MultiHub Forum

I'm an intermediate oil painter who has focused on realistic landscapes, but I'm feeling creatively stagnant and want to explore Impressionism to capture light and atmosphere more expressively, rather than rendering every detail. My initial attempts feel clumsy; I understand the theory of broken color and visible brushwork, but my paintings end up looking muddy and chaotic instead of vibrant and cohesive. For artists who have studied or work in an Impressionist style, what practical exercises helped you transition from a tight, detailed approach to a more spontaneous one? How do you plan your composition and color palette when working en plein air to quickly capture the fleeting light before it changes, and what techniques do you use to keep your colors clean and luminous when applying paint wet-into-wet?