Hi World,
After reading a great article in the Artist’s magazine, I have decided to start an art journal which documents my observations, reactions to new techniques tried, and successes or failures of my daily attempts at art. At first I thought I would write it all privately, but I remembered this blog site that I rarely have the time for. This would be good for me to organize my thoughts and for other artists out there to perhaps derive motivation from me and even learn from my mistakes.
So, today is the day that Vincent Van Gogh died in 1890. He has
always been one of my favorite artists, especially since reading the
letters he wrote to his brother in the book “Dear Theo,” and since I
saw my first real Van Gogh up close and personal in Amsterdam.
That is one of the reasons why I began painting Starry Night. I never want to do an exact duplication. My canvas is slightly taller than the original. (I actually started on this a week ago. First I painted the entire canvas ultramarine blue. Then I loosely painted in the stars and the cypress). With other things to work on during the week, I finally got back to this piece today. I really enjoyed painting the movement of the clouds, the trees, the stars with short dabs of pure color. Using so much paint is a new to me. I had a difficult time getting enough onto the canvas. Maybe I need a thickening agent. I decided to build it up slowly by adding more each day I paint. The color and the movement is absolutely intoxicating. I know now that I want all my work to have this quality. One of my bad habits I need to break is working with brushes that are full of various colors of paint. The purity of the color of the paint is ruined by all the muddy stuff on my brush. I need to wipe my brushes off more often, stop and clean the brush, or just grab a new one out of the box. It’s definitely worth it to get such vivid bright colors on the canvas.
After reading a great article in the Artist’s magazine, I have decided to start an art journal which documents my observations, reactions to new techniques tried, and successes or failures of my daily attempts at art. At first I thought I would write it all privately, but I remembered this blog site that I rarely have the time for. This would be good for me to organize my thoughts and for other artists out there to perhaps derive motivation from me and even learn from my mistakes.
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| "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh |
That is one of the reasons why I began painting Starry Night. I never want to do an exact duplication. My canvas is slightly taller than the original. (I actually started on this a week ago. First I painted the entire canvas ultramarine blue. Then I loosely painted in the stars and the cypress). With other things to work on during the week, I finally got back to this piece today. I really enjoyed painting the movement of the clouds, the trees, the stars with short dabs of pure color. Using so much paint is a new to me. I had a difficult time getting enough onto the canvas. Maybe I need a thickening agent. I decided to build it up slowly by adding more each day I paint. The color and the movement is absolutely intoxicating. I know now that I want all my work to have this quality. One of my bad habits I need to break is working with brushes that are full of various colors of paint. The purity of the color of the paint is ruined by all the muddy stuff on my brush. I need to wipe my brushes off more often, stop and clean the brush, or just grab a new one out of the box. It’s definitely worth it to get such vivid bright colors on the canvas.
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