Five Steps To Watercolour DVD with Amanda Hyatt

"FIVE STEPS TO WATERCOLOR
A Film Review By Jim Salchak
APV Films of Great Britain has just released a DVD featuring Australian artist Amanda Hyatt. This is my first introduction to this artist. In Australia she is widely recognized as an outstanding watercolorist and oil painter and is a member of the prestigious Twenty Melbourne Painters Society. She has exhibited widely in Australia and in New York.
In this film she painting on location at beautiful Lake Como in Italy. Like other "en plein air" films produced by APV we get see what the artist sees and watch how the she interprets the scenes in her paintings. Throughout the entire painting process Amanda provides a running commentary on what she is doing.
The film begins in her hotel room where Amanda explains the five steps that she believes are key to developing a painting. They are: composition; color; values; sense of mood, atmosphere and light; and lastly pulling it all together. She illustrates all this with paintings she just recently completed in Venice.
Inspired by the views of the lake, snow clad snow mountains and lakeside villages Amanda paints five watercolors for the camera. The first one is at Bellagio on a gray day looking across the lake with a colorful hotel and restaurant on her right. The second painting was done from the marina in Menaggio, which involved boats, buildings, mountains and reflections. Next she is painting from the square in Como capturing the hills and valley across the lake with a multitude of white buildings with red tile roofs spilling done the hillsides to the edge of the lake. Taking a funicular railway to the top of the Brunate, Amanda paints a view looking down on the city of Como and the lake. Her last painting was done in the village of Verenna on the far side of the lake.
At each location Amanda is painting on a full sheet of watercolor paper that is positioned vertically on her easel. She has her painting equipment on a low table at her side. She uses a variety of brushes from a large Hake for big washes. a squirrel mop, smaller rounds and flats and a rigger. A large towel was used to remove excess moisture from her brushes. As she works she checks for problems by looking at her painting in a mirror.
Amanda paints very fast often working against the conditions of wind and sun on her paper. She also had to deal with the inevitable drips that come with working quickly on a vertical surface. Seeing her struggle with these issues reminded me that John Singer Sargent described painting a watercolor as "making the best of an emergency." In each painting she manages to pull it all together creating that magic that makes a painting a work of art.
Any artist who appreciates loose and impressionistic watercolors will enjoy this film with Amanda Hyatt.
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– Jim Salchak