Hostess: Cheryl Casker

Title: Hurry, Spring!

Theme: Interpret the gift of life (Spring) that rises from the death (Winter) that came before it

Technique: Impressionism incorporating broken color theory that depicts the subtle play of light and shadow

Due date: March 8, 2014

Having set a historical record for the most snow in one month in January in the state of Michigan (as well as others), we are more than just a bit winter-weary and anxiously look forward to the exquisite flora and fauna that Spring gifts us with each year.

Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!

~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"

Yesterday the twig was brown and bare;
To-day the glint of green is there;
Tomorrow will be leaflets spare;
I know no thing so wondrous fair,
No miracle so strangely rare.
I wonder what will next be there!
~L.H. Bailey

Color As Light

Impressionism was a new style of painting that emerged in France at the end of the 19th century. The Impressionist artists were interested in trying to capture the changing effects of light on the landscape by using a more exact analysis of tone and color. Their ideas were inspired by Eugene Chevreul's scientific research into color theory.

The Impressionist artists abandoned the old idea that the shadow of an object was made up from the color of the object with some brown or black added. Instead, they enlivened their canvases with the new idea that the shadow of any color could be mixed from pure hues and broken up with its opposite color. For example, the shadow on a yellow surface could have some strokes of lilac painted into it to increase its vitality.

As the Impressionists had to work quickly to capture the fleeting effects of light, they had to sacrifice some of the traditional qualities of outline and detail. http://www.artyfactory.com/color_theory/color_theory_1.htm

Broken Color

http://www.larrymoorestudios.com/broken-color/

Role of Colour in Impressionism

http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=43792

Characteristics of American Impressionism

http://www.flogris.org/learning/foxchase/html/about_impressionism.php

Resources:

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)

“When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives you own naïve impression of the scene before you.”