Palettes and Strategies of Claude Monet

Consider the colors and methods the Impressionist painter Monet used.

There's two common misnomers about Monet. The first is that, as an Impressionist, Monet’s paintings were done spontaneously. Actually, Monet studied his subjects intently, planned his painting techniques, and worked tough to achieve his results. He often painted a number of exactly the same subject to capture the changing effects of the light, swapping canvases as the day progressed.
The second is that of Monet’s his paintings were done on location. Actually, many were painted or finished back in his studio. Monet is quoted as saying: “Whether my cathedral views, my views of London and other canvases are painted from life or otherwise is nobody’s business as well as no importance whatsoever.”

Colors in Monet’s Palette

Monet used a significant limited palette, banishing browns and earth colors and, by 1886, black had also disappeared. Asked in 1905 what colors he used, Monet said: “The point would be to know how to make use of the colors, the choice of which is, when all’s said and done, a matter of habit. Anyway, I personally use flake white, cadmium yellow, vermilion, deep madder, cobalt blue, emerald green, and that’s all.”

According to James Heard in the book Paint Like Monet, analysis of Monet’s paintings show Monet used these nine painting 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 crimson)
• Vermilion
• Ivory black (but only if you’re copying a Monet from before 1886)

So, find out a white, an intense yellow and red, a bright blue and green, and obtain painting! (For more about the colors the Impressionists employed for shadows, see What Color Are Shadows?)Monet’s Utilization of a Light Ground
Monet painted on canvas that was a light color, for example white, very pale gray or very light yellow, and used opaque colors. A close-up study of one of Monet’s paintings will show that colors were often used completely from the tube or mixed about the canvas. But he also scumbled colors - using thin, broken layers of paint which allows the low layers of color to stand out.

Monet build up texture through his brushstrokes, which change from thick to thin, with tiny dabs of sunshine, adding contours for definition and color harmonies, working from dark to light.

Monet’s Series Paintings

Monet painted many subjects again and again, but all of his series paintings is different, whether it’s a painting of the water lily or a hay stack.

In October 1890 Monet wrote instructions towards the art critic Gustave Geffroy about the hay stacks series he was painting, saying: “I’m hard at it, working stubbornly on the number of different effects, but at this time of the year sunset so fast that it’s impossible to maintain it … the further I receive, the greater I see that a lot of work needs to be done in order to render what I’m searching for: ‘instantaneity’, the ‘envelope’ above al, exactly the same light spread over everything… I’m increasingly obsessed through the need to render things i experience, and I’m praying that I’ll have a few more good years left to me because I believe I may make some progress for the reason that direction…”