Words of wisdom from Van Gogh

"The feeling for and love of nature always strike a chord sooner or later with people who take an interest in art. The duty of the painter is to study nature in depth and to use all his intelligence, to put his feelings into his work so that it becomes comprehensible to others.

But working with an eye to saleability isn’t exactly the right way in my view, but rather is cheating art lovers. The true artists didn't do that; the sympathy they received sooner or later came because of their sincerity. I know no more than that, and don't believe I need to know any more."--Vincent Van Gogh

Words of wisdom from the master on a great web site I stumbled upon today called BibliOdyssey. I'll have to further explore the Van Gogh letters link.

New still life painting with cat

Still Life with cat, 20" x 24" oil painting on canvas

I was inspired yesterday after watching Susan Carlin's on-line painting demonstration. She's a wonderful portrait artist and she posted a painting she had done in a few hours with lots of paint and big brushes. It was lovely and reminded me of my love of Van Gogh. I love his sense of color and brush strokes and the way he piles on the paint with such abandon. I'm always conscious of the cost of art supplies and tend to go the conservative route and paint thinly. Another inspiration for painting is a blog I came across recently called Following the Masters. The current challenge is to paint a picture of flowers inspired by your favorite artist. Yesterday I said what the heck, you only live once, what am I saving this for, etc. I squeezed out large piles of color and went at it. While I can't say it's anywhere near a Van Gogh, I did learn something about brush strokes. I need to practice, practice, practice. And without scraping off, too many corrections on thickly applied oil paints turn quickly to mud.

Sketching, obsessing and dawdling

Sketch after Van Gogh's "The Night Cafe"

The last few days haven't been too great for getting things accomplished. Wasted all day yesterday (and it was a beautiful day) trying to get a new computer. Why, oh why, is it so hard to reach a decision. I worked and reworked the portrait of Marley the day before until it's now back to where it was when I started. In between obsessing about the painting, I picked up the latest issue of "Smithsonian" and found out there was a new showing of Van Gogh's work at MoMA in New York. I got excited about the prospect of seeing a large portion of his work until I read the complete article and it said the exhibit is through Jan. 5, 2009. So the exhibit is now on its way to the Van Gogh Museum. So much for timely articles. I decided to at least do a sketch/copy of one of his great paintings from the article. I just love his color schemes.