Monday, January 5, 2015

Channeling Vincent

Over the last five days I have been participating in a challenge to paint 30 paintings in 30 days. Each day I post my painting on Leslie Saeta's blog - Slices of Life by Leslie Saeta

I think there are about 1,200 artists participating in her challenge.  She has chosen to do abstract paintings because she has never done it before.  She sold her first 2 paintings and was commissioned to do a third!

The first four days I only allowed myself one hour to paint a 6 x 6 inch canvas and unfortunately, I began late in the day so by the time I finished, it was hard to photograph my finished painting. But today I thought I would begin early and it would be fun to see how some of the old masters worked.  I chose a Vincent Van Gogh self-portrait. It took me 2 hours and I almost gave up 15 times.  I had no idea it would be so difficult!



Where to begin?  What were his base colors?  Yes, I could figure out the final top color but he had many layers going on there. And each dab of paint is clean, fresh paint.  Mine was turning to mud....





But I trudged on.....



No mixing or blending, just one dab of paint next to another.





What an incredible, talented, insane genius this man was!

After just five days, I have already learned so much!  The first day my "darks" were not nearly dark enough so the next day I improved that.  It takes good darks to make your lights glow.



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