Monet: Waterlilies, 1906, No.1
Explore the subtle effects of light on water as you paint one of the most popular of Monet's famous Water Lily series.
- About this session
- What will we learn in this session?
- 1. Tone | 2. Blocking | 3. Texture | 4. Detail
- The result | Iterations
- Resources
- Student Paintings
- Book this session
About this session
Monet: Nymphae (Waterlilies) 1906, No.1 - video
In the latter period of his life Monet settled on an estate at Giverny. He designed a garden with oriental motifs, flower beds and lily ponds that showcased the colours and textures of flowers.
Monet's Water Lilies (Fr. Nymphae) ran to over 250 paintings. They are very relaxing to paint, and offer a lot of scope for playing with colour and texture.
What will we learn in this painting?
- Glazing: we use multiple glazes to help create the impression of water
- Impasto & adding texture to impasto paint by using delicate brushwork
- Pallete knife: we learn the very delicate use of a palette knife
- Scumbling: broken paint
- Painting water: some of the various ways Monet portrayed water
- Painting water lilies (nymphae)
Learn the principles of composition employed by Monet, which draw on classical principles, Cezanne and his relationship with music and movement.
See how daVinci's discoveries in perspective mesh with Cezanne's theories of fundamental shapes.
Learn how to apply Chevreul's colour theory, as was practiced by Monet.
... and much more!
Tone
Unusually, we tone the canvas in neither warm nor cool grey, but rather in a Cerulean blue based turquoise. At this point we glaze.
Blocking
We then block in the greens.
Texture
With loose, gestural brushwork we map in the main colours and textures.
More textures.
Our palette.
Detail
Details are added with the loose brushwork characteristic of Monet's waterlilies.
Flowers are added with the most delicate touch of impasto.
Impasto is used to build up slightly opaque layers suggesting moving water.
The result
The final result. This version is 450 x 600mm and dusplayed in the Inglis Baroque frame - this being the style most used by Monet for his own paintings.
Iterative learning
"Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a sequence of outcomes. The sequence will approach some end point or end value. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and the outcome of each iteration is then the starting point of the next iteration." - WIkipedia.
Here are some of my iterations of this Monet. Each time I paint it, I adjust a variable - colour, shape, texture, even extending the painting across two canvases! I've painted this work about 8 times.
The first version I painted was very close in dimensions to the original (sold).
In this version I extended the Monet over two canvases - we call this a diptych.
Here I emphasised the movement in the water.
Introducing a more playful palette.
Resources
- Monet videos
- Monet;s Water Lilies sells for 54 million in London
- Hi-res google scan
- Ohara Museum of Art, Japan
Student Paintings
After 2 glazes, adding impasto with a palette knife.
Using a brush to add texture and a " painterly look " to thick paint.
Adding impasto scumbles with a palette knife.
At this point the student has to work through their initial response of " this looks terrible! "... and have some faith in the process.
A final painting by Jessica. Now, in context and with further work, the scumbled textures look very convincing.
Note that photography struggles to capture what we see with our eye in natural light.
Cherry's painting. This one has many delicate brush strokes. Once again the photograph can't capture the wonderful subtle shadows created by the thick paint textures.
Nor can it capture the wonderful depth we achieved by adding two separate layers of glaze during this painting.
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