Art — drawing — inspiration

Bursting with Flowers: Happiness Drawing: Art Movements: Impressionism

Art — drawing — inspiration — January 25th – a drawing a day

Felt pen drawing is by the author Hermione Wilds Writes

Do you ever feel like drawing something spontaneously? I created this flower and petal drawing in felt pen very quickly, in minutes, while drawing alongside my artistic daughter a few years ago. I like the colours.

While learning about different artistic techniques for my art A Level, which I studied for in my thirties, I came across the idea of painting the subject very quickly, say in a two hour time slot. This was a form of discipline added to the art of painting. Anyone who has ever taken a painting class will know that the first thing you learn to do is a wash. This is simply applying paint to paper to create colour as background. And then you paint your subject on top of that.

There are many different techniques and styles of painting such as the naive art I featured in last week’s story here.

I painted a horse, but I have since thrown the painting away as it was too large to store.

To paint like this, you must have all your paint ready mixed and then paint the whole subject in one sitting without pausing. I found this technique made me paint faster, and I was concentrating on mood, predominantly, not setting, or design.

Impressionism was a movement in the latter half of the 1800s which involved painting subjects outdoors. The style originated in France and so was called en plein air. This means outdoors.

Monet’s work is styled like this. Close up we see brush strokes rather than detail, but from a distance we see a field of flowers. This is achieved through brush strokes which create an impression, rather than a deliberate shape; for example, that of a flower with precise individual petals.

Movement, light, and shade can also be captured in this way.

The focus is on the impression we get when we look at something.

I did my art thesis on Monet and viewed an exhibition where I was able to view the brush strokes of some famous paintings with lily pads up close. This is the best way to understand the technique.

Some of the key artists in this movement were Edward Manet, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro [1] An interesting fact you may not know is that most of these painters are more popularly known by their surnames.

What movements in art motivate you?

Why don’t you try this technique and see where it takes you?

For more detail on this subject visit The Art Story Foundation here

Monet’s work can be viewed on Wickimedia commons using the search term ‘Monet’ and ‘impressionism’.

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References:

[1] The Art Story https://www.theartstory.org/about-us-our-team-htm

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