Lynn Gertenbach: Reflections

This video is special because it is filmed outdoors, on location, in Lynn's beautiful garden and lily pond.

Lynn is known on the West Coast for her lily pond scenes and lush Impressionist colors.

The play of light and color in this painting is simply divine.

Lynn posed a lovely model on the footbridge spanning the pond, and the lavender and blue hues in her dress reflect into the deep green pool below. Floating on top of the surface are lily pads of every color in the rainbow, and peeking from below are beautiful gold and silver koi fish. The water sparkles with light bouncing from the distant trees and shrubbery.

She makes it look so coherent and easy that anyone could follow her lead in painting a subject like this. The first stages are simple large shapes, which lays the foundation for all the delicate colors that are laid down in the later stages. Filmed with three cameras, you are always seeing exactly what she is mixing on her palette and where she is placing it on the canvas. A close-up camera gives you a bird's eye view of the brushwork, and frequent insets show you the actual areas she is painting.

To see her interpret the scene before her into a painting that is so much more beautiful than reality is mesmerizing to watch. Lynn is an articulate instructor, pointing out pitfalls to avoid as well as the necessary elements that make the lily pads lay flat on the surface of the water. She is ever vigilant in keeping the viewer inside the painting by controlling the composition to keep the eye from wandering out of the canvas.

If you have wanted to spice up your paintings with color and have a more Impressionist color scheme in your own work, you couldn't study with a more masterful painter than Lynn Gertenbach. She holds nothing back and is completely forthcoming about how to mix the colors on her palette to achieve such beautiful results.

I am sure you will enjoy this program and be glad that you have added it to your library of DVD master painters. And, as I do, I'm sure you will want to find a lily pond to try your hand at painting such a beautiful subject that has enthralled painters like Monet for decades. This painting made me actually commission plans to be drawn for a lily pond in my own yard so I'd have it as a painting reference. That's the power in this program. I can't recommend it more highly."

-Johnnie Liliedahl