Monet and Degas

Whilst staying Menaggio, Sarah and I decided to have a painting class with an artist in the Post Imressionist style.We were going to learn the secrets! His classes were in Lenno, so we took the ferry and noticed this rusty red castle at the end of the inlet. It was beautiful and we commented about how posh it would be to have our lesson there. We left the ferry and started walking and eventually passed the castle and turned up a street next to it and found the address. Lo and behold we were at the back entrace of the castle. Oh we must be going to be in a studio up the back somewhere! Our artist friend came down to the gate and let us in and took us into the castle, through his gallery and out on to the terrace facing the lake. Three easels were set up there with oil paints on a palette below. Wow!! This was fantastic and quite literally hard to believe,

He teaching method was to talk about what we were going to do, then he would do it on his canvas and we would try and do the same on our canvas. If we were getting way off track he would come and save us, otherwise we would continue with the next step. It was great fun and both of us took to it easily. Mixing the colours was the hardest part, but he really got us to understand the tones of what we were looking at and how to put it on the canvas. When you look at the tree, don' see a tree, he said, see shades of light and dark (through squinted eyes). When he stressed that how we saw light was more important than being skilful perfect I felt a sense of relief, not that I am sure I can see light properly, but at least it gave me a chance.

He said the steps were line, underpainting, line, and top painting . We sketched roughly in charcoal the scene in front of us which was small promontory with high mountains at the back and the lake in front. We then had to ‘scumble’ which was to fill in areas getting the tone right. This had to be done with a ‘dry’ brush. Mixing the colours was the hardest part. I was constantly making them too dark, and he had to wipe off some of it and take me back to the right tone. It was better to wipe it off than to try to fix it.

Next step was back to line again, but this time with paint. Not in a perfect way but in a broad sense. He kept talking about not making a commitment. Finally came the step of applying the top coat of paint, and this was a real surprise because it was always in dabs leaving the undercoat to show through, using both vertical and horizontal strokes and even a ‘calligraphy finish’. Once again, getting the colour right was the most difficult part. Close up I thought my work looked dreadful, but from 8 feet away it looked quite reasonable. We continued working away and he gave both of us a helping hand to finish it off, and when he suddenly appeared later with our work in gold frames we were both astonished. We looked quite professional, so we scratched our names in the corner with a palette knife and stood back and admired what we had achieved. I couldn’t believe my first attempt at oils (since school days) could have worked out so well.

We arrived back home with our masterpieces to cries of 'Well Monet and Degas, let's see your work!' They too were very impressed or I could even say surprised with our first efforts. This has been one of the best things I have done on the holiday. To have a lesson with someone like him was so fortunate. He can trace his teachers back to both Monet and Degas. The post impressionism style is great for Europe but I am not sure it would work so well in Australia where we have more direct, intense light. I do hope I can build on this lesson after I get back home and produce something that is really mine.