The « Monet Impressionist eye » exhibition at Marmottan Museum

« Monet Impressionist eye » exhibition
The exhibition "Monet, impressionist eye" looks at Monet’s work through science. The curator asked two Ophthalmologists to provide their insight into Monet’s painting technique, including when the artist’s perception was impaired by cataracts. Some late pieces of work are exhibited together with blurred photographs showing how Monet would have seen them.

The exhibition showcases sixty works of Monet coming from the museum own collection or specially lent to the Musée Marmottan for this exhibition.

Details of the exhibition :

"Monet, impressionist eye"
16th october - 15th february

Musée Marmottan
2, rue Louis-Boilly
75016 Paris

http://www.marmottan.com/


Musée Marmottan
The Musée Marmottan has a rich collection of impressionist paintings, including many works by Claude Monet, Berthe Morizot, Renoir, Sisley or Gauguin. Actually, The Museum possesses the world's largest collection of works by Claude Monet.

I like the fact that some of the paintings are displayed in the furnished rooms of this rich house.

This museum is less known than the Orsay Museum and therefore less crowded. This is a museum not to be missed if you like Impressionist paintings.



Musée Marmottan Marmottan museum Art Museum Impresionism Claude Monet Berthe Morizot Renoir Sisley Gauguin

How to put wedges on a canvas?

Canvasses often come with wedges, which purpose is to increase the tension of the canvas. The way it works is that the wedges push the stretchers away, creating tension on the fabric.





This seems an easy task, but elementary precautions are required to make sure you don’t damage your canvas.

First, you will see that you can insert the wedge in to different ways (depending on what long side of the triangular piece of wood you slide in contact with the stretcher. Personally, I prefer to slide the wedge so that the end part I will be hammering forms a right angle with the stretcher (have a look at the photograph and it will become clear).

Wegde put sideway

Wedges with the end perpendicular to the stretcher

Before hammering the wedge, insert a piece of cardboard between the fabric and the stretcher in order to protect the fabric. This is a simple way to prevent the hammer from denting or tearing away the canvas.

Piece of cardboard protects the fabric

Finally, make sure that you hammer alternatively the two wedges at each end of the same stretcher. This way the tension created by the stretcher will be parallel to the weaving and equally spreaded.

Studio hack Canvas Canvas stretcher Oil painting

The old trees

It was good to go do some plein air painting on Sunday (not this one, the 19 January). The weather was cold but dry. I was weary of the wind as a gust of wind can blow-up your canvas from the easel and ruin hours of work, but it did not happen.

The old trees – Oil on canvas (16 x 12) by Benoit Philippe

There is something special about capturing nature on site. You get a more concise vision, a more coherent painting. As you have less time at your hand (the light is changing fast at this time of the year), you have to concentrate on the design and simplify your brush work.

For this painting, I used only three hog brushes: one flat, one round and a filbert - No rigger or small pointy brush.

My palette reduced to eight colours:

• Titanium White


• Cadmium Yellow Pale


• Cadmium Red


• Alizarin Crimson
• Cerulean Blue


• Phtalo Blue


• Ultramarine Bleu


• Bloxx green (equivalent to Viridian Green)

You will note that there is only one green. To compensate, I introduced an additional blue (Phtalo Blue is not one I generally use, but it gives some beautiful deep greens). Also, I didn’t use any earth colour. This is probably the influence of a recent article I wrote on Monet’s palette.

The art of recycling: frame corner protectors

If you have some plumbing done in your house and have some polyethylene pipe insulation left (see photograph), you can recycle them for your art.

These tubes are slit to go around copper pipes and you can use them to protect frames during transport. This solution works well for small mouldings used for watercolours or pastel works. You just need to open-up the tube with your fingers and slide it over the moulding.

I tried to make a “V” shape cut in the pipe insulation material to see if it would allow the material to bend around the corner. I am happy to report that it works. The only recommendation I would make if you do that is to let a good length of pipe insulator on each side (otherwise, the material will spring back and get off the frame corner)

I did a quick search on the web and found some of these round pipes insulators for £1.84 for a pack of 5 (totalling 5 metres). This material is fairly cheap and may be a viable solution to protect these fragile frames’ corners between your studio and your next exhibition.


Pipe insulation Recycling Studio hack Frame corner protection Frame protection Frame transport Art tips

Night roadwork - oil painting

I took the photograph I used as reference material last year in the town centre of Munich, with my mobile phone's camera. I was wondering if I would get anything in these night conditions, but the digger with the projectors looked good in the night. This is the advantage of digital photography, you can experiment and, if it does not work, there is no consequence.

I was pleasantly surprised with the result. Because the camera is only a 2 milion pixels one, the photograph looks grainy. Far from being a drawback, the lack of definition enhances the view and also makes it easier not to paint is a photographic manner.

Night roadwork - oil painting (24 X 19 cm) by Benoit Philippe

I think I will try a larger format of the same painting... with a twist. More on this later.