Explainer video style · Impressionism

Impressionist painting style explainer videos

Short broken strokes of pastel colour and flickering sunlight. Brief it in one sentence and get a narrated, animated explainer film in the Impressionism style, scored and voiced, in about 15 minutes.

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What it looks like, and when to use it.

Short broken strokes of rose, lilac, butter yellow and green, with sunlight flickering across the floor, in the manner of Monet and the plein-air painters of the 1870s. Every stroke is drawn in code, so the painting holds still while the light moves across it. It is warm, airy and calm, and it makes everyday places and nature feel like a summer afternoon.

Best for

Nature, gardens and the seasons
Art and history lessons
Calm wellbeing topics

Try a brief like

“Why do leaves change colour in autumn?”
“How Monet painted light”
“What is sunlight made of?”

The art direction the director follows.

Every style is a full art direction, not a filter: its own palette, type, motion and music. This is the brief the director works from for Impressionism.

Look: Plein-air Impressionism painted in code, after Monet and the painters of the 1870s: the whole frame is rebuilt from short, separate strokes of pastel colour with no outlines. Rose, lilac and cream walls, butter-yellow sunlight, fresh greens, cool blue and violet shadows. A flat underpainting goes down first, then a stroke pass repaints it, and the strokes follow each surface: walls lean on a diagonal, floors and water lie flat, plants radiate, curtains and cloth fall straight. Light is the subject: dappled sun patches, glints and coloured shadows, never black.
Motion: The light moves and the paint stays. Sun patches drift and flicker, each on its own irregular rhythm; glints sparkle on lit edges; flowers and leaves sway in the wind; clouds cross slowly. Stroke positions are pinned for the whole shot, so the picture breathes through local motion, never a re-shuffled canvas. Gentle drifts and slow reveals. Shots change as a field of fresh strokes dabs over the frame and settles into the next painting.
Music: Light French piano and strings in the manner of Debussy and Satie: airy, sunlit and unhurried.
Type: Few words: a light serif or hand-lettered title, brushed in through the same stroke pass, in deep lilac or blue, never black.