This is not your typical APV film. This much is apparent from the very beginning, where we’re in a studio setting for some 25 minutes, learning some fairly basic techniques such as the use of salt, sgraffito, drybrush and lifting out. If you’re used to the more inspirational style of work – the artist painting and explaining as they go, this will come as something of a shock. You might also be tempted to hit the fast forward button on the grounds that this isn’t what you came for and you know it already. That would be both a shame and a mistake, as Georgia’s explanations are particularly clear and the section forms the groundwork for the demonstrations that follow. These are not ideas that have been pulled out of a hat to fill a space in the programming, but the absolute basis of how Georgia works – she very much practises what she preaches. I was also intrigued by her use of a mobile phone app to reduce photographs to monochrome in order to establish lights and darks. I haven’t seen this before and Georgia uses the result to make a tonal diagram with a black felt-tip of each scene she paints, something which is invaluable in building up colours and values.
The four demonstrations are filmed in and around the Cotswolds: the garden of the rather beautiful studio we start in, an autumn field and the ruins of Minster Lovell hall. The fourth piece is a studio-based floral that’s entirely reliant on tones to capture both positive and negative shapes as well as form and recession.
Although this is not a typical APV piece, it’s a valuable film that offers a great deal of technical advice. It will undoubtedly have appeal to the less advanced painter who is not so familiar with some of the tricks of the trade. The more experienced, though, may well admire the way Georgia puts some neat effects into practice seemingly without effort.
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