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.
