Impressionism includes a long history of painters that push the boundaries of artistic techniques. The original Impressionists used small, thin brush strokes laid side by side to capture the light and movement of a transient scene. Following in their footsteps, many styles of painting have since been developed by pioneers of the Art.
Open-Impressionism catches the attention at once as being a new style of painting. The colors are vibrant, pre-mixed, and un-muddied. The thick brush strokes are left to exist as they are placed, which preserves every tiny ridge in the paint left by the brush. This medley of texture pulls the eye along in an ever-moving dance within the landscape.
The purpose of Open-Impressionism is to capture the true experience of being outdoors, each painting more of an emotional work than a photographic representation. The wind pushing against your back, prickling the sweat in your hair, your feet sinking into the damp earth beneath an oak tree, eyes squinting against the sun, burrs in your socks, eyes lingering across a perfect, idyllic landscape; the purpose of a painting following Open-Impressionism is to capture these fleeting experiences in a few swabs of paint.
Fewer strokes is better in Open-Impressionism. If a tree can be painted in five strokes instead of thirty, a feeling of freshness and spontaneity is communicated in the abstraction of a tree to its basic form and movement. Color choice becomes a decision made more from instinct than visual identification.
Paint is applied in intense and saturated brush strokes, imitating the beautiful color of an early dawn or a saturated sunset. The underpainting is allowed to show through and participate in the overall effect of the painting. Color choice is secondary. Texture and spontaneity are everything.
Welcome to Open-Impressionism.
Image Credits
All Images Are © Erin Hanson
Erin Hanson Artist Bio
Hanging precariously and horizontally from red sandstone, fifty feet above the ground, may not seem like it would inspire the creation of beautiful oil paintings, but that is exactly what happened with Erin Hanson. After a lifetime of experimenting in different styles and mediums, it wasn’t until Hanson moved to the outskirts of Las Vegas to climb at Red Rock Canyon that her painting style was consolidated by a single inspiration and force of nature.
Erin Hanson began painting as a young girl, greedily learning oils, acrylics, watercolor, pastels, pen and ink and life drawing from her school’s art instructor. At age ten, she was charging customers for portraits of their dogs and even painted an album cover on commission. By the time she was twelve, she was working at a mural studio, learning the techniques of acrylics on the grand scale of 40-foot canvases. A high school scholarship took her to Otis College of Art, where she studied figure drawing. While an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, Hanson took pause from art to get a degree in Bioengineering. While studying microbiology and multi-variable calculus, Hanson still found time to paint, emulating graphic novel artwork and Japanese brush painting. Her final inspiration to become a full-time professional artist, however, came with a fortuitous move to Las Vegas.
After graduating from college, Hanson started her own business, which finally evolved and grew until she no longer had to work seven days a week. With the sudden blessing of free time, Hanson decided to return to what she had always loved to do and become a professional artist. Living in Las Vegas and rock climbing at Red Rock Canyon provided plenty of inspiration for paintings. Standing among the brilliantly colored cliffs, seeing landscapes from vantage points only achieved by the most adventurous, and watching the seasons and the light change daily across the desert, would have provided inspiration for a thousand paintings. In this beautiful surrounding, Hanson decided to create one painting every week, rain or shine. She has stuck to that decision ever since, for eight years now, even through several relocations and other life changing events. As her skill and confidence grew, she eventually developed the style of painting that she had always admired as a young child: using as few brush strokes as possible to create fresh, alive paintings of magnificent and dramatic landscapes. Her unique, minimalist method of placing impasto paint strokes without layering has been dubbed “Open-Impressionism.”
Through the years, Hanson has continued to use the outdoors to inspire a huge collection of work. She visits the Colorado plateau every year, backpacking and hiking through areas such as Zion National Park, Canyonlands, and the Grand Canyon. Her other favorite places to paint include Paso Robles, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Anza-Borrego desert. Erin Hanson transforms these landscapes into an abstract mosaic of color and texture, her impasto application of paint lending a sculptural effect to her art. Her oil paintings stand out in a crowd, bringing a fresh new look to Western landscapes. Avid collectors span the globe, and Hanson shows her work in top-rated art festivals and galleries across the United States.
Blog / Website: Erin Hanson – Landscapes in Oil
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Nancy D Smith says
Dear Erin,
So much inspiration from your awesome paintings! At age 79 I won’t be climbing mountains, but I may swim in the water! Love all your paintings. It’s a whole new world for me!
Paul Gregory says
LOVE your work!!!
Angela Annas says
incredibly awesome and inspiring!
Ade says
Your paintings are so good. You are yourself really so beautiful. More grease to your elbow.