The Big Painting Challenge

Eight artists are still in the competition, and this week they must conquer portraiture. To celebrate the RAF centenary the artistic travelling circus has moved to RAF Hendon. The first task our painters are confronted with are the youthful faces of two RAF cadets. This week's masterclasses are full of helpful tips on capturing expression and new ways of mark making and blocking to improve their compositions. With the arrival of judges Lachlan Goudie and Daphne Todd comes the second challenge. This time our budding Picassos have to deal with the other end of the age spectrum. They must capture the wisdom and spirit of our two sitters, both of whom are veterans of the RAF, and who have over 180 years between them. The artists' efforts are put in front of ex-RAF personnel and members of the public, who choose their favourite to send through to next week. The rest are at the mercy of our judges, who will be dispatching someone from the competition. Overseeing proceedings, providing words of encouragement and a shoulder to cry on, as always, are Mariella Frostrup and Reverend Richard Coles.

The remaining seven amateur artists are confronted with the tail end of a hurricane, as they set up their easels on the bonnie but windy banks of Loch Lomond; the challenge is to paint water and the many colours it reflects. With the wind howling, in the first task they must try to mix the perfect colours to capture a boat and its stormy reflections in the turbulent water. The masterclasses this week are all about mixing colours. For the main challenge, the painters move to a full, panoramic view of the loch, which is useful as that is exactly what the judges want to see on canvas. Can they capture the ever-changing colours of the sky, land and water, which at times disappear from view all together? No one said it would be easy.

Mariella Frostrup and Reverend Richard Coles present the semi-final. Housed in Glasgow's world-famous Kelvin Hall, the six remaining artists face the toughest theme of all - movement. In the first task, they must try to capture the action of an endurance runner and world record-breaking cyclist. This is followed up with two masterclasses designed to find solutions to the problem of capturing a moving object in paint. The final challenge takes place in the gymnasium. The two groups have to depict the dynamic movement of a floor gymnast or the graceful elegance of an athlete on the beam. The pressure builds as there are only four places in the final, so winning the public vote is even more important, as the formidable judges, Lachlan Goudie and Daphne Todd OBE, send two painters home. Who will fall at the final hurdle?

It's the final, and the four remaining artists travel to the Historic Dockyard in Chatham, Kent, to battle it out for the title. The first task requires them to take a good, hard look at themselves as they take on self-portraits. As always, Diana Ali and Pascal Anson are on hand with moral support, they want their artists' paintings to really take on personality and character, not just to create a likeness. Following the task the painters are given individual masterclasses to help them work on areas the mentors think could make a difference in the final challenge. They involve painting with decorator rollers, eating and then painting cake, painting blindfolded and painting with dance movements. The final day dawns and the artists face the ultimate challenge. For the first time they are allowed to choose any subject they want. They have three hours to use everything they have been taught over the last six weeks to create a painting that will decide the winner of the Big Painting Challenge 2018.