How Claude Monet painted

A look at the colors and techniques the Impressionist painter Monet used. By Marion Boddy-Evans, About.com Guide Colors in Monet's Palette Monet used quite a 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 is to know how to use the colors, the choice of which is, when all's said and done, a matter of habit. Anyway, I use flake white, cadmium yellow, vermilion, deep madder, cobalt blue, emerald green, and that's all." 2 According to James Heard in his book Paint Like Monet, analysis of Monet's paintings show Monet used these nine 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, equip yourself with a white, an intense yellow and red, a bright blue and green, and get painting! Monet's Use of a Light GroundMonet painted on canvas which was a light color, such as 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 straight from the tube or mixed on the canvas. But that he also scumbled colors -- using thin, broken layers of paint that allows the lower layers of color to shine through. Monet built up texture through his brushstrokes, which vary from thick to thin, with tiny dabs of light, adding contours for definition and color harmonies, working from dark to light.