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April 30, 2024 at 9:20 pm #1547147
WELCOME TO THE **MAY 2024** DIFFERENT STROKES CHALLENGE!!
All entries must be for this challenge and in acrylics – any type of acrylic. Join in the discussion about the project – it’s friendly and fun to learn how others are coping/struggling/thriving! But no visual images of your work until the reveal date! Help can be gained from asking but also from looking for resource materials elsewhere – the Reference Image Library, for example, or any of the many resources now available online courtesy of many museums and galleries.
A ‘reveal’ date for all is 21st of the month – that gives us 3 weeks to make the work, plus an extra week for latecomers.
PLEASE DO NOT UPLOAD WORK TO THE THREAD BEFORE THE 21ST OF THE MONTH. Much more exciting and fun to see what ‘masterpieces’ appear! If work is uploaded early it will be moved to a safe place until 21st. At the end of the month the thread /discussion will be closed and a new challenge will begin.
Please note, the single ‘reveal’ date is chosen so that we do not influence each other with our individual interpretations …… that’s the whole point of it being called ‘Different Strokes’!
By all means ask questions in the thread or initiate discussion about the challenge – just don’t post images!!!
Background
The challenge this month is based on an event that happened 150 years ago, in April 1874, when an exhibition of paintings was held in Paris, France among artists whose works had previously been refused admission to the respected formal Salon des Beaux-Arts and decided to hold their own organized Exhibition.
These painters had previously exhibited their work at the Salon des Refusés in earlier years. At this Exhibition in 1874 one of the paintings exhibited 150 years ago was by Claude Monet and entitled Impression: Sunrise.
From Wikipedia:
The First Impressionist Exhibition was an art exhibition held by the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc.,[a] a group of nineteenth-century artists who had been rejected by the official Paris Salon and pursued their own venue to exhibit their artworks. The exhibition was held in April 1874 at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, the studio of the famous photographer Nadar. The exhibition became known as the “Impressionist Exhibition” following a satirical review by the art critic Louis Leroy in the 25 April 1874 edition of Le Charivari entitled “The Exhibition of the Impressionists”. Leroy’s article was the origin of the term Impressionism.
This painting’s title was picked up by an art critic who derisively used it to label the artists “impressionists”, putting a label to what became one of the most famous and important artistic shifts in history.
The Musée D’Orsay has created a website to mark and celebrate the 150th anniversary of this event and so I thought, well we should as well:
https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/whats-on/exhibitions/paris-1874-inventing-impressionism
Artists who exhibited at the 1874 “Impressionist” Exhibition included Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Cézanne.
The challenge(s) this month are:
For May!
1. The Main Challenge
The main challenge this month is to paint an Impressionist painting copying or drawing inspiration directly from a work by one of the French Impressionists. For this you have 2 options to choose from:Option A – paint a copy of an actual painting by an Impressionist painter who exhibited a painting at the 1874 Exhibition to try and reproduce it on a canvas as a learning experience;
Option B – paint a copy of an actual painting but update it in some way that you want to ‘modernize’ it (example: Keep the landscape, but modernize the clothing worn by the figures; or adorn their arms with modern tattoos; or add a desktop computer to the background in a room. Whatever you feel like doing)NOTE: You do NOT have to recreate a painting actually exhibited at the 1874 exhibition!! Feel free to pick any painting you want from early or late in their career (and yes, some of them progressed beyond Impressionism during their careers and that’s just fine. Paint what inspires you, even if it is a late Cézanne or whatever.)
For June! (Reveal date is the 21st, please continue to post May Challenges at any time if you have them!)
2. The Second Challenge
The 2nd Challenge is to paint your own original impressionist painting based on your own world, but in the style of the painter you chose to work with for the FIRST CHALLENGE. Practice what you have just learned about the style of an Impressionist and apply it to a vista you really like, your own garden, your own dining room, a party of your own friends, your own lunch table etc. Whatever you want. This Second Challenge is of course totally optional! No pressure if you don’t have time or inclination.
3. The Third Challenge
And if that hasn’t made enough of an impression on you, the third challenge is to create your own Renoir. Yes, Renoir, specifically, because I saw an interesting DW (DeutscheWelle) video on Renoir entitled The Genius of Renoir on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSnfYSTpWxY If the link doesn’t show up you can Google it and find it.
The documentary is very well done and it taught me things I didn’t know about Renoir and got me thinking about the Impressionists, and then led to this challenge.
So, the Third Challenge (again totally optional, and only if you feel you want to give it a try) is to try to paint something in Renoir’s style specifically. Either a copy of an actual painting, or a riff on one of Renoir’s paintings, or an original painting of your own in the style as you interpret it. (Don’t need to slavishly copy, just be inspired)
Note if you actually picked Renoir for the FIRST challenge, then you have ALREADY completed the third challenge. (Aren’t you a clever artiste), and if you didn’t then you have a whole other option.
So, MOST IMPORTANTLY, have fun and do a little or do more, as you pay homage to the invention of “Impressionism” on this 150th Anniversary of the naming of the movement.
At month’s end we well hopefully have our own Impressionism Exhibition to commemorate the event.
Along the way feel free to indulge in all things French to get you thinking of what it might have been like in Paris in April and May 1874. (Wine, brie, baguettes, patisseries, charcuterie, bordeaux, camembert, croissants, burgundy, foie gras, café au lait, champagne, etc…)
"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." - Henry David ThoreauModerator Acrylics Forum~~~Reference Image Library
April 30, 2024 at 10:04 pm #1547153Yes! Exactly my thoughts when I wrote about the “tree!” I wanted to try an impressionism painting! This is perfect! Thank you so much Colin! I’m excited to give this a go! I know what it was going to be when I read the first sentence! About the painters being refused to show their work in the Salon, which I believed was a juried exhibition.
Yet then you added 2 more challenges to the first! Definitely I’ll be doing this one. Can’t say how good it’ll be, yet I’m giving this one a go! Not a mini painting either!
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April 30, 2024 at 10:41 pm #1547154I am in. This will be an education and a challenge!! Thanks Colin.
p.s. And just when you all thought those brain cells could take a nap! !
Carl
April 30, 2024 at 10:47 pm #1547155Ooo… This is a fun idea to have our own impressionist exhibition. It’s a style I could use some practice in, too. I think my past impressionist attempts have been shudder worthy, but doing a master study could help that. I hope I’ll have time! Thanks for the education and the challenge. ?
May 1, 2024 at 12:53 am #1547159Fun!
May 1, 2024 at 2:59 am #1547165This could take the next three months!
Colin, such a thoughtful and thought-provoking challenge …. feel a bit like Carl scaling that wall!
This is what WE get when Colin has an idea and RUNS with it!??
Thank you for all the research, I hope we can reward you!
Cheers, Maureen
Forum projects: Plant Parade projects in the Florals/Botanicals forum , WDE in the All Media Art Events , Different Strokes in Acrylics forum .May 1, 2024 at 5:36 am #1547172Yay a new challenge! I love impressionism, at least as I have understood it so far. My attempts so far looks nothing like these paintings, I look forward to studying it.
I have watched the video on Renoir now, very interesting, and I have also found a list of the paintings in the exhibition on wikipedia: First Impressionist Exhibition – Wikipedia
May 1, 2024 at 6:37 am #1547174I just learned that some unsigned Renoir paintings were identified by the cat hair in the paint, since he usually painted with a cat in his lap…. I’m falling in love
Renoir’s Paintings ?? Pierre-Auguste Renoir Paintings Documentary ? (youtube.com)
May 1, 2024 at 7:50 am #1547180I’ve tried impressionism for other challenges, it’s hard! I keep wanting to go back to my usual style. But I just took a look at the list, some different styles there. Will have to do more research later.
C&C always welcome. Michelle
mkmcreations.com
Every painting is a new adventure.May 1, 2024 at 8:20 am #1547184Yes! Exactly my thoughts when I wrote about the “tree!” I wanted to try an impressionism painting! This is perfect! Thank you so much Colin! I’m excited to give this a go! I know what it was going to be when I read the first sentence! About the painters being refused to show their work in the Salon, which I believed was a juried exhibition.
Yet then you added 2 more challenges to the first! Definitely I’ll be doing this one. Can’t say how good it’ll be, yet I’m giving this one a go! Not a mini painting either!
Great, Cathy. By all means give us an Impressionist’s tree. They often painted out of doors, amidst nature. The invention of portable tubes of premixed paint and collapsible easels made it possible to leave the studio and find trees.
"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." - Henry David ThoreauModerator Acrylics Forum~~~Reference Image Library
May 1, 2024 at 8:21 am #1547185I am in. This will be an education and a challenge!! Thanks Colin.
p.s. And just when you all thought those brain cells could take a nap! !
Great, Carl. No napping this month, lol.
"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." - Henry David ThoreauModerator Acrylics Forum~~~Reference Image Library
May 1, 2024 at 8:25 am #1547187Ooo… This is a fun idea to have our own impressionist exhibition. It’s a style I could use some practice in, too. I think my past impressionist attempts have been shudder worthy, but doing a master study could help that. I hope I’ll have time! Thanks for the education and the challenge. ?
I always found it easier to copy a painting, because the brain simply has to work on reproducing the paint as it sits on the canvas.
On of my very first (and totally shudder-worthy) paintings was a reproduction of one of Monet’s Waterlily paintings. It was a challenge but it really drew me in. And one of my least shudder-worthy paintings was a reproduction of a VanGogh which turned out quite well because I kept the scale modest and focused on getting the feel of the original.
"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." - Henry David ThoreauModerator Acrylics Forum~~~Reference Image Library
May 1, 2024 at 8:26 am #1547188Fun!
I hope you choose to join in this month, Mary.
"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." - Henry David ThoreauModerator Acrylics Forum~~~Reference Image Library
May 1, 2024 at 8:29 am #1547189This could take the next three months!
Colin, such a thoughtful and thought-provoking challenge …. feel a bit like Carl scaling that wall!
This is what WE get when Colin has an idea and RUNS with it!??
Thank you for all the research, I hope we can reward you!
Well, if there is enough interest and we need a challenge for June I guess we could extend this one so people could keep at it. Ha ha. But the 2nd and 3rd challenges are optional.
"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." - Henry David ThoreauModerator Acrylics Forum~~~Reference Image Library
May 1, 2024 at 8:35 am #1547191Yay a new challenge! I love impressionism, at least as I have understood it so far. My attempts so far looks nothing like these paintings, I look forward to studying it.
I have watched the video on Renoir now, very interesting, and I have also found a list of the paintings in the exhibition on wikipedia: First Impressionist Exhibition – Wikipedia
Excellent, Mona. WoW you have already watched the video on Renoir and are doing your own sleuthing. Thank for the link to,the list of paintings. I am sure I ran across a complete list of the artists who exhibited on Wikipedia as well, including a mysterious “Comtesse de Luchaire”, the only woman painter besides Berthe Morisot.
"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." - Henry David ThoreauModerator Acrylics Forum~~~Reference Image Library
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