Name of Piece: Sunset on the small Lake
Title: Sunset
|
Title: Sunset
|
I have covered Claude Monet's work before but to summarize. Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a french painter that contributed to the start of the art movement now known as Impressionism. This piece Impressionist Sunrise was the catalyst for the impressionist movement. At the time Impressionist art was not widely accepted most people viewed the work as colorful messes and did not consider it real art. Monet's work called Impressionist Sunrise was exhibited from 15 April to 15 May 1874 along with other works by self-proclaimed impressionist painters. Since Paris Salon refused to allow their work to be exhibited they organized their own in a gallery in Rue du Capucines in Paris. In the end, most people were mostly disgusted and outraged at the Impressionist sunrise and later a critic wrote an article, calling the artist “impressionist” based on this piece. It was supposed to insult the artist, but the artist took it in stride, coining themselves as impressionist artists.
|
While researching Impression Sunrise I found this other work done by Monet called Sunrise (Marine) which according to my sources was another painting Monet did around the same time as Impressionist Sunrise. This painting has a muted patel and portrays the same industrial port of Le Havre as the Impressionist Sunrise. While both paintings are similar in some ways Sunrise(Marine) has smaller brushstrokes in the sky and sea compared to Sunrise (Maire). There is also a great focus on the ship giving it subtle value while still being very simplistic.
|
For my my planning page I decided to sketch some of my ideas for the composition in the form of thumbnails. I also wanted to experiment with the colors painting swatches of them. I ended up choosing this image as inspiration for the composition mostly because of the interesting angle of the with the angle of the pier leading you off toward the right giving it a interesting composition.
|
I do For this project I used photos from other projects or older photos I had in my gallery. For the colors and sky I referenced these pictures I had taken a two years ago. These are photos I took along side one of the images that depicted in my diptych titled Blue and I used these images mostly because of the light reflected from the clouds on the photo. I do have other images of the sunrise but none of them have these gorgeous colors. There this contrast between the very bright and light yellow and pinks clouds to the light blue and purple sky yet the colors seem to have a sense of unity. That unity despite the contrast in color is something Monet does and I want to replicate it here.
|
Another thing to mention is that previously before this project I did recreated Impressionist Sunrise for a assignment I was given. While it might not be completely relevant doing this piece having studied and recreated the work to the best of my ability it gave me a better understanding of the work before starting the painting.
|
The painting Impressionist Sunrise Monet focused on capturing light and the atmosphere of the port. They focus on using colors such as orange and blue in the painting which are complementary colors giving some contrast but also giving the appearance of sunlight reflecting off the clouds. This was something that I really liked about this piece and I wanted to capture this in my own work.
|
For the next step, I started laying on some of the colors I was planning on using. I was mostly sticking to a player's blues and purples to lay down what I was playing with the colors. I also added a dark blueish green for the background to contrast the purple and blues. While at this stage you can see a bit of the direction I was going for with the mostly cool colored back ground which I wanted to contrast later with lighter pink yellow and orange light reflecting off the clouds.
|
I then started adding darker blues and as well as adding reds and whites. As I layered them my strokes went from left to right while making sure not to blend keeping that impressionistic look. At this point I was experimenting a bit with the color by adding more started blues and reds to give the sky more color I also tried adding lighter colors to the lake getting ready to give the lake more colors that reflected form the sky.
|
Pulling back the colors adding more reddish purple and lowering the saturation. Same with blue though I also started adding light pink for the clouds. Working on the lower part of the piece I added some light red and blue to the water. I added a more solid shape to the dark green-blue hills trying to give them a bit of reflection in the water. Their also the dock which I quickly brushed in.
|
I did experiment a bit at this stage when I started adding in the cloud. At first, I wanted to do something similar to Sunrise(Marine) by adding smaller brushstrokes in the sky to make clouds. However, experimenting with doing a bit longer and thicker brushstrokes like Impressionist Sunrise while overlapping them similar to the sea in Sunrise (Marine) seemed to work better overall.
|
To finish the painting I worked on the trees quickly painting them using a picture of the sketch I did underneath as reference. I gave them a little value change making some liter in areas where the background hues were darker and lighter in order for there to be contrast but is also indeed to this idea that the light was coming from behind the trees and beyond the horizon. Another addition was yellow to the sky and water reflecting the sunlight from the setting sun. With the dock, I added more layers of paint but looking back going with a lighter color might have been better for contrast.
|
While painting the clouds I was originally going to try overlapping colors in shorter markes to contrast the sky similar to the sea in Sunrise (Marine). However during this I realized that this technique was not working with many of the colors smearing together and and looking odd against the background. For this reason I deiced to use the same technique as I used in the sky and while the clouds and sky blend together it gives the painting a bit more unity despite the very bright and contrasting colors.
|