Last month I watched my televised participation in season 7 of Landscape Artist of the year. The series was filmed back in early July 2021, and up until the programme was aired last month, I had to keep this information on the down-low! Now that the series has come to and end, I wanted to account my experience within the competition, and what a wonderful opportunity it was.
I was chosen to be a contestant on the show after submitting my acrylic painting My View at Twilight. This painting was created as part of my BA degree show series, at Aberystwyth University. The composition depicts the view from my student residence in Aberystwyth. The significance of my time as a student at Aberystwyth is marked by the influence the Welsh landscape has had on my artistic practice. Before studying here, my work was not landscape-based, and it was only after a project named “On Location” that I decided to focus upon this subject. To possess an appreciation of my surroundings has always been important to me, however this subject had never really made an appearance within my practice, until I became an undergraduate student, in Wales.
At the start of our day, myself and each of the seven other contestants made our way over Compton Verney’s impressive bridges, towards our studios for the day: the pods! I was instantly drawn to the striking placement of the bridges within the landscape and knew, very quickly, that they would inform my choice of composition. The image above is of Quango (also a contestant) and myself. In this photo we were filming an intro for the programme, and had just been instructed to walk back over the bridge to re-take this scene: in the first take we had been in conversation regarding how we were feeling about the day ahead and Quango’s use of expletives, to describe his nervousness, were reportedly capable of being lipread- the camera man wasn’t happy!
Once we were all set up in our pods, we soon got to work! Although I often work from life, and can produce work in a short space of time, the four hour time-limit was a daunting prospect. As soon as Joan Bakewell and Stephen Mangan (the presenters of the show) officially started the competition, I quickly picked up my sketchbook and created a small thumbnail of my proposed composition. This sketch briefly described the proportions of my canvas and the placement of the visual information before me. Aware of the little amount of time I had to complete a whole painting, within 5 minutes of the competition I had put paint onto canvas and completed my under painting. My pace of working was of great shock to the judges and also the set crew around me, one of them joked: “you aren’t supposed to bring a finished painting, you know!”.
One of the most difficult things to come to terms with throughout the competition was the constant interruptions for interviews with the presenters/judges. Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised by this (it is a tv show, after all), however I was so weary of the time limit and ,as time wore on, I knew that I was cutting it thin.
My work is so detailed and, by the last hour, I hadn’t even started painting the details of the bridge within the foreground. I had spent so much time fiddling about with the detail in the background, that I had completely neglected the key feature within the foreground. The bridges, which had very early on inspired my composition, were unfortunately left too late into the competition and I wasn’t able to depict them with as much detail as I had intended.
Watching the programme back, I was shocked that such a long day (over 12 hours on site at Compton Verney) had been condensed into an hour showing. After a six month wait to watch it though, I was so utterly proud to have taken part. Despite it being one of the most overwhelming experiences, on what was one of the hottest days of the year, in the middle of a field, surrounded by cameras, I can honestly say that it is up there as one of the best! 😊
Adalia Mynett 