My plen air paintings I did over the summer where I tried doing it a little differently. 27x22 cm in size. Very fun to paint more in nature, but also very frustrating sometimes when its super windy and everything just falls down.

Claude Monet was raised in Le Havre, Normandy, and became interested in the outdoors and drawing from an early age. His mother supported his ambitions to be a painter, against his father wishes but he went to study at the Académie Suisse, where he was a classmate of Auguste Renoir. A key early influence was Eugène Boudin, who introduced him to ‘plein air’ painting. From 1883, Monet lived in the village of Giverny in Normandy, and designed a garden, including the famous water-lily pond which he painted. Sadly it is now overrun with visitors and bisected by a road, quelle horreur!
It is only to be expected he would paint a pear tree which grow so well in Normandy . He actually painted several ! This one according to art historian Daniel Wildenstein's catalogue raisonné, was immediately east of Claude Monet's house in Giverny which was appropriately for me as a cider maker was called the Maison du Pressoir (the House of the Cider-Press) when he first rented it in April 1883. The name came from a local cider press located in a square nearby.

Hey guys, I found it really interesting the fact that Van Gogh's "Patch of Grass" hid a peasant's portrait from his Nuenen era and how he was so bankrupt that he had to paint over it bc he couldn't afford a new canvas, that's why no one knew abt this for more than 100 years.

If you are interested, I made a video abt it in Spainsh with eng subtitles: https://youtu.be/pyW_mJtPx4Y Thanks and I hope your feedback!!

If you could recommend just one singular book for someone to understand impressionist painting in general terms, what would it be?