OILPAINT

I’m working on a ton of small projects lately. I get bored of working on one thing and then I have another idea and I don’t really have enough focus to work on any one project right now and I’m frustrated with art and crafting currently. Just a bit of art/creative unmotivation. I finished some of them though.

I’m bored so I’m just gonna write about all my ideas and current projects here and organize my brain a bit.

The Projects:

1) Crocheting a granny square sweater – I decided to use my crazy colorful yarn to make a bright, patchwork-y sweater. I love crazy clothes and I am always trying to incorporate more colorful, patterned clothing pieces into my collection. I have the front panel of the sweater all sewn together and crocheted. I just need to do the sleeves and back panel, which is 21 more granny squares which I am kinda over making after the first 9. I’ll get to it eventually… (haha we’ll see). If I ever crochet the rest of it, I plan to add a cute little scalloped trim to the bottom of the sleeves and sweater.

2) The start of a new painting – beginning layers, we’ll see what happens to it…

3) Painting fabric with this pattern. When I’m done painting it, I hope to make either a quilt-like thing, or a tapestry-like thing

4) I painted a frisbee with oil paint

5) I drew on my hand

6) I destroyed an old painting that was already really ugly.

The end.

I painted Van Gogh’s White Roses. Why? Because I had started this painting 3 years ago and I needed to finish it. I had painted the underpainting years ago, but I kept putting off painting the colors because I knew it would need to be painted in one sitting while the paint was still dry. And the canvas is big. But, at the end of July, I decided to paint. I cranked out the top layer of this painting in 2 days. I spent 7 hours on a Friday and 10 hours the next day, making myself paint until I finished. And I did! (Although honestly, there’s a few details on leaves that I’ve neglected and a few mistakes, but it’s all good).

While my recreation isn’t perfect and certainly doesn’t compare with the real Van Gogh painting, I learned a lot about Van Gogh and I appreciate his work a lot more now.

Things I learned about painting like Van Gogh:

Use paint straight from the tube! Thick paint is best
Let colors mix together
Keep painting before the paint has dried (alla prima!)

To paint this, I looked at every brushstroke in the White Roses painting by using the zoom feature on the National Gallery of Art’s website. The NGA website has very clear and focused images of this painting, which made it a lot easier to emulate Van Gogh’s marks. I also went to the NGA a few times to study Van Gogh’s brushstrokes and practice painting like Van Gogh.