Impressions of the World: Painting with Monet

Imagine trying to catch a shadow — it moves the moment you reach for it! 🌅 That was the challenge Claude Monet set himself every day. He wanted to paint not just what a place looked like, but how it felt in a particular moment of light. He would rush outside with his canvas and paint the same haystack or river again and again as the sun moved across the sky. Let's find out how he did it.

Before Monet, most painters worked slowly in studios, blending colours smoothly so you could not see any brushstrokes. Their paintings looked very polished and neat. Monet and his friends tried something completely different — they used short, quick dabs and strokes of paint, left visible on the canvas. Up close the painting looks messy, but step back and your eye blends the colours together. Like magic! ✨

This new style was called Impressionism. The name actually came from a rude joke! A critic saw Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise and laughed, calling it just an 'impression' rather than proper art. The artists liked the name so much they kept it. 😄 An impression is a quick feeling or snapshot of a moment — exactly what they were aiming for.

Monet often used a limited palette — that means only a small selection of colours. This kept his paintings feeling united and moody rather than jumbled. He mixed those colours together to create many more shades. For example, mixing yellow and blue gives green, but adding a little white creates a soft, hazy mint green perfect for morning light. The same scene painted at sunrise and sunset can look completely different just by changing your colour choices! 🌄

Before Monet started a large painting, he made quick sketchbook studies — small rough drawings or colour notes to plan what he wanted to show. Think of a sketchbook study like a text message to yourself: fast, not fancy, just the important information. You might sketch the horizon line, mark where the water or trees sit, and scribble notes like 'dark here' or 'lots of orange'. This planning stops you making big mistakes on your final painting. 📓

Monet's most famous series is his Water Lilies — over 250 paintings of the pond in his own garden at Giverny. He even designed the garden himself, building a Japanese-style bridge over the water. As he grew older his eyesight became poor, yet he kept painting. His late water lily paintings are huge and swirling with colour. Some art experts say they predicted the abstract art movement that came later! 🌸