“Tone does all the work, colour gets all the glory”, Amanda rather helpfully sums up at the start of this varied film. It is, she goes on to explain, about light rather than colour, using highlights, shade and contrast to give shape to a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional scene.
It is both helpful and unhelpful that the weather is somewhat stormy. Helpful in the sense that there’s plenty of variety and drama, less so in that bright highlights are hard to come by. Then again, it gives Amanda a chance to demonstrate how to create something almost out of nothing and to work with what you have. In the overview discussion at the end of the film, there’s a genuine sense of “I really don’t remember it being like that at all”, as what looked flat at the time springs off the paper in a really rather dramatic way.
There are four demonstrations. The first, a simple Kentish landscape, provides a chance to work with skies and for Amanda to remark “don’t be tempted to go back into it, let it do its own thing”. Here, the wash provides the anchor that holds the rest of the work together, balanced by fore- and middle grounds. The main feature is a patch of light that runs through the centre of the scene and provides a path for the eye as well as a balance for the left and right sides.
Two paintings at Ramsgate harbour are exercises in planning and simplification. “Everything’s difficult, that’s what I like about art”, Amanda says as she works with a complex subject, changing light and blustery wind. Her main theme here is about identifying points of interest and leaving the eye to fill in details that are only suggested – “I haven’t tried to paint all the boats”.
A dramatic sky at Reculver comes with many challenges and, ignoring her previous advice to leave things alone, Amanda re-works this one several times to get the right contrast between dark and light clouds, the foreground and the bright stone of the Roman towers themselves. Again, careful consideration of light and dark produces an exciting result.
The final demonstration, at Whitstable, introduces figures as well as buildings and boats. As befits Amanda’s impressionistic style, these are suggested, but add an extra dimension not present in the previous work. Her approach can be summed up in the remark, “it’s an impression of a building, it doesn’t have to be correct”, the point being that the viewer’s eye will see both what it wants and what the art guides it towards.
This is an intriguing film, both in terms of what’s painted and how to overcome difficult and changing conditions. “You can achieve a lot with a few colours”.
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