I’m doing a project of René Magritte and I need some ideas how to paint like him. It’s for art and I need to use his techinques/ideas to create my own work of art but his style. I’m painting on a wooden boat…any ideas?
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Well, you have to look at his work so you can get an idea of what his style looks like and the kinds of things he paints. Then you can re-create your own version of it.
As for actually doing it, you have to be able to paint realistically very well. Surrealist artists were masters of realism. Only by mastering realism could they create images of surrealism- because stuff has to look realistic in order for the artist to make things go in a way that looks weird and confusing in a surreal way.
Magritte really didn’t use any painting techniques that were any different than any other artist during his time. He used standard brushes, applied the paint flat on the surface (without any texture) and used washes like every other artist. He was able to master realism like the other painters of his time and, like Dali and the other surrealist, use his very vivid imagination to distort realism.
His only real and unusual ‘technique’ was his imagination. The best way to understand his mind and his imagination is to simply study his paintings. Like a beginning playwright reads and watches plays, like a novice novelist reads great novels, you simply study his paintings.
I would write a list of things you think about when you think of a boat and then write a list of opposites of these things.
Thats a good starting point for getting ideas.
I don’t know, I just do it !
Take a second look at Magritte’s work. . . he’s one of my favorites. What do you notice about the size relationships in his paintings. . . that’s right! they are either so SMALL a rendition of something right in front of you . . . the rain coming down. . . oh that’s little men with umbrellas . . . it’s my favorite. . . or the rooms with way too BIG chairs or fruit in them. I can tell you that up close his paintings are marvelously crafted and often small. Maybe that’s a clue for you to start with. Take that second look.