Monet’s Water Lilies with artist-grade soft pastels
In this workshop, we explored the chromatic universe of Claude Monet, focusing on his famous Water Lilies series. This activity allowed us to develop observation skills and a sensitivity for capturing atmospheric nuances, working on competencies related to visual perception and color reproduction. By using different types of pastels, we tackled the themes of light and reflection, gaining a practical understanding of Impressionist painting and texture management.
Materials: Hairspray or drawing fixative, Full-color images of Monet’s paintings (printed or digital), Colored cardstock (pastel shades), Soft pastels, Paper tissues
To begin, each of us chose a specific detail from Monet’s masterpieces. We sketched the main shapes of the composition onto colored cardstock in soft tones like yellow, violet, green, and light blue, which served as a chromatic base for our work.
Using soft pastels, we moved on to applying the color. We mixed and blended the pigments directly with our fingers to recreate those hazy atmospheres typical of Impressionism, trying to imitate the artist’s original palette.
In the next step, we focused on achieving three-dimensionality. We layered colors to better define highlights and shadows, adding depth to the flowers and water reflections to make the drawing more realistic.
And here are our works created with soft pastels: a magical play of transparencies inspired by Monet.
Monet’s Water Lilies with oil pastels
In a second phase of the laboratory, we experimented with a different technique using oil pastels. These colors are much thicker and allowed us to imitate the texture of the brushstrokes used by Monet.
Materials: Hairspray or drawing fixative, Full-color images of Monet’s paintings (printed or digital), Colored cardstock (pastel shades), oil pastels, Baby oil, Paper tissues
To make the colors even more fluid, we used baby oil. By spreading the oil onto the paper with a tissue, we dissolved and merged the colors together, achieving incredible effects of transparency and softness. Here are our finished Water Lilies, full of light and color.
Here are our Water Lilies with oil pastels, full of light and color.
