CastingWords
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