TOrI weyERSImpressionists and their Palette

BioTori Weyers was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1978. Weyers is a fine artist and designer spe-cializing in illustration, mixed media and abstract painting. She received her BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and has been working as a professional artist and designer since 1998. Her work has been published in Somerset Studio’s Art Journaling Magazine, F&W publication’s How De-sign Magazine as well as North Light Books 2016 Incite4 The Best of Mixed Media. She has shown her work in many galleries regionally, throughout the Indianapolis area as well as on the West Coast.

Weyers creates and shows work from her home studio in Broad Ripple as well as Gallery 116 in Carmel, IN and Nickel Plate Arts in Noblesville, IN. Her artwork has been collected throughout the United States and the world including, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. She teaches mixed media, painting and more through in person class-es and online workshops.

Tori online:Website: DrawRiot.comInstagram: instagram.com/drawriot YouTube: youtube.com/drawriotFacebook: facebook.com/DrawRiot Twitter: twitter.com/drawriot Etsy: etsy.com/shop/drawriot

TOrI weyERS

Long summer nights still go pretty fast. Even though the sun sets later we still have a hard time making time for art and a creative life. In this class we are going to learn how to capture those fleet-ing moments using impressionist techniques and ideas. We will paint pages look at color and light and then build an art journal spread filled with layers, textures and life so we can hold on to summers warmth and beauty all year long. Lets get started!

Impressionists and their Palette Moments in time

1.“Impressionist" as a term was first used in connection with a show of 30 artists (including Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Renoir & more) in April 1874. It was used as a negative term to describe the “unfinished” appear-ance of the paintings done in this style. When you think about working in this style think about creat-ing an “impression” of your subject, your goal is to capture the light and life or moment of what you are painting.

An Impressionist PaletteAnalysis of Monet’s paintings show Monet used these nine colors: Lead white, (modern equivalent = titanium white) Chrome yellow, (modern equivalent = cadmium yellow light) Cadmium yellow, Viridian green, Emerald green, French ultramarine, Cobalt blue, Madder red, (modern equivalent = alizarin crim-son) Vermilion Ivory black (but only if you’re copying a Monet from before 1886)

2.The palette is an example of a limited palette, used by many painters, of a warm and cool of each prima-ry color, along with white. Some painters, like Monet, will also often add the secondary color, green, to facilitate mixing landscape greens, and to use to mix with alizarin crimson to make a chromatic black.

3.Next lay out your paints, since we are traveling a magazine cover, waxed or styrofoam paper place or a piece of wax is a great palette. You want to have access to all of your colors so you can load up your brush with paint quickly and easily.

Impressionists and their Palette

4.First lets do a little automatic writing to start off our Art journal spread background this will provide a little texture and get rid of that pesky white page. Automatic writing is starting with a thought and just writing whatever is connected to that thought in your mind its like a stream of connected words brain-storm. If your not sure how to start try an observa-tional description of your subject (in my case flowers) or a memory/story of the image or object you are capturing.

Now that the writing is down lets do an underpaint-ing or “ground” with warm yellow, this gives your over painted areas a warm summery glow of light. Many impressionists painters started with a yellow as their ground to get that “warm look”.

Set your art journal to the side so it can fully dry. While we are waiting let’s talk about impressionist art concepts & techniques.

5. ScumblingIn this lesson you can dip your brush into the paint push it strait into the canvas so that the bristles splay out, then the brush is rotated slightly creating a mottled effect. This is simply repeated keeping more red paint at the top and yellow at the bottom. You will need to experiment to see how the paint blends as you create the transition from red to yellow. Keep in mind that this is a mottled effect and not a smooth transition. A Flat bristle brush was used for this ex-ample, however you should experiment with various types of brushes.

6. Optical Color MixingCreate evenly spaced strokes of pure color, randomly spaced. Start with the yellow paint and allow it to dry complexly (this cold take over night in the case of oils). Then with the same size brush, create the same randomly placed evenly spaced red brush strokes creating a optical mix of red and yellow that will appear orange from a distance. A round bristle brush was used in this example.

Impressionists and their Palette

7. Wet on Wet Technique Start by painting a solid field of yellow, while the field is still wet, paint strokes of red on top. Use the same size brush spaced out to create a gradient ef-fect. Have the stronger red at the top with more and overlapping paint stokes and stronger yellow at the bottom by using less brush stokes and spacing them further apart. The stroke directions should appear random and not regimented or lined up in a formal pattern for this technique. A Round bristle brush was used for this example.Now that we covered some impressionist details our spread should be dry so let’s get back to our art journal!

Start with a quick pencil sketch just to give you a good guideline of where your subject will be paced on the page. We will not need detail at this point so it is ok to be super quick and rough it in at this point.

Once your sketch is done choose a color to start with (i started with yellow) load up your brush with paint and quickly block in your subject. Your goal is to build layers of paint using loose strokes this gives your paint energy and life. Don’t be afraid of using a good amount of paint here.

Impressionists and their Palette

8. Impressionist painters like Monet used paint liberally loading up 2 colors on your brush at a time allows a more painterly look when applied to your page. Look at your subject and notice the darks and lights as well as how a color isn’t just a flat color but many subtle versions of a color with lights and darks.

Impressionist painters were all about capturing a fleeting moment of light and they did this by creating an “impression” of their subject not a realistic “copy”.

I like to start from the outside and move into the center details but there is no wrong way to do this let your subject and your paint be the guide for where to add large strokes or small details.

Once you have your subject blocked in use the end of your brush to etch into the wet paint in a few are-as this adds some texture and interest and is a great mixed media technique.

Now that your main subject is down choose a color and use the Scumbling technique in the background to push your subject forward and add a little interest to the background. The scumbling technique will add color and allow your original ground color to show though as well.

Now go back in and add another layer of paint change the size of your brush so that your paint layers have variety this makes your overall painting more interesting!

Impressionists and their Palette

9. Now that my first flower is done I am going to use the stumbling technique to start my rose then I follow the same process of layering paint using the impressionist techniques we reviewed. really let go and have fun with this process. remember we are go-ing for an “impression” not photo realistic get messy and have fun!

Once your painted “impressions" are complete allow your spread to dry fully.

10. Collect some of your other supplies so you can add some mixed media to your art journal spread! You will need the following items:

WatercolorsWater BrushStabilo All in One PencilCollage papersScissorsPencil

First cut your collage elements and add some sketch details to your subject. Take the opportunity here to define some areas add extra sketch texture or add contrast. This is my favorite part of the process because it allows you to be inspired by the impres-sionist look and technique but then you really add your style and creative expression onto your spread in your own way! Add watercolor to your page look for places to add similar colors that you already see on your page or use colors that you don’t have yet. Watercolor is great because it is transparent and you can get a great range of subtle color.

Add your Stabilo black pencil to the edges of your subject is amazing at adding pop of dark contrast and I love that it is water soluble so it mixes well with the watercolor.

Impressionists and their Palette

11. Last but not least glue down your collage elements. I love using collage elements that i dint specifically made for a page it gives a good variety of color and texture and adds a little extra personality. Once your collage elements are glued down feel free to add a touch of watercolor around them as well so they look like they blend into the page a bit.

Thats it! Feel free to do some more writing, doodling or add anything else you feel helps capture your summer moments! I hope you enjoyed this exercise and I can’t wait to see how you bring the light and life of your summer art journal pages!