A Fife painter and teacher astounded her pupils by winning a TV competition to find the country’s best landscape artist.
Nerine McIntyre told only a handful of people that she had entered Sky Arts’ UK Landscape Artist of the Year contest but this week viewers saw her win the series presented by Frank Skinner and Joan Bakewell.
She said pupils at Dunfermline High School, where she is principal teacher of art and design, were thrilled and surprised to see her win the series’ £10,000 commission for the National Trust’s permanent collection.
Despite finishing filming in July, Nerine, 35, of Dysart, who paints under her maiden name Tassie, told The Courier she still couldn’t believe she had won the art world’s answer to the Great British Bake Off.
Recalling the moment of her victory, she said: “I was absolutely gobsmacked and really astonished to win. I can still remember the sound of my heart beating.
“It had been a very, very long day and I didn’t think I had a chance of winning.”
Nerine was selected from over 10,000 entrants and travelled to Waddesdon Manor, in Buckinghamshire, London’s Tower Bridge, Plas Newydd House, in Anglesey, and Stour Head, in Wiltshire, for filming as the competition progressed.
She said: “It was very exciting taking part but it was really difficult not being able to tell people why I was going to all these places!
“Pupils have been coming in to school saying they saw me on TV. They’ve all be really excited.”
In each episode contests went to a different location and were given four hours to paint the scenery around them.
Nerine said: “Painting is usually a very private experience in your own studio so being under timed conditions with cameras watching and members of the public coming up to speak to you was quite surreal and a lot of pressure.
“It was a real challenge and I had to really speed up the way I work.”
For the final she was given two weeks to paint the landscape at Plas Newydd House and all three finalists took part in another time trial at Stour Head where the climax was filmed.
Camera crews also went to Dunfermline High School, and Dysart, where Nerine lives with husband Andrew and sons Gabriel, 8, and Grayson, 6, to film her winner’s story, which will be screened on Tuesday.
Now Nerine, who graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2002, hopes the experience will propel her career and lead to her first solo exhibition.
She said: “I’ve built up a lot of momentum during the competition.
“I haven’t painted so much since art college. I really want to keep pushing the boundaries of my work and bring it to exhibition hopefully next year.
“I have been talking to a few galleries.”
For her winning commission Nerine went to Flatford Mill, in Suffolk, which was owned by the father of artist John Constable and is the subject of many of his iconic works.