Customer Reviews

Paint Like Monet (Masterclass)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A fantastic book for gaining insight into Monet's painting methods. As an art historian, I've spent years learning the academic facts about the Impressionists, but never picked up a brush until a few years ago. If you're like me, you don't really expect to paint exactly like Monet, but this book just walks you through a number of the artist's better-known works and guides you to create a painting exploring the key techniques. If you do all the exercises in the book, you will certainly gain an enhanced appreciation of painting with color and light. I wish my art history professors had offered us an afternoon with brush and canvas instead of just slides and books. This book would be invaluable for teachers, and it would also make a great gift for anyone interested in learning more about the process of making art.

This book offers a nice review of Monet's painting methods, though it suffers along with other art books with chapters explaining what is an easel, what is a paintbrush, etc. I suppose if one had never seen any art materials before it would be just the thing, but for most people this is just unnecessary filler. The demonstrations might be great in real life, but the end result, as portrayed in the book anyway, give the impression (no pun intended) of a poorly painted reproduction. If the finished works were of higher quality it might inspire more people to try their hand at a Monet copy; right now it seems to say "Paint this picture this way and you will end up with a picture apparently done by a five-year old". Despite all this, though, here are interesting insights into tone and color as well as technique, so that it makes nice reading for a rainy afternnoon, but I'm not sure I would buy it again.

B.O.

A good and useful book for both teacher and student.

The background information was well presented and readable, a change from so many heavy academic tomes, a tick here!

Some good analytical and practical exercises. I found that James Heard's own style too strongly evident in the photographic progression of the sample exercises, he is more than a trifle heavy handed and contemporary,to me this is a bit of a problem when demonstrating a style and period that was innately subtle and elegant.

I was also disappointed in the colour replication of the original works when compared to gallery sourced reproductions.

Now what do I know? I'm not going to tell you "that's not how Monet did it". I can't fault anything of the authors because we really don't know how Monet painted his masterpieces, nor that of other artists. But, what we can do is explore and dabble and use our own creativity. I took this book at face value and used it as personal training in Impressionist Art. Like when fly fishing, it doesn't matter how ugly the fly is, as long as it catches fish. The same is true with art. You can worry about art schools, materials, style; or you can paint! Of the 10 Monet paintings I'm working toward finishing (I'm adding my own Impression: Sunrise), I have had rave reviews from friends and family. That is a great complement to a novice painter. I even had offers to purchase my art. Gosh, I've never thought of that. This is a workbook that takes you through a good number of Monet's paintings that he has done through his long life. It also tells you the stories behind his stages of life and reasons for the paintings. When you paint, you can think of those stories, and tell others when you explain the work. And, for those of us novices, it gives you a great idea of some difficult concepts, so that you can apply it to your own art. Buy this book, and try it for yourself. You'll be happy.

This is a fun easy to read book and informative, but the author's copies of Monet's paintings are not very accurate, especially the colors. The author's reproductions are a little too loose (Toulouse?), and if you compare them to good photographs of the originals, you will spot the many differences.

Has good information in book but, as the book says ..." Monet's paintings do not reveal his technical procedures"... I bought book used and it was a good purchase.

This book may not be perfect but is is very useful in explaining how Monet may have painted. As the author states, he (or anyone else) doesn't know exactly because Xrays have not discovered underpainting for clues. Mr. Heard does best when he sticks to academics and worst in the visual step by step "copy" paintings which as another reviewer stated look like a 5 year old painted them. No they are not that bad but could have benefitted from either saying that 1) the final example will need many more days (or years) of painting to arrive at an end result or 2) having an expert copyist complete them (and stating #1).

You cannot really expect this book to teach you how to paint like Monet but it does give valuable information on technique, color palette and how to begin an impressionist style painting (just short on the finishing of said painting).

There are some glitches, such as on p.28 we are told that Impressionists did not like to paint on white canvases and instructed to start the copy of "The Beach at Trouville" by covering the white canvas with a blend of Tit. White, Cad. Yellow and Iv. Black to make a warm gray. Then in the next step it is clear that the author did not do this because his next steps are executed on a white canvas.

I am not an art historian but I thought the Impressionists DID use a white canvas rather than a toned one to achieve their clear colors, unmuddied by the brown tones prevalent in the preceding generation. It is an important point that this book has now made confusing.

I would definitely buy this book again and would love to see more painters done in this series. There are no others that I have found. We need Van Gogh, Renoir, etc.

I think background color of The Regatta at Argenteuil was made of cobalt blue and white instead of ultramarine and white as the book suggested.

Anyway, the overall content is okay.