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Vibrant Loose Brushwork

I've been looking for videos to post of the kind of loose brushwork we've been talking about and this one from Peter Wood Arts is fun. He starts with a dark blue underpainting.

How to paint with vibrant colours 5 of 8 - Loose acrylic over a blue  ground. - YouTube

Another way to describe it is "Optical Mixing" rather than mixing on the palette. That was invented by he Impressionist painters like Claude Monet. Optical mixing eliminates perfect coverage and smoothly-blended transitions. 

Claude Monet Impression, sunrise 1873
Claude Monet, Impression, sunrise
1872

Jackson's Art Blog describes it:

"The Impressionist painters used layers of colours, leaving gaps in the top layers to reveal the colours underneath. The technique is achieved through hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, drybrushing, and sgraffito (scratching into the paint). Mixing of brighter colours is done directly on the canvas to aid in creating the broken colour effect and only darker colours are mixed on the palette."

Next week:
Bring an old canvas board to play on. We will paint abstract water together, just playing with ways to apply paint and utilize optical mixing.
Abstract Water Painting Painting by Geoffrey Howard | Saatchi Art
Abstract water painting, Geoffrey Howard


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