The View of the Seine at Herblay – Another Signac Study

As mentioned the other day, Paul Signac was known primarily for his Pointillism – the application of colored dots in painting to convey depth and light. Signac’s work is very graphic and structured, but he also used the same approach of color to produce paintings more of an Impressionistic flavor. The one below, The View of the Seine at Herblay, is the study for my practice piece above.

The first painting I did using Pointillism as the “style” I started by just laying on dots!  With a bit of paper to cover, only using dots became time consuming and tedious.  Thus, with this piece, I laid down broad swaths of the primary colors, essentially blues and beiges before applying dark colors for the leaves and reflections, and from there began the dot process.  As gouache is never permanently dry, I could go back in and lay in colors on top of others, as well as mush them together a bit.  Squishy good fun!  A firmly pointed round brush did the trick, using both the tip as well as the side of the brush.

Close looks at Signac’s painting show he did merge and blend his colors, as I did. I expect this was a quick sketch or a practice piece, or just a casual plein air painting for the joy of being outside. His other works that are more Pointillisticky have a very different quality. I think I will attempt to copy one of those in the not too distant future.