Non Realistic Representation Impressionism.

LANDSCAPE  CONTINUING LOOKING AT NON REALISTIC REPRESENTATION, still something of a mouthful, Lots of artists do landscape in a way which is not photographically realistic.

 I will look at two art styles which influence landscape painting, Impressionism and Abstraction.( I will do Abstraction as a separate post)

Impressionism is still super popular and influential, it is a simpler colourful way of painting. In a way it is realistic in that we really don’t stand for many hours studying a scene we look, get an impression appreciate it, and move on.

There is a famous painting by a Pre- Raphaelite painter in which he is reckoned to have spend many hours carefully depicting a real river bank in such detail every plant could be identified, an Impressionist would depict it much more simply as a mass of coloured shapes which give the impression of that view. 

So simplification, much less worry about perspective and other technical elements, make it a very painter friendly style.

A second interest was in the idea that what we see isn’t so much the objects but the light as it reflects off objects, and since light is coloured Impressionists tend to avoid blacks and greys and give everything colour, and not only colour, but colours, so a blue sky will often be several blues, a green field will have numerous different greens, plus other colours added yellows blues purples and even little bits of reds, creating a kind of shimmer. 

Pick a simple subject and instead of blending your paint build the painting up with lots of brushstrokes with subtly different colours to make each area. Acrylic is ideal but you can do it with watercolour , pastel is also ideal. The original Impressionists usually used oils.

Here is a simple effort of mine and the photo I used. Along wiht  money painting Red Boats at Argenteuil, and some photos whihc may be suitable for the style.