Hello Friends!

You may or may not recognize him, but this is a drawing I did from an old photo that has always been attributed to Vincent van Gogh as a 13-year-old boy. However, when I was looking up a larger version of the picture to work from, since the one in my book is so small, I ran across a couple of articles that say experts now attribute this picture to being Theo, Vincent’s brother. I was surprised, but I had already drawn this and did not want to do it again. So!!

After I drew it, I cut it out. I placed it on a large piece of watercolor paper at an angle and went over the whole piece with Liquitex Matte Medium. I let that dry. Next, I painted the watercolor in the background.

Then I made copies of a couple of Vincent’s letters to his brother from a book I have called “Vincent van Gogh, Ever Yours, The Essential Letters,” edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten, and Nienke Bakker.

After I copied parts of two or three letters, I stained them with black tea. They were pretty wet so I hung them on the clothes line outside. When they were dry, I tore out the pieces I wanted. I wish I had stained them darker, but when I glued them down, they got a little wrinkled, so I left them. I like that affect. The staining is to give the paper an antique look. The piece on the far left is of his actual handwriting of one of his letters included in the book.

In the next step, I dropped some yellow and orange alcohol inks on the background. I have done much more since stage four, but I will go on with the next stages in my next post. It has gotten more interesting for sure!

Have a wonderful day and give someone you love a big hug! 😀