r ranson

Oh, only partly cloudy the next two nights.  Will keep an eye out.  Thanks.

I'm beginning to see why painters that use glazing and this kind of realism go to such lengths to work on a smooth surface.   The layers of paint are so thin, especially in the shadows, as part of that way of achieving realism.  Some layers one or two particals of pigment thick.

With a canvas, especially with stand oil added to the glaze, the pigment falls between the weaves of the fabric rather than distributing evenly loke they did in the under painting.   You can see this in the blue of the rock especially.



There are lots of other ways to achieve realism in oil painting, but the frugal nature and challenges of glazing apeal to me.

All that waffle, and what I really want to know is what is your favourite van gogh painting?  

I just have to laugh, because the first four hours of this video going live, it is doing worse than my worst video ever.  

which is also paint related.  

 

I think it's a sign.  Youtube doesn't know what to do with me when I pivot content or haven't posted anything in ages.  

I do have several yarn videos not edited I might come back to later.  I don't know.  I've lost the flow of them as some are several years old now.  And my music subscription ends tomorrow and I don't plan to renew unless I start making videos again.  

This video was fun to make and fairly quick for one this length.  But also, it's an added layer of stress, I don't know if I want to have in my painting life.  So, I'm leaving this as a no pressure thing and if I come back to making videos again, great.  If not, that's okay too.  

The painting in the video isn't my first attempt at a master copy of this painting.  It's my third.

My first try was a simple value study in pencil.  



It turned out pretty good for a quick study.  So last winter, I decided to try a copy in oils.  



My colours are fewer but basically the same as in the video.

And I work hard to match the colours in Vincent's copy.



Okay, so perspective is wonky, but it's Van Gogh, that won't matter (spoiler: it matters).



By this time I feel a bit weird about it.  Like I'm not painting a painting of almonds.  I'm painting a painting of brush marks of some dead guy.  There's no life to the painting and although it looks close to Vincent's almonds in a glass, it is a world away.



The brush marks turned out okay.  But they are just marks.  Not almond flowers and the hope that spring brings.



So I made a plan.  I would wait until spring and pick a branch off my own almond tree.  I would paint that, trying to follow the style of Van Gogh that I learned with these first two attempts.  And that is what we see in the video.

Vincent painted  a lot of almond blossoms in a few short weeks.  Big trees, orchards, close up branches, even cutting a branch (and I suspect, hiding it from the farmer so he wouldn't get yelled at) and placing it in a glass.  The two paintings he painted that afternoon are by far my favourite.  

For this master copy, I choose the simple branch in a glass version.  Well, it looked simple.  

Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Arles, March 1888

oil on canvas, 24.5 cm x 19.5 cm

Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

A red line divides the picture plane. Van Gogh used the same red to sign this small painting of a sprig of flowering almond. Almond trees are the first to blossom in the spring.

When Van Gogh arrived in Arles (FR), there was still snow on the ground. On 2 March, a little more than a week later, he wrote to his brother, 'There’s a hard frost here, and out in the country there’s still snow — I have a study of a whitened landscape with the town in the background. And then 2 little studies of a branch of an almond tree that’s already in flower despite everything.'

After that, Van Gogh began work on a large series of paintings of flowering orchards: almond, peach, plum and pear trees.

But it's not a style I normally paint in, as I'm leaning heavily towards realism and paintings that are done in layers.    So it's a good exercise for me to paint this way as it's basically the opposite of my normal.  

The almond has a special meaning for me.  I have one lonely almond tree who finally made the first nut last summer.  I'm often out there on cold days with a paint brush to pollinate it as the insects aren't always keen to come out in winter.  

From the little I've learned of Vincent, and reading translations of some of his letters, arriving at Arles and seeing the unexpected snow covering the almond orchards (groves?) in full bloom was a spiritual expierence.  I fell that moment is a huge turning point in his work.  It's from there that what he paints is recognizably Vincent Van Gogh.  Before that, it feels like he was stumbling around with the paint brush, following other people's styles and ideas.  But here, Vincent becomes truly Vincent.

Even if he looses himself later, he has a moment of clarity that most of us miss out on during our journey through this world.  That's the part of his story that I love most.

Almond blossoms are the first flower of spring here - or, more often winter.  They can open any time after Christmas and make me so happy!  

Some of my favourite paintings are of almond blossoms by Van Gogh.  From his letters, we know he painted them in a hurry and often painted several in a day.  He was just that excited about these flowers.  A sign of renewal and vivification after the darkness of winter.  

Part of my own revitalization is painting.  It's helping me recover from injury and other issues that stopped me doing the one thing I did best - yarn.  And one of the ways to get better at painting is to make a Master Copy.  A master copy of my favourite painting would be lovely to hang on the wall.  

Spoilers: it's not going on the wall, but there's at least two chickens.  




click here to watch the video of me painting almond blossoms After Van Gogh

click here to see what I've been up to this last year or so.

Making my first real video after a long absence.  Logged in to upload it and found this!

My woad looked like it would establish,  but then died out. i blame the chickens ae they seem to love it.