Landscape The Big Painting Challenge

Hello and welcome to the show that celebrates the pleasure and the pain

derived from creating paintings.

We've found ten enthusiastic amateur

artists to join our artistic boot camp.

Are you looking forward to being painted by this lot?

Very much, yes.

They'll have to sharpen their skills.

OK, everyone, pick up your bamboo sticks.

And each week the challenges get a little bit harder

to push our painters a little bit further.

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

Along the way they'll be supported and guided by their two mentors,

Pascal Anson, an artist, designer,

and guest lecturer at the Royal College of Art.

A good artist is somebody who's a troublemaker.

Can I have a little bit of white in that as well?

And Diana Ali, art educator, curator and artist.

It's really important for an artist to be experimental

and make the work exciting.

But if our artists want to avoid being sent home,

it's the judges they really have to impress.

Last week, Lesley left the competition

after still life got the better of her

and Jennifer was top of the pile when she won the public vote.

Nine painters now remain and the pressure's on for all of them.

This week, we're in Hastings on the south coast.

This historic seaside town has become

a haven for artists and is an ideal

location for landscape painting.

Last week to me is still magical and crazy

and, yeah, nerve-racking, still.

I'm still shaking about it.

I knew it was going to be difficult.

I knew there was going to be a real...a real challenge,

but I'm just trying to overcome that.

Probably the enjoyment is so much that it outweighs all...

All the pressures.

Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

Ready to have another go and do as well as I can, I think, yeah.

That's what I'm aiming for.

At the end of this week's challenges,

one more artist will have to leave the competition.

Welcome back. You've made it to week two, yay!

Two challenges await you today and our genre is landscape.

And somewhere behind the mist and rain stands Hastings Pier,

and your job is to capture it on canvas.

You've been challenged to paint the pier.

You need to think about the scale of it, the perspective and proportion,

and reflect that in your paintings.

In a couple of hours, the judges will come by to give their judgement

so, mentors and artists, please get into position on the prom,

tiddely-om-pom-pom.

For the next two days, come rain or shine,

the Hastings seafront will be an

open air studio for our nine artists.

I'm not going to put up with any whingeing or complaining.

This is Britain. This is the south coast and it's wet and it's rainy.

That's what you expect.

The artists only have a plastic shelter to protect them from the

elements as they tackle this challenge.

Pascal is mentoring David, Suman, Camilla and Ruaridh,

who has his sign language interpreter on hand.

So not quite as cosy as last week, but I'm looking for a bit of

determination to deal with the elements,

to deal with the little bit of wind

and the little bit of rain that we have.

So last week we learned about eye level being something that's

horizontal on the page,

and this time you've got eye level but you've also got horizon.

Take that through into the pier, it drops as it moves towards us,

but it's only a tiny bit.

So don't have the pier soaring up at some extreme angle.

It's pretty much a horizontal.

Over in the other shelter, Diana will be mentoring Jennifer,

Alan, Maud, Angela and Jimmy.

OK, so, criteria for this week - proportion.

So looking and measuring objects next to each other and perspective.

Now, hopefully from the last challenge

you got a little bit more confident with this perspective.

So really look at your focus of your pier and measure

out your lines, OK?

Want to start the challenge? Good luck.

Artists have been painting the great outdoors for thousands of years.

But until the 17th century,

landscape was confined to the background with

paintings dealing with religious, mythological or historical subjects.

However, by the 19th century, there was an explosion of naturalistic

landscape painting with artists

focused on painting directly from nature.

And it is a realistic and atmospheric portrayal of their

surroundings that the judges are looking to see in our artists' work.

It's a lot to achieve in just two hours and painting en plein air,

that's outdoors to you and me,

has thrown everyone out of their comfort zone,

even the camera crew.

The conditions are a wee bit challenging,

but they're all right, like.

Well, I'll wait to the end and then we'll see how challenging they are.

I feel quite happy out here today

because in the past I've done farming

and so the only days we ever get to go to the seaside was when it was

chucking it down with rain and it

was just too wet to do anything else,

so these are the sorts of days that I'm used to at the seaside.

Country girl Angela is the newest of our painters.

She only started painting just over a year ago

whilst recovering from an accident.

On the day of the accident,

it absolutely stopped my life completely.

Without painting, my recovery would have been completely different.

It really did give me, sort of, another reason to live.

I do feel like a complete novice because

I've just been doing it for such a short period of time.

The hardest thing for me is definitely conditions.

I've never painted outside before.

If I did, I'm pretty sure I would have chosen a nice, sunny day.

In Diana's group, Alan's wasted no time and is already blocking out his

composition using oil paint and a brush.

-It's rainy.

-It's rainy.

-It's diluted.

-It's diluted.

-Things look wet.

-Things look wet.

Stop repeating me.

-I'll stop repeating you.

-I will suggest, remember at the moment,

your buildings are in the background,

but they look a bit too dominating in terms of perspective.

They need to go lighter and lighter as you're going through.

This is Camilla's first attempt at a landscape.

Not only that but she's also trying

out a palette knife for the very first time.

Try and do this thing where you mix the paint.

-Yeah?

-And then you apply it and leave it.

Literally just...

Stop, enough. Right, mix it again, apply it, and keep going like that,

rather than blurring it all.

So maximum four pushes.

Stop, next.

One minute I have got what I think is a decent picture and then within

five minutes it's all drained off my...

That's naturally coming out.

I almost feel like I need to take that off and hold it upside down.

-Do it.

-So the streaks are going that way.

-Do it, take it off.

-And let it go that way...

-Yeah.

Angela hasn't painted landscapes before but she doesn't moan,

she just goes straight in for it.

It's like, "OK, what do I need to do?

"How am I going to do it? Let's just try it."

She has really, really just delved into it.

But not everyone is loving the drizzle.

Compared to painting from photographs,

this is considerably more

challenging in terms of getting what you intend.

Promise me you're not going to fight it and allow nature to take its

course on the canvas. Let's see what happens.

In Diana's group, Maud's also feeling a bit washed out.

It's like having a tap running on your canvas.

There's just, like, water everywhere.

48-year-old IT consultant Maud

doesn't usually let it rain on her parade.

Overall, I'm very positive.

You know, if I start something, I like to try and finish it.

Her love of art began when she was a youngster.

I've always doodled, so I was always drawing on something.

Normally on paper, not on walls.

She joined her local art club and recently sold her first painting.

But will she be able to sell this work of art to our judges?

-Maud.

-Hi. Is that a credit card?

-Yes, it is.

-What's that about?

Well, the thing about it,

I've got to make some defined marks on the canvas.

I'm just trying to see what I can do

to add some atmosphere to the picture.

And Maud's not the only one finding the exercise challenging.

Proportion here.

You've got the perspective right but not the proportion right.

Bloody artistic licence.

Can I ask you what's going on?

My painting is dissolving in front of me.

-Because of the rain?

-Because of the rain and humidity.

I notice as well that you have

managed to find some colour in there,

in what to me looks like an incredibly grey seascape.

I don't see grey, I see yellows and magentas.

You're getting all sorts of refractions in the clouds -

-it's not really grey.

-Whatever you're on, I'd like some.

Deciding if the artists have managed to develop their sense of scale,

proportion and perspective will be up to the judges.

Lachlan Goudie, an award-winning

artist and member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.

We've given them one simple man-made structure - the pier.

Can they at least get that right?

Can they at least give the

impression of it disappearing off towards the horizon?

And then release themselves in the subject that surrounds it,

the sea and the sky.

Daphne Todd, former winner of the BP Portrait Award,

who was given an OBE for her services to the arts.

A good landscape painting is the one where you've got a sense of the

mutability of everything, the changeableness.

And Dr David Dibosa,

an art historian and reader at the Chelsea College of Arts.

What needs to happen in changing conditions is for an artist to make

a decision about what point they're painting from and rely on almost an

inner camera where they take an

image in their head of the conditions that they're painting.

Both Diana and Pascal's groups are an hour through their allotted two

hours with their work well developed.

Like all of Pascal's artists, Ruaridh is a novice at landscape.

At the moment, everything feels like it's painted with the same brush,

so I would treat it as three parts.

Treat it as the sky, the sea and the sand,

so try and separate the three elements and try and handle the

paint in three different ways.

I think Pascal was absolutely spot on.

The colours I feel are working perfectly altogether,

but at the moment, when I step back and look at it, it has no character.

Schoolboy error.

I turn around, my painting washes away.

The marks they're putting on, it's washing away,

but I think that's brilliant because they have to work with it,

and it's making the work really quite dramatic.

I'm randomly trying things out and I don't think all of them are working.

It's colourful. I think that's about the only thing you could say for it,

but it's not meant to be colourful. It's meant to be muted.

You all right, Jen?

It's looking like a field of flowers at the minute.

Yeah, I'm going to push that yellow out because it's just...

I just want it underneath.

OK. Measure, lines.

Yes, measure, lines, do it.

28-year-old Suman recently took a huge risk and left her career as a

health professional to study art at college.

What propelled you into doing that?

For a job, in summary,

I rehabilitate people who've had accidents or have maybe lost limbs.

I think it's really quite inspiring when you see people in negative

situations come out of that and then in some cases do things that they've

-always put off.

-Yeah, yeah.

You know? And then I was thinking to myself, you know,

I might as well take a chance and do something that I want to do and so

it's sort of inspired by the people that I've helped.

Do you think landscape will be in the menu for the future?

We will see. If I can finish it, yes.

With only 45 minutes to go,

Pascal is struggling to keep some of his artists on track.

Just the top of that building, the proportion, come on.

I know, Pascal.

-Come on.

-Come on.

Camilla is stopping thinking about proportion and that lack of

concentration is meaning that, if she's not careful,

it's just going to look like a big mistake.

Jimmy, wow.

-That's bold.

-I haven't done this bit yet. I'm doing that in a minute.

OK. Have we got the perspective sorted out for here?

It's still looking like we're looking at it from front view.

-What do you think?

-I might remove him altogether.

Yeah. He doesn't help.

-Dump him? Right, OK.

-And he's got a Mohican.

Yeah.

With time running out, Maud is feeling the pressure.

I just thought with the time that I've got left,

concentrate on getting that pier in

because that will give it perspective.

If I don't have that in, they're not going to see what it is.

-No.

-I'm being brave here.

Yeah. And I'm going to walk away.

You know how people get them worry dolls

and they put them under the bed?

I'm putting them into my painting to stop me worrying.

This is Ralph. That's Jeff.

Ten minutes, everybody.

Remember, it's that crucial time where you've got to decide what to

do and whether you should be stopping.

Suman, I'm looking at you.

I'm ready to stop.

I think my tears are mingling with the rain.

It's just hard to keep something on the canvas today.

I'm struggling. I'm struggling, yeah.

It's so far away from what I would usually do that I don't really know

what I'm doing, to be honest, so... Can I start again?

A bit tired.

A bit... A bit of a battle.

The perspective isn't correct but hey, do you know, nor was Cezanne's.

I'm not worried about it too much.

I could be wrong.

It could end in tears.

Right, everybody, stop. Stop, stop, stop.

Stop what you're doing.

We had some fun today.

Give me some sugar. Yeah.

-What did you say, "Give me some sugar?"

-Yeah.

Judges Daphne, Lachlan and David

will now give their verdict of the artists' paintings.

And Diana's group is first under the microscope.

Alan, there's part of this painting which I really enjoy,

which is this top half, but this bottom half, I'm not quite getting

why it's been so blocked and why it's so geometric.

This painting for me gives a sense of struggle against the elements,

it seems subtle, it's engaging.

I think it's a very successful image.

I'm very pleased with it.

-Well done.

-I personally, Lachlan, find the lower part unconvincing.

I think, if it were on a hotel wall, I would just be bored.

Hello, Jennifer. There is subtlety in here, there's movement,

there's a lot going on.

It's just a little bit limp.

Yeah, it's missing something.

Missing something. I can't put my finger on it.

-Maybe Daphne can.

-Well, Jennifer,

I think there's so little there in a way, which is your strength,

but I do think that you need to put more into your observation.

Maud, this painting is a howl of pain, isn't it?

It really is. There's a wee mouth there going, "Argh!"

And this bit looks like a comb that you're dragging across a blackboard.

I can hear your frustration and sometimes it just doesn't work.

Well, we can always, I think, kind of snatch something from the jaws of

defeat and I do think that the

strong graphic qualities here is something

that I think you can take forward with your work.

Angela, one of the first things I like about it is the fact that

you've actually painted in the herring gulls there.

You've actually given us a sense that there is something supporting

the structure and it's moving underneath the pier,

so that's a really sophisticated little use of technique.

The fact that everything dissolves in this limpid light,

the milkiness of the whole thing, I think is very successful.

I think, Jimmy, you've made a very

strong decision to hone in on something

you can grab hold of and you've held onto the pier like a drowning man.

-Absolutely.

-This is something I can actually get to grips with.

There is a problem with perspective and it's pretty much in these roof

lines, which are all tipping up that way.

We seem to be looking at a plane that's going that way.

It hasn't got it for me.

You know, it looks pedestrian and lumpen.

There's nothing like a good going over to make you try harder the

following day and, my goodness, I'll try harder tomorrow.

I am just absolutely over the moon.

Yeah, all three judges liked it.

-I can't believe it.

-Well, I tried to salvage what, you know, what I could

on the canvas from the rain...but I don't think I pulled it off.

Now it's time for Pascal's artists to find out

what the judges make of their landscapes.

For me, David, this painting is a painting about mood.

You've created a certain kind of mood through your use of colour.

David, it's a trippy painting, isn't it?

It's working and you've enjoyed it.

I feel your enthusiasm.

I feel your struggle and well done.

Hello, Ruaridh. There are quite a lot of good things.

I think the thing that's letting it down is the pier itself.

The way you've also handled the sea is very enticing.

It's energised. There's a lot of action there in the sea.

Suman, we do get a sense of your bold, dynamic lines,

diagonals fighting against each other.

There is a tension in your painting.

I'm assuming these are two little fishermen.

-Yes.

-But they look like drowned parrots.

I like your sea. I like the kind of mirror, glassy quality in there.

There's movement. If the sea had not met exactly the top line of the

railing, it would have definitely helped.

Camilla. Turner being lashed to the mast in a storm so that he could

experience what it was like.

That's what immediately comes over to me,

that you have experienced it and you've used paint to bang it down

and you've got the change of everything and you've got...

I think you've got some pretty good colours there as well.

You can see the fun in the way that you've applied the paint and all of

this action going on here, where the sea meets the shore.

The actual sort of observation of shapes isn't quite so brilliant.

I didn't concentrate enough on the pier, to be honest.

The structural, linear perspective again left me cold.

It's very difficult to say who's in a difficult place at the moment.

I wouldn't like to say, in fact.

Let's wait and see. The next challenge is going to get bigger in

scale and I think that's going to present some big challenges as well.

It's a new day and a new challenge.

You painted the pier and now you're standing on it.

You might as well get used to that because it's offering the viewpoint

to you for your main challenge this week.

We've asked you to paint a landscape and what better place to capture

than this historic spot?

What we want from your pictures is to be hit in the face,

as if it were hot vapours rising from a steaming bag of chips.

Trying to capture the scope of a

landscape like this can be overwhelming.

Pascal has a technique to help simplify what you're looking at and

he shows his group how to do it.

We're moving up a notch now.

The scale is going to change and the complexity's going to change.

So before you get underway on your main challenge,

I want to do an exercise with you which is about selection and

simplification of what you're looking at.

I want to simplify that view into five lines.

The key is to draw just the outline

shapes formed by the different elements -

the shoreline, the seafront, the buildings and the land beyond.

Right, off you go. Let's start.

Camilla, you're not looking. You didn't look at anything when you

-drew that line.

-OK, oh, sorry, OK.

Right, let's start again.

When I was drawing it, I was looking at the view

-and I was looking at the paper.

-OK.

Stop, don't draw yet.

It's about looking and then drawing.

David, it's really good. I think you've got absolutely the right kind

of pacing with this because you're

just going to finish that in the right time.

So we're going to start the next line now.

So five minutes starts now.

I can't see any more lines.

So let's just think about the greenery.

Just think about drawing that greenery with one descriptive line -

a soft line.

Last line, make this one the best one.

By breaking it down in this way,

the complexity of the landscape

becomes a less daunting challenge to take on.

Time's up, everybody.

Stop what you're doing.

This part is the most successful

because it looks like you've been really looking.

I'm so pleased with how you tackled this and you did it all intuitively

and you worked so well.

Where you've taken the time here, I think it was more successful.

OK.

This is the only really bit that you finished, right?

I'm sorry, Pascal.

I don't understand what you're talking about half the time.

I wanted to paint this bit here.

Don't fall into the trap like you did earlier because the judges said

that you were only painting what you wanted.

-Yeah, that's true.

-OK.

-I know.

-I want you to paint or draw

for me four metres for this exercise.

Do you honestly think every

brilliant artist starts doing it like this?

I can't... I can't see that this is the way I want to go.

It's not the way you want to go at all.

What I'm trying to get you to do is to simplify what you're looking at

and how you represent that, and a single line is the way to do that.

If you just paint what you want to paint,

you're never going to grow as an artist.

When painting a landscape,

sometimes it's the very canvas

you're working on that can provide the biggest obstacle.

OK, look in front of you, what do you have?

Beautiful seaside!

OK, we're going to do a class based on distance,

based on how much you can see.

So what I really want you to do is look beyond your board.

Look beyond your canvas.

By stepping back from your canvas,

you can actually see more of the view you're trying to capture.

You're going to be using a bamboo stick and charcoal, OK?

The rule is - you work at arm's distance.

Now, if you're at this distance, your canvas is going to look small,

which is good. You're going to be quite fluid.

You're going to be out of control.

So start off with the sea, remember, arm's distance,

no bending of the arm.

OK? And then we're going to go and look at the contours of the hill in

the distance...

OK, and then we've got the buildings all the way until you come to the

edge of your paper. OK, everyone?

Have you got your bamboo sticks?

Stand back, arms out.

Resembling nothing so much as a

class of trainee wizards at Hogwarts,

Diana's group try to make messy magic.

Remember, with this exercise, it's about you loosening up.

It's about you looking beyond your canvas.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what it's about.

Are you actually looking?

No, I'm not, really. I'm looking at my paper.

That's the whole point. Yeah, look at the scene

because we need that sense of place. We need that composition.

Otherwise you're making it up, so it's not going to be convincing.

It's like a child's painting.

You know, you've got no control, but you're trying to get control, so...

By encouraging this rather extreme approach,

Diana is showing her artists the

advantage of stepping back and looking.

Think about that looseness, think about all the mark-making,

all the different qualities of line

that you can take to your paintings, OK?

OK, if you put your bamboo sticks down, put your charcoals down,

we're going to move onto the next challenge.

The artists will have six hours to produce a painting that impresses

the judges and ensures their place in the competition.

Standing on the pier facing the mainland,

Pascal's group are looking to the east of Hastings,

while Diana's group face west towards Beachy Head.

OK, everyone, please stand back, take it all in.

The challenge starts now.

Please get your canvases.

Composition, light, and sense of place.

Time starts now.

Each artist has chosen their canvas

to suit the view they want to capture.

This is an exciting challenge

because there's such a variety of scenery to choose from.

So you've got all the buildings,

you've got the deep vista down to the headland,

you've got the sea coming in and going out.

Huge choice.

They've got to make a strong

decision as to what they want to say in their painting.

I chose the portrait view because it takes more of the sand,

sea and sky in.

Suman is the only artist to select a round canvas.

I've got nothing to lose

and I really want to do a good piece of work,

so I'm going with something different.

If it all goes really badly,

we could all have a game of Frisbee at the end!

When you're looking from here, there's just so much to paint.

I'm going to have to try and avoid doing too many details.

I had a lot of issues with perspective,

so I've really got to convince the judges this time around that I can

master perspective. So, for me,

there's a little added pressure there

to make sure I get perspective right.

I'm trying not to let that so-called

evil monkey that's in my mind take over.

I'm trying to put that to the side, stick that in a prison,

get rid of that, it's all about positivity.

David is once again starting by precisely plotting his composition

with pencils and marker pens.

In the masterclass,

the thing that impressed me most was that you responded very intuitively

to what you were looking at. What I'd like to do -

I'd like to replace the canvas. Mix up some liquid oils for me.

It's just going to take ten minutes.

And then at the end of the ten minutes, we can see.

The only thing... I don't know why

you want me to mix a paint rather than use a marker as we did earlier.

I just want you to take on a liquid

paint so that you can apply it with a brush,

and I think it will be a bit less controlled and you won't be

worrying too much about accuracy.

I want a balance, so I have my control.

If I push the boundaries that way,

somewhere in the middle lies the true path.

With brush in hand, David tries out Pascal's suggestion.

Their representation of light will be judged

and, throughout this six-hour exercise,

the weather and time of day will affect everything our artists see.

In terms of the sky and the sense of light,

I'd suggest two palettes.

-Yeah.

-So you're maintaining a palette purely for the sky

because it is going to change, OK?

So you can always go back to those tones.

-OK?

-You've got a super versatility of colour from oil paints

and that's why I'm using them today.

If you're not happy, you can move it over a wee bit, you can lighten it,

you can darken it, you can remove it, you can scrape it off.

Once the acrylics are on, they're on.

Pascal has come back to see David's second attempt.

I'd encourage you to do more of that,

rather than the safety net of pencil and eraser and rubbing out

because I think you can do it.

I agree that there is... Surprisingly, that is more accurate,

the right-hand one, but it's just the degree of confidence and lack of

-experience.

-Children, when they paint, have a lot of confidence

because there's no consequence of something going wrong

and I'd like you to think a bit more like that,

and you'll find that you'll respond

in a much more fluid and intuitive way.

Keep going with it, just put that one back and continue in that way.

It's really good.

In all the challenges so far,

Camilla has struggled with linear perspective.

This line here,

and this line here, describes the area in-between.

The progression from the masterclass to this is spot on.

Yay!

I can't believe they're right, though. That beach is not right.

If it doesn't go your way, don't worry about it

because that's where you can

experiment and that's where you can learn.

I'm just trying to do that as a block.

-What as a block?

-Above the sand level,

above the sand level to the horizon of the land, that, to me, right now,

I'm just trying to treat as a block.

But it's not, is it? There's two separate parts.

There's the facade on the seafront and then there's behind,

-so don't treat it as one block. Try and separate it as two.

-OK.

Over in Diana's group, Jennifer follows her own rules

and has taken up her characteristic position on the floor,

using her trademark hair extensions as a tool.

I'm so used to using hair within my process at home

that it's kind of like a safety blanket now, or like a comforter,

if you know what I mean. But...

I've tried to use less of it to show

that I actually have painting ability outside of that,

so once it dries then I can really start building in some oils.

Hopefully, you know,

picking up on some of the weaker

aspects that the judges said that I have.

-Hi, Ange.

-Hello.

-Hiya.

-At the minute,

I'm tipping this up because I'm trying to work with my dribbles.

Have you worked like this before with your paint?

No, dribbles are a new thing to me,

and one minute I'm loving dribbles and the next minute I'm really not.

It's taking advantage of an accident, really, isn't it?

-It is.

-Didn't your painting start

directly as the result of an accident

far more serious than the dripping paint?

Yeah, it really did, yeah.

I had a horrific accident in which I was fairly close on losing my life,

and spent a long, long period of time in hospital.

What happened?

I was sitting in my bath one evening, in the downstairs bathroom,

and a car crashed straight through my house, straight into me,

and it actually shot me straight through the wall.

And I ended up outside, and the wall came down on top of me.

And painting has been, in a way, about your recovery.

-Yes.

-So, there's quite a lot invested in it, actually.

Yeah, it's massive, really, for me.

I needed something purposeful to do again.

I've worked all my life and it just

came to a stop just absolutely one day.

It gave you a real boost of thinking that there was something

worthwhile left in your life because, at that point,

I didn't really think I'd got much left, to be honest.

Just a year later, you're mistress of the drips.

I am, certainly, mistress of the drips.

-All right, Ange.

-OK, thank you.

Take care.

Our artists are not even halfway through their landscapes but,

true to form, the south coast weather is changing yet again.

It's going. That was less than two minutes, it's gone.

The picture's gone. It's all grey.

-Just cover it in white.

-It's all grey!

Yes, it's... The view is sliding off the edge of the world.

It's really peculiar weather.

One minute you're needing suntan cream,

the next minute you can't see

because the mist has rolled right in across the thing.

It's a really ever-changing picture.

Blind panic is an understatement.

It's changed so quickly.

I've never faced such extreme

changes in weather. Never.

But Camilla is, typically, contrary.

Suddenly this absolutely wonderful,

welcoming mist came over and obliterated all the lines.

You're not always great with rules.

Having read your CV and having looked at the work you do, you do...

-Have you read my CV?

-Of course I've read your CV.

-How disastrous!

No, not at all, it was fascinating but what it does tell me is the kind

of personality, the you-ness of you,

which does love all that dynamism and colour and movement stuff,

is also something which kind of resists a bit -

feeling trammelled or constrained.

-I can't do that.

-You're not going to be trammelled.

I will just break out and let rip even worse.

This, to me, is a very, very challenging landscape.

-Why?

-It's the buildings, it's the...

-Lines.

-It's... It's the lines.

We're halfway through

and the Hastings landscape is

re-emerging through the mist and taking shape on the canvasses.

People have been painting landscapes for centuries and the reason they've

been doing that is because it's simply one of the most exciting,

engaging and enticing subjects to engage with,

but it's also a real test of your painterly abilities.

Have they progressed,

can they move on from simply painting a couple of bottles and a

teddy bear and give me some real drama?

Someone who could was William Turner,

our most famous seascape painter,

so Lachlan's at the British Museum to find out what it was

about JMW Turner and the sea.

Turner was absolutely fascinated with the sea.

He was enchanted by the effects of light on water and the constantly

changing atmospheric conditions that you only get down by the shoreline.

So Hastings, with its beautiful, picturesque coastline,

its dramatic cliffs,

the strong sunlight and the choppy

Channel was the perfect spot for him.

This painting was created in 1818, by which point Turner was already

stratospherically successful.

It has a really strong composition and dramatic lighting,

but when you contemplate the image as a whole,

you begin to realise there's a sort of rolling sense of movement

throughout the whole painting, that these curling clouds up here,

they mirror the agitation of the sea

and even the landscape seems to swell up and down like a tidal wave.

I mean, it's broiling with a sense of the sublime force of nature.

At any moment, one of these waves could capsize this boat and consume

everybody here in a storm.

It's a story that's balanced on a knife edge.

950 years after the battle between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons in

Hastings, our artists are fighting with the ever-changing light.

The weather has changed again! It's all bright sunshine.

My sea has gone from dark blue to turquoise to...

It's changing every minute.

With the fog gone as quickly as it came,

they now have the full glory of the Hastings seascape.

It's just a shame Jim is missing a deckchair.

Oh, and a crab paste sandwich.

With just two hours to go, Suman is focusing on the minutiae,

despite Pascal's class on simplification.

At the moment, that's... That's not

working because it's over detailed, actually.

You're trying to paint every single window and I think you're

going to go mad.

OK, I understand what Pascal's saying.

I think trying to do every single bit is just going to drive me crazy,

so he's sort of saving me some time by simplifying it.

Diana, on the other hand,

wanted her students to get distance from the canvas.

You've not stood back for ages.

-Have I not?

-Stand all the way over there.

-OK.

-Don't go off the end the of the pier.

Keep going.

Stop. Have you got light?

Yeah, I think I've got light, yeah.

-Good.

-This is a good distance, actually.

Diana's class is absolutely coming to help me at the minute because I'm

finding myself doing this and I

don't know if it's, like, the size of the canvas or what have you,

but I don't paint holding a brush like this and it wasn't a conscious

thing, I just found myself doing it.

So, yeah, it's absolutely helping me.

I still feel that the sand is a bit of a banana.

I kind of want to get your canvas and stretch it.

-Oh, do you?

-Yeah, because you're compressing everything.

All the time, think in your head, the form that's undulating.

Now the sun is out

and I actually had a hat on here

a wee while ago to try and keep the sun off me, it's so strong.

Cool, cool.

Having faced four seasons in one day,

the artists are now basking in the scorching weather.

Oh, man, that looks good.

But every silver lining has a cloud.

I'm not convinced at the moment.

So...the

trouble is it's changed, hasn't it?

I mean, it was a sense of this is a seaside that was in mist and things

this morning and now it's a seaside that's in bright sunshine,

completely the opposite, and it's trying to...

..get that consistent view.

I feel I'm struggling with the whole thing, to be honest.

Yeah.

I've got to be brutally honest -

we haven't got the energy.

No, there's nothing, is there?

-It's flat.

-Right, Angela, we're going to use a sponge.

We're going to abandon the paintbrush.

-Yeah.

-Because, with the paintbrush, you're blending in too much.

OK, so what we need is that lovely

glistening light on the sea under here,

just to bring it up more, make it a bit more lively.

What you don't want to do is move it across,

otherwise you might as well use a brush.

And as you're moving it along,

-you want to see where the colour starts changing.

-Yeah, I'm with you.

I'm quite looking forward to this bit.

Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.

This sponge technique might just save the day,

so I think really I need to just go back to the kitchen and just keep

getting things out the kitchen to paint with rather than paintbrushes.

Do you ever wonder why you put

yourself through this sort of torture?

You're there with your salt and your hair and your paint

and the thing and you're getting stressed and,

you know, what is it? What's the compulsion?

It's probably a really selfish thing because it's the only time that you

get to actually just be yourself and no-one, well...

Here's different because people are judging you,

but at home no one's really judging you or critiquing you or

letting you know that there's issues with it.

Can't wait to see what emerges.

Looking forward to it.

-See you in a bit.

-OK, thank you.

We're all looking forward to see what emerges, but as Jennifer puts

her canvas bag on the easel, there's a sudden gust of wind.

CLATTER

SHE LAUGHS

Totally looks better the other way.

I'm so going to just look at that for a wee minute.

I think you should.

Man, I like it so much better upside down.

Let's just leave Jennifer to ponder that one.

Over on the other side of the pier,

at least they're still working on their paintings the right way up.

Suman, well done. It's looking so much better round here

and the progression from here to here is starting to really work.

I'm going to leave you to it because I think it's heading in exactly the

right direction. Keep, keep going. Brilliant.

Pascal's advice is paying off for Suman,

but David's ignored him and reverted back to his dabbing technique.

Well, this is risky. I know it's not what I intended.

It's not what Pascal intended, but I can't...

I don't think I can do realistic that I'm happy in the time that I've

got available, so I'd rather do something impressionistic.

Panic, panic.

But whatever David does, he'd better do it quickly.

There's just 40 minutes to go.

Jennifer's reached crisis point.

I just really don't like it.

So it's going to be all or nothing.

If it doesn't look good, it doesn't look good,

but least I've done something that might solve the issues.

It's dramatic. It's brilliant.

-It's getting there.

-Think about your perspective, why you're doing this.

Time and tide wait for no man...or woman.

I keep sitting back here, though,

and I keep seeing little bits what I think I really ought to just put a

little tiny bit of light onto that, just to try and bring it alive.

It's really difficult to know when to stop.

Really difficult to know when to stop.

It seems like I can never just have a smooth go of painting.

I always seem to be having some sort of fight.

Some of the artists are determined to be the last man standing,

but it looks as though David's already conceded.

-Have you finished?

-Yeah.

I couldn't get it to a point that I liked, realistically,

if you know what I mean, semi-realistically.

-Figuratively, I mean.

-Interesting, OK.

-I didn't like it at all.

-OK.

That's it, I'm afraid.

Time to put your brushes down.

Step back from the canvasses.

Time's up.

I'm absolutely jiggered.

I'm not as pleased as the earlier challenge, in the rain,

because I was quite happy to hang that one on my wall.

This one I might hang on the wall in a dark room.

I feel I could have done a lot more but, you know, it is what it is.

-It is a battle, isn't it?

-That was...

It is the Battle of Hastings.

-That was rough.

-Proper.

The artists can now take a

well-deserved break before the judges pass

comment on their landscapes.

But will their paintings appeal to a wider audience?

We've invited members of the public to a private view.

And who better to have their say

than people who actually live and work in Hastings?

Well, that's very recognisable as Hastings.

-That isn't so there.

-That isn't so recognisable.

If you put that up somewhere and they said, "What is it?"

You'd just go, "It's a seaside town."

That one, you'd go, "That's Hastings."

The little details look really sweet, don't they?

Yeah, and I love the kayaks.

They're really, really pretty.

You can almost hear them slapping on the paint.

I quite like that energy in it.

And as I just had that sense of ominous, impending storm coming -

it's really got that.

-I like that. That's nice.

-I would love that on my wall.

Before they leave, they'll cast

their vote for their favourite painting.

Whoever wins the most votes is safe

from being sent home by the judges today.

We'll find out which painting the public preferred later,

but now it's time for the artists to hear the experts' opinions.

The judges want to see how the artists have dealt with composition,

light and a sense of place.

Now it's time for the judges to assess your painting,

so let's see what they have to say.

Please welcome back Daphne, David and Lachlan.

And Camilla's first in the firing line.

You've got this sense of everything changing,

the weather changing, and you've got the mist coming down and the sea

moving in and it looks choppy.

I do think that there are problems with perspective in the work,

in relation to the way that you've handled the buildings.

It doesn't look like some of them are actually safe,

which I'm sure would be a great surprise to their owners.

The beach feels like a croissant.

You know, there's a big smear of brown.

You've really evoked the sense of atmosphere and light,

but your handling of the buildings, the architecture, is lacking.

I think you've gone a bit too far.

It's a bit saccharine.

It's a bit like hundreds and thousands on an ice cream

descending down your painting.

It's just some buildings that could be anywhere in the

Western world on a sunny day, but possibly Mediterranean.

And you seemed to have just played safe with this scale

and the format and the style.

I think you've got more in you than that and

I think you need to take risks.

It was a harsh, harsh criticism but...

..yeah, harsher than I was expecting, but, I mean,

I think most of the comments were fair.

Well, Ruaridh, I like the ambition of this work.

I like the fact we get this sense of this sweeping panorama.

Great sensitivity,

a very conscious decision about how you're going to compose the image on

this particular canvas.

I'm not feeling the sense of place and I'm not really particularly

excited by this painting, I'm afraid.

This kind of porthole effect,

as if we are looking through a water vessel,

kind of looking out at the town, that's very effective.

I really get the sense of fitful light, everything changing.

The fact that you've drawn into the paint with the handle of your brush

as well, so you've brought out highlights,

you've suggested buildings.

I think you've done a great job.

The little bird that is really full of movement, not a soggy parrot.

We're travelling with it into the painting.

Well done.

Well, Jimmy, you've taken on a large canvas,

which is brave, but are we getting a sense of scale...

..in the painting?

It's not really telling me that the town is overwhelmed

by the sky and the sea.

I think this is wonderful nostalgia, Jimmy,

in this painting that you've produced.

The colour is worked to great effect.

I think, really, it's the beach.

I mean, the beach is like a drifting Sahara.

There's a great deal of work in here that I really admire, but it is let

down by the struggle you've had in the centre of the painting.

I thought they were fair-ish.

I was actually quite pleased with my painting,

especially when I walked in.

I said, "Oh, that's actually not bad. Who did that one?"

Then I realised it was mine, so I was quite pleased.

I thought this might have been Alan's painting

because it's moody and I think

that that sense of impending storminess

that's just about to break is excellent.

It's really grim.

There's something Dickensian about this sordid Hastings. I love it.

And I think that the colour of your water, too... I mean, brilliant.

It's dirty ditchwater, but it's luminous.

Maude, hello. Well, I think you've

coped with this a lot better than the first challenge,

where you struggled quite a lot.

Where I think you lack confidence in the architecture and the town in

general is that it all peters out down here.

Great deal of energy in the sky and the sea.

I think you need to look again at things like your perspective and

particularly how you handle the shoreline.

I was really trying to be delicate, but it didn't work...

It didn't work!

Angela, this has got a lovely sense of light.

I'm getting the sense of an English seaside,

so it's got the sense of place as well.

You've got a sense of movement. You've got a sense of air.

The fact that you've included little birds flying around.

As the sun begins to intensify in

the later afternoon and it beats down on that water,

it's like a mirror and it sparkles

and it has brought the life into

your painting and you've edged the waves

so I can see that twinkling effect.

The water is alive.

Ah, Jennifer, yes, you've certainly coped with the foreground.

On the other hand, though,

you have made it look as though

we're all on a speedboat whooshing off into the distance.

But to me that's not Hastings.

Jennifer, I call this painting Up Close and Personal

because, when you get up close to it,

you can see the work that you've done.

It's colour,

it's light and these were things

that we were asking you to think about.

I love it. Is it here?

No, but its light, luminescence and

the compositional decision to emphasise that water,

I think is working successfully.

I was massively nervous, like,

I was fully shaking,

but Lachlan again brings it back so that I can

actually be a wee bit more confident in myself and in my style.

The judges have had their say.

It's now time to find out which artist's work the public voted for.

So the artist whose painting has been chosen by the public is...

Jennifer.

-Jennifer again!

-Again!

Well done, you.

APPLAUSE

Jennifer, that's two weeks in a row.

You look quite surprised.

-Are you surprised?

-Yeah.

I don't know why I'm laughing.

I do!

Because you're through. Phew!

'So Jennifer is safe, but one of the other artists will have to leave.

'The judges will now go off to

'decide who they will be sending home today.'

Some weaknesses across the board, I think.

It made my heart sink, David's painting.

The colours he'd chosen were nothing to do, really,

with what he was seeing.

Maude is a strong personality,

but the treatment of the

architecture and the beach was clunky.

The one, for my money, that hasn't made this week is Jimmy's.

There's a coherency, I think.

-No, there isn't.

-Camilla's struggling.

I can't get quite out of my head Lachlan's croissant.

Ever since you mentioned that,

I see that way in which she failed to handle

the compositional elements very well.

This is a very difficult decision, isn't it?

The judges have made their decision.

One of you is about to leave for good.

So, Daphne, will you let us know who's going home?

Well, this was an immensely difficult decision.

Each of us thought something different,

so there was a lot of discussion.

We know that this artist will go on painting, but on this occasion they

perhaps made too many mistakes.

So the artist leaving us today

is...

Maud.

I think, you know, I think I did my best under the circumstances.

It's been, you know, with the weather changing and that,

I didn't adapt quickly enough.

She's definitely going to go on being a painter.

It was just that she was stumped

by this particular challenge under the conditions she found.

With Maud, she's got so much potential. She's a determined woman.

She's defiant and there's no way she's going to stop painting.

I'm not sure about outdoors, though, but I'll definitely keep painting.

I'm sad to see Maud leaving us at this stage because she's brought so

much energy to the challenges.

-MAUD:

-I think you've just got to, you know,

keep doing it and you get better.

Next week on The Big Painting Challenge...

Animals.

I think I might find this a bit of a challenge.

Shall we just do bums?

A bit stressed.

I don't know what I'm doing.

Oh, God, what have I done?

Remember, you're not painting a pond.

What is it?

It's a flamingo.