Impressionism was based on light and the subject that was being painted or drawn. Instead of creating smoothly blended sombre colours, the standards for French painting, the Impressionist placed separate touches of vibrantly contrasting colours directly onto the canvas without prior mixing on the palette. If you look closely at a small section of an Impressionist painting, you will see many individual brushstrokes of varying colours, placed side by side with no blending – a jumble of color daubs. The artist attempted to paint what the eye actually sees, rather than what the brain interprets from visual cues. For example, if you look at a house in the distance and you know intellectually that the house is painted a uniform colour of yellow; you might “see” all one shade of yellow, because your brain tells you that is correct. However, your eyes register many variations of yellow, depending on how light strike the house and the shadow it creates. This is what the Impressionists were after – the true.
Tessa Nicole is an American artist, is specialized Impressionist Palette Knife Oil Painting. She is a self taught artist. Using her oil paints and palette knife she has created remarkable work of art. She doesn’t follow any current trends but tries to follow her own style that keeps her artistries so elegant and unique. She admires the great Monet & Van Gogh. She is greatly inspired by the leading impressionist painters which can be seen in her artworks.
She aims to spread, “Joy & Elegance,” through her aesthetically pleasing artistry. She was first a songwriter/classical pianist for years, then she picked up painting as a “side hobby” in 2015. It quickly took over as her main passion, and in 2017, she began working as a full[1]time palette knife oil painter. When asked what she is proud of she says, “Being self-taught. Though it can be seen as negative in the art community, I am proud to have learned all my skills purely by trial & error, & by a natural inclination to add something original to the world. Originality is the key in life… Remain inspired, but make it your own.”
Before April of 2020, her sole outlet for showing her work was through Fine Art Shows. Since then, she have had to take on as she says the evil-of-all-evils, social media. Her social media platform has grown exponentially as she has had to get more creative with the marketing. While it has been a stressful and a difficult year, it has still been a record year for her work; it just shows that when one puts in Joy out in the world, no matter the circumstances, people WANT IT!
Her message to the fellow artists is, “Never compare yourself with others, whether that may be other artists or simply other people we see on social media platforms. Being content & confident in YOUR skills & YOURSELF is of the utmost importance if you want to make a difference in the world with your art.” Her greatest inspiration is the almighty. She says, “He is the ultimate artist & I owe all of my success/talent to Him” She idolizes, Oscar-Claude Monet who was a French painter, a founder of French Impressionist painting and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air landscape painting. She says that importance of art for a student’s point of view, “A creative outlet, no matter what it may be (i.e. dance, music, visual arts, etc), should be every student’s first priority. Do something because you love it, not because it is required. A creative outlet will become a therapy & we all need a little therapy during these times.”