I've Got the Impression that You don't See what I Sea

"Starry Night Over the Rhone" by 宇中蜃楼 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

By Raylin Janzen

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved the impressionist painters. The breath-taking skies of Van Gogh; the fun, colourful water scenes of Monet; the detail, expression, and movement expressed by Renoir; and the excited, delicate dancers of Degas.

In order to further explore my love of impressionism, I decided to try painting my own impressionist-style painting. Using a photo I took over this past summer, I attempted to use the bold, free-flowing brushstrokes that evoke the feeling of being there, the impression of it, rather than the small, controlled strokes that depict the finer details.

This is an edited version of the photo. I wanted to bring out the colours more, so that painting in those same, more vivid tones, would become easier.

This is an edited version of the photo. I wanted to bring out the colours more, so that painting in those same, more vivid tones, would become easier.

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Beginning my impressionist journey, I was astounded by how many different ways there are to paint water (my skill for this week), and how many more ways there are to do it in the impressionist style!

I started off with this tutorial, which uses only a palette knife to create the painting (also see this tutorial for a water-scape with boats, and this one with water lilies). I love how free this technique leaves you, but also how precise you can be if you choose to be. Wanting to learn more about this way of painting, I discovered that a lot of painters use it to achieve a looser painting style that has lots of texture and expression, but is sort of like "icing a cake." Ultimately I decided to not go with this technique for this week, since it didn't quite achieve the type of impressionism I was hoping to imitate. It's definitely a technique I would like to try on future paintings though!

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Next, I happened to stumble upon this video from Createful Art, a site that was particularly helpful with my clouds, and was equally helpful this week. I liked how her large brush strokes created a very free feeling, and how her colours, while not reflective of the actual image, still managed to capture to overall look, while also adding in her own feelings about the place. However, it was this video on how to paint like Van Gogh that I decided to follow for my own painting. I like that the colours still allow you to develop a sense of place, while the free-flowing (yet still indicatively directional) strokes manage to evoke not only the feeling, but also the type of weather that the painter is experiencing.

Finally, this site helped me to pick my photo, and decide on the type of colour scheme I wanted to achieve. It gave a good overall review of impressionism, the techniques, and how to successfully create your own.

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Next, I happened to stumble upon this video from Createful Art, a site that was particularly helpful with my clouds, and was equally helpful this week. I liked how her large brush strokes created a very free feeling, and how her colours, while not reflective of the actual image, still managed to capture to overall look, while also adding in her own feelings about the place. However, it was this video on how to paint like Van Gogh that I decided to follow for my own painting. I like that the colours still allow you to develop a sense of place, while the free-flowing (yet still indicatively directional) strokes manage to evoke not only the feeling, but also the type of weather that the painter is experiencing.

Finally, this site helped me to pick my photo, and decide on the type of colour scheme I wanted to achieve. It gave a good overall review of impressionism, the techniques, and how to successfully create your own.

In order to capture my learning, I originally started by using Hyperlapse. However, due to it's time limits, I didn't want to risk losing my work. Instead, I simply recorded what I was doing on my phone, stopping and restarting it whenever I remembered (in order to avoid having one, massive file). However, this also brought the issue of creating one, complete movie. Previously, I've used MiniTool MovieMaker, but only to string several short clips together, and even then it continually lost my work (it regularly "stops responding" and crashes). In class, Katia mentioned that Windows has a movie editor already built in, but it was hidden in the Photos app (probably why I never found it before).

I decided to use the Windows movie editor, and it was so much simpler! I could easily add in title slides, images, videos, text, and other special effects (they even have some preset themes that can be applied to the entire video). There was almost no lag, and my progress was automatically saved each time. I could speed up or slow down certain clips, or even split them so I could do both. My only complaint is that there were no options for transitions between clips.

Now, for my first ever, fully-edited video!

I'm still learning, but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out. Next time, I would make my brushstrokes more consistent in their direction, or at least try to create more of a flow. I would also use a much smaller brush so that there are more individual strokes visible, and I can achieve a finer gradation of colour and texture. This would also help with creating the bridge and mimicking some of the smaller details, something I think got lost in the overall painting. Finally, I would use less white (even in the light areas) so that the colours would all appear more vibrant. I might even use some colours that weren't in the original photo (like in the Createful Art video) to add more feeling and to help draw the eye to certain details.

Now, for my first ever, fully-edited video!

I'm still learning, but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out. Next time, I would make my brushstrokes more consistent in their direction, or at least try to create more of a flow. I would also use a much smaller brush so that there are more individual strokes visible, and I can achieve a finer gradation of colour and texture. This would also help with creating the bridge and mimicking some of the smaller details, something I think got lost in the overall painting. Finally, I would use less white (even in the light areas) so that the colours would all appear more vibrant. I might even use some colours that weren't in the original photo (like in the Createful Art video) to add more feeling and to help draw the eye to certain details.

Thanks for reading!