Custom Monet Style Landscape Painting from Your Photo

Some places stay with you longer than any person: a stretch of coast, a lake at dusk, the view from a kitchen window. Send a photograph, and it becomes an oil painting made by hand, true to the place or tuned to its weather.

Monet and the same view in different weather

In the autumn of 1890 Monet began painting the haystacks next to his house at Giverny, and he went on into the spring of 1891. He returned to the same stacks at different hours, seasons and kinds of weather, keeping several canvases going and changing canvas as the light changed. In May 1891 his dealer showed fifteen of them.

In 1892 and 1893 he painted Rouen Cathedral’s facade more than thirty times from rooms he rented across the street, and on his London stays he painted Waterloo Bridge in a series that reached forty-one paintings. In Waterloo Bridge, Sunlight Effect the title names the light and not only the bridge. The Manneporte (Etretat) shows the largest of the three natural rock arches at Etretat.

For a landscape commission, the habit is useful: weather is part of the subject. The painting follows your photograph’s composition, and its light can be steered to the hour you remember. It is not an original Monet, and no museum reproduction either: the work is new.

Sky, water and the ground between

Most of a landscape is sky, water or open ground, and that is where the Monet-inspired direction does its work. Sky takes broad, soft strokes, water takes shorter horizontal ones, and foliage takes small touches of several greens. The result still reads as your view, but the surface keeps the movement of the brush. Water Lily Pond is a picture of that kind, with water and plants together.

The faithful direction keeps shapes, trees and colours as they are in the photograph, for a view that must be recognised at a glance.

Mist, rain and flat grey days

A dull day is not a problem. Overcast light gives soft shadows, and the greys of a wet road or a pale sea can be painted with a surprising range of blue, violet and green. If your best photograph of a place was taken in rain or mist, send it and say that the weather is the point. A bright sky added afterwards would change the memory.

The same applies to the two ends of the day. Low sun gives long shadows and warm walls, and the hour before dusk turns water and sky to the same colour. Mention the hour if your photograph does not show it clearly.

Which photograph to send

A good reference has depth: something near the camera, something in the middle and a horizon. A path, a wall, a shoreline or a row of trees leads the eye in. Photograph in daylight, level with the horizon, and keep the camera’s full resolution. Heavy filters flatten the greens and blues the painting depends on.

Tell the request which hour and which weather you remember. The same coast can be silver at eight in the morning and gold at six.

Photographs from the internet

Use only photographs you took or may use. Map screenshots are low resolution and lose detail.

Questions about landscape paintings

Can the season be changed?

Ask for autumn or snow and describe what you remember. The colours are rebuilt around the layout of the photograph.

Can a very wide format be used?

If your photograph is a panorama, the wide sizes are the ones offered in the written quote, with the composition uncropped.

Can people or a building be added?

Yes, from their own photographs. A figure in the view adds to the quote.

Landscape commission details

Landscapes often suit a wide canvas, and a long wall is well served by one. Sizes follow the proportions of your photograph. It can be rolled in a tube, stretched over bars and ready to hang, or framed.

• Price: a landscape on the smallest canvas, sent rolled, starts at $218 (30 × 40 cm, rolled canvas).
• Time at the easel: 2 to 4 weeks.
• A photograph of the completed work arrives ahead of dispatch. Changes to sky, water or greens are possible then.
• Delivery once shipped: 5 to 7 business days.
• You can cancel your order at any time until it ships.
• Return period: 30 days.

If a building is the subject, the house painting page fits better.

Start a landscape request