Sunflowers

As I've mentioned before, Vincent van Gogh is one of my favorite artists. Some of his most famous paintings are those of sunflowers. There are a total of twelve paintings in his sunflower series, but seven in particular are especially famous. Those seven are the ones he painted while he lived in Arles during 1888 and 1889. 

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While he lived in Arles, Vincent had an artist friend named Gauguin who needed a place to live. Vincent welcomed Gauguin into his home and proposed that Gauguin move in and be his room mate. Gauguin gratefully excepted. The two were excited about this chapter in their lives, especially since they were both artists and had great plans to share a studio and work together. 

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Vincent wrote in a letter to his sister that in preparation to Gauguin coming to stay with him, he wanted to decorate Gauguin's room for him with large paintings of sunflowers. Why sunflowers? There are three popular theories behind why he chose sunflowers of all things: 1.) Vincent wrote in a letter while preparing for Gauguin to his brother, Theo, that he remembered a restaurant next to Theo's shop that had paintings of sunflowers in the window. Vincent continues the letter talking about decorating for Gauguin with flowers. Perhaps the paintings in the restaurant window inspired Vincent. 2.)  It is rumored that sunflowers were Vincent's mother's favorite flowers. Most of his life Vincent was close to his mother and some believe that the flowers were painted in her memory. 3.) Vincent and Gauguin had exchanged paintings before and while there is no proof, Gauguin supposedly showed favor toward Vincent's flowers. If this is true, it would make sense that he'd paint flowers to decorate Gauguin's room. Perhaps one or more of these theories is the reason(s) why Vincent painted the sunflowers, or perhaps we don't know the real reason. For all we know, Vincent may just have liked sunflowers. Whatever the reason, they are beautiful paintings and have been enjoyed by not only Gauguin, but people all over the world even generations later. 

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Vincent always favored his sunflowers over his other paintings. Even years later, near his death, Vincent wrote a letter to Theo describing his sunflowers and his love for them. A couple of years ago I was inspired by these paintings and decided to do something similar. Here's what I did. 

 

try to ignore my reflection

I used oil pastels just as Vincent did with his sunflowers and I tried to mimic his brush strokes. He used mostly horizontal brush strokes in the subjects of his paintings and the tabletop, but switched to shorter vertical strokes for the background. I tried to do the same. I also noticed that Vincent outlined many of his vases, so I did the same. He also had strong highlights, which is another characteristic I kept in my painting. As you can see in Vincent's paintings, the tabletop, vase, and flowers are all very similar colors. Again, I did the same in my painting. I like to think that I captured Vincent van Gogh's spirit in this painting and that he would be honored that his paintings inspired me to do this study of him. People have commented to me that this painting reminds them of van Gogh before I tell them that I painted it during a study of van Gogh, so I think it turned out to be a success. 

My Starry Night

I have always been fascinated with Vincent van Gogh's paintings. In fact, I remember one day in my sixth grade art class my teacher spread several books full of famous paintings across one of the tables. She told us to flip through the books until we found a picture we liked. We were then to show her the picture and she would photocopy it. The next class period we were to try and draw the picture she had copied for us. I remember looking at Bruegel's "Hunters in the Snow" and of course the "Mona Lisa" along with several other paintings. But the one that caught my eye was this one: 

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I just fell in love with this painting! When I showed it to my teacher she smiled and looked at it for a minute and then said, "something told me you would pick this one." I guess she knew me well enough to know what style of art I would be drawn to. 

It wasn't until a few years later when I realized that this painting was done by Vincent van Gogh. It's titled "Langlois Bridge with Women Washing" and is certainly a masterpiece. Since that day in sixth grade, I have been a huge fan of van Gogh, whether I knew it or not. 

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79802
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This past year, in my painting class, we were to recreate van Gogh's "The Starry Night." The only guidelines were that we had to use acrylic paint and it must be close enough to the original that anyone off the street would be able to recognize it as "The Starry Night" at first glance. But we did have to change something(s) about it. 

Here's my version: 

I kept the colors very similar to the original painting. And I basically kept the sky and hills close to van Gogh's, but instead of a village with a church, I painted our house and barn. I replaced van Gogh's cypress tree with a tree we have in our own yard which has a swing hanging from it.
Like van Gogh, I used thick brush strokes and blended the colors roughly on the canvas, rather than on my palette. This kept a certain familiarity to the painting.

I had so much fun with this painting, probably because I love van Gogh's style so much and had a blast trying it out myself. I was honored to have this painting displayed in the Friends Gallery here in town for a short while, but now it's home is on my top shelf in my bedroom.