I’d like to thank Art North Wales for a fantastic lead, which led to a really exciting opportunity… to appear on BBC1’s The Apprentice!
I was contacted by the TV production company last year and asked if I could teach watercolour painting to some of the candidates on one of their tasks. This would involve the contestants running a highland railway tour through Snowdonia, stopping to paint the mountainous local scenery.
We filmed at Pont Croesor Osprey Centre (near Porthmadog) last summer. The day before the paying customers arrived, I met three of the contestants to give them their crash course in watercolours.
There are panoramic views of Snowdon and its surrounding mountains from there, so we had plenty to paint!
I crammed as much ‘Watercolour Landscapes’ information as I could into such a short time (we were only there for a couple of hours).
The contestants also asked for information about the local area, but I probably confused them with my ‘Welsh’ pronunciation of the mountain names, mangled by my Yorkshire accent!
On the actual day-trip, the contestants and their customers travelled by steam train to several locations, including Pont Croesor Osprey Centre, where the three contestants (now experts in watercolour landscapes!) guided their group of holiday-makers through their paintings.
It all seemed idyllic… until the Welsh rain suddenly arrived, and everyone had to run back to the train!
It was really good fun to be part of the show, and the production company have been great to work with throughout this experience.
I won’t give any spoilers away, you’ll have to watch the episode to find out how my team fared, and see who was fired…