The Passionate Painter in Paris

The second painting is completed in a café, looking out across the customers chatting at the tables, towards the window. This back light creates a cool contrast to the warm colours within, and allows Castagnet to paint silhouetted shapes, and a darkened floor to accentuate its impact as it floods down the floorboards. His colours are rich and luminous, sometimes altered for dramatic effect. A second wet street scene, early in the morning, near the Fontaine Saint Michel, forms the basis of the third image. Capturing the light from the distant shop illuminations, Castagnet again floods colour across the paper, freely adding dramatic reflections to lead the eye through to the back of the painting. He talks about the need to minimise in order to capture the essence of a space, and his work ably demonstrates how less is more.

Castagnet then chooses to paint a more well known landmark; the beautiful Paris Opera, balancing the bustling human activity around it with a more restrained rendering of the architectural façade. Finally, the sun makes a more definite appearance, bouncing off the wall of a street corner café to create strong contrasts of light and shadow. Castagnet competes with lively cheers for a Sunday morning running event as he captures the colourful scene, and this adds to the upbeat nature of the film.

This is a highly enjoyable DVD that exudes the artist’s enthusiasm for the medium and his subjects. The animated personal and humorous commentary provides insight into how his artistic life developed, and gives full details of his technique. But it’s the smile on his lips throughout that says it all.

He always starts with sound drawing but thereafter by exploiting the fluidity and versatility of the watercolour medium, each painting develops into a work of immense character and mood. Equally, his commentary is full of encouragement and useful advice.

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