Water lilies in the style of Monet7 x 12 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix
Miki Willa
On Sunday, I was reading Katherine Tyrell's Who's Made a Mark This Week when I saw a link to Maggie Stiefvater's blog talking about style. She wrote in three seperate postings about the importance of developing a style of your own, and she gave good practical advice on how she discovered hers. It has occured to me that I am all over the place in terms of style. I think I have been getting closer to what I keep referring to as my visual voice, but my method for getting there has been a bit haphazard. I keep telling myself it is okay because I am building my skills. There is much to be said for that, but I now believe I can continue to build my skills in a more directed manner. I also subscribe to Artbiz newsletter. Alison has been talking about creating a vision for my artistic future. I think it is all finally beginning to come together.
I am still working on the vision, but I started step one of developing my own style. I started looking at the paintings I have done over the past eight months. I have put aside the ones that I really like on first impression. At this stage, I am not evaluating them beyond that initial impression. That will come later. So far, I am being drawn to the paintings of mountains, water, and flowers. Especially the ones where my strokes are a bit looser. It will be interesting to see what happens after step two, which is evaluating just what it is I like about each of them. I guess I have come to a Y on this path.
Today's painting was something I have wanted to do for a while. I took the photo several years ago at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. I have long been intrigued by Monet's treatment of water lilies and reflections. This is my first attempt to copy the style of a master.
1 comment:
I think your painting is gorgeous. You have captured the the mood of Monet's water lily paintings beautifully. I think his style is an admirable one to emulate.
I've recently started painting myself and I find myself imitating art I enjoy myself too. I'm learning to paint with acrylics in the African "tinga tinga" style which is rather cheerful and whimsical, but very,very stylized.
I noticed while in Tanzania that all the tinga tinga artists painted variations on similar themes and works often ended up looking simialr from town to town.
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