Hello friends,

I can’t believe it is February already!  This morning I was doing some more reading in a couple of books I have about Vincent van Gogh.  I found his letter #252 from The Hague, dated Monday, July 31, 1882, to his brother Theo very interesting.  In a great part of it he is relating his findings about color theory!  He enclosed this drawing he did which was called “Pollard Willow” and evidently was done in watercolors.

And here are Vincent’s thoughts on color theory!  I hope you enjoy them!

“As regards black in nature, we are of course in complete agreement, as I understand it.  Absolutely black doesn’t in fact occur.  Like white, however, it’s present in almost every colour and forms the endless variety of greys – distinct in tone and strength.  So that in nature one in fact sees nothing but these tones or strength.

The 3 fundamental colours are red, yellow, blue, the 3 composite colours are orange, green, purple.  From these are obtained the endless variations of grey by adding black and some white – red-grey, yellow-grey, blue-grey, green-grey, orange-grey, violet-grey.

It’s impossible to say how many different green-greys there are for example – the variation is infinite.

But the whole chemistry of colours is no more complicated than those simple few fundamentals.  And a good understanding of them is worth more than 70 different shades of paint – given that more than 70 tones and strengths can be made with the 3 primary colours and white and black.  The colourist is he who on seeing a colour in nature is able to analyze coolly and say, for example, that green-grey is yellow with black and almost no blue, etc.  In short, knowing how to make up the greys of nature on the palette.”

“I also have nothing against making watercolours – but they’re founded on drawing first, and then from the drawing springs not only the watercolour but all kinds of other shoots that will develop in due course in me as in anyone else working with love.”

Then referring back to the Pollard Willow drawing above, he says:

“Where the black is darkest in this little sketch is where the greatest strengths are in the watercolour – dark green, brown, and dark grey.”

I thought this was a great reminder that color mixing can be fun!  I enjoy it.  I don’t always consciously think about how what I mix will turn out, but I am forever learning.  Sometimes I get impatient looking through my box of watercolors for the color or shade I want at the moment.  Perhaps it is time to go back to the basics of color mixing and re-learn some things afresh!  Especially mixing for blacks!  I am finding I don’t really care for using blacks straight out of the tube anymore.

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

Self-portrait with Straw Hat, 1887, Vincent van Gogh

Hello everyone.  Today I want to get away from sharing just myself and back to my very favorite artist, Vincent van Gogh, to share with you some excerpts from one of his letters that is in my GIANT book of his letters!  I am going to write some quotes here from the letter, and then say a few words of my own.    This self-portrait of him in his straw hat is my very favorite self-portrait painting that he ever did.  Thanks for reading!

Letter #249/The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 July 1882/To Theo van Gogh (D)

“Today I made an agreement with myself, which was to regard my illness, or rather what’s left of it, as non-existent.  Enough time has been lost, the work must be carried on.”

“So, well, or not well, I’m going to draw again regularly from morning till evening.  I don’t want anyone else to be able to say, ‘Oh, those are only old drawings.'”

“My hands have become rather whiter than I care for, but what can I do about it?  I’ll also go outdoors again.  It matters less to me that it may strike me down than that I’m kept longer from my work.  Art is jealous; she won’t allow illness to be placed above her, so I’ll let her have her way.” 

“People like me aren’t allowed to be ill.  You must really understand how I regard art.  One must work long and hard to arrive at the truthful.  What I want and set as my goal is damned difficult, and yet I don’t believe I’m aiming too high.  I want to make drawings that move some people…contain something straight from my own feelings.”

“In short, I want to reach the point where people say of my work, ‘that man feels deeply and that man feels sublty.’  Despite my so-called coarseness – you understand – perhaps, precisely because of it.  It seems pretentious to talk like this now, but that’s why I want to push on.”

“What am I in the eyes of most people?  A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person – someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest.”

“Very well – assuming that everything is indeed like that, when through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody.”

I am amazed that some people wrote such long letters back then!  However, it was there only way to communicate long-distance so they really had no other choice like we do today.  Personally, I love handwritten letters and cards that I get in the mail.

These excerpts from Vincent’s letter to Theo are over 300 words, but there are at lease 300 MORE words to this letter!  Amazing, huh?

As you can see in this letter, Vincent was trying to carry on his work and put his mental illness behind him.  Even though he was allowed to do some art in the asylum he was admitted to, he didn’t feel free.  When he got out, he went to work immediately.  I think he conveys that he was trying to make up for lost time.

What I admire about Vincent most is his determination to leave his mark on the world, but it still saddens me that he never felt accepted or praised for his work by other artists and felt like such an outcast in society.  He wanted to express “deep sorrow” in his work, no doubt from the pain he was feeling about where he was in life but also the enormous compassion in his heart for others who were also considered to be “lower than the lowest.”

I have been where he was at many times in my life and even since I began learning to draw and paint over ten years ago.  I can identify with many of his thoughts and feelings.  I wish I could have known Vincent van Gogh as a friend; I think we would have been kindred spirits.  Kindred spirits are not always easy to find in life.  I am glad I have the good fortune to have several in my life.

If you made it through this post, thanks for taking the time to read.  What do you think about Vincent?

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

P. S. (Hopefully tomorrow I will have a picture of the portrait of Mary I’m doing!)

I have always loved the painting of “The Good Samraitan” by Delacroix, but even though in my art history class in 1990 I also saw Vincent van Gogh’s copy of it, I did not remember that he painted a mirror image of Delaroix’s original. I found that to be intriguing today, so I thought I would share it with you.

Honestly, I like Vincent’s version better because of the colors he chose. However, his painting came 41 years after Delacroix’s. And we all know Vincent van Gogh had his own style of painting!

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

Hello, and happy Friday! I am sure by now you can see how much I have come to love Vincent van Gogh’s artwork! He really had a drive to learn how to draw and paint like so many artists I know! His letters are amazing. However, from early on in his endeavor to become a respected artist in his time, Vincent struggled with a great deal of rejection and judgment. He was known to be dirty and malnourished much of the time, even living homeless for short periods. For instance, in his Letter #158 from Cuesmes, in September of 1880 that he wrote to his brother Theo, he shared this:

“…at Courrieres, there was a coal-mine or pit; I saw the day-shift coming up at dusk, but there were no women workers in men’s clothing, as in the Borinage, only miners looking weary and miserable, blackened by coaldust, wearing pit-rags and one of them an old army greatcoat. Although this stage was almost unbearable to me, and I returned from it worn out, with bruised feet and in a rather melancholy state, I don’t regret it, because I saw interesting things and you learn to see with a quite different eye, there among the raw ordeals of poverty itself. I earned a few crusts of bread en route here and there in exchange for some drawings that I had in my suitcase. But when my ten francs were gone, I had to bivouac out in the open for rather poor shelter, once in a wood-pile and once, and it was a little better, in a haystack that had been broached where I managed to make a slightly more comfortable nest, only a fine rain didn’t exactly add to my well-being.

Well, and not withstanding, it was in this extreme poverty that I felt my energy return and that I said to myself, in any event I’ll recover from it, I’ll pick up my pencil that I put down in my great discouragement and I’ll get back to drawing, and from then on, it seems to me, everything has changed for me, and now I’m on my way and my pencil has become somewhat obedient and seems to become more so day by day. It was poverty, too long and too severe, that had discouraged me to the point where I could no longer do anything.”

Yet here is one of the drawings he did during this time:

A month later he did this one:

Then he wrote in his Letter #160, from Brussels in November of 1880 to Theo:

“…how is one supposed to learn to draw unless someone shows you? With the best will in the world one cannot succeed without also coming into and remaining in contact with artists who are already further along. Good will is of no avail if there’s absolutely no opportunity for development.”

Vincent had so much wisdom and longed for companionship with other artists. I am enjoying reading his letters a great deal as you can tell. I agree with him, because I feel I have grown from knowing and viewing so many other artist’s work, gaining encouragement from them, and learning to challenge myself to try new things.

The main reason I want to share these things with you is that I want to show others that there was so much more to the man, Vincent van Gogh, than the terrible things he did to himself! His mind was brilliant in so many ways. His heart was sensitive to others; he had true empathy for the down-trodden people he saw and met. He was a very hard worker. He worked constantly at becoming the best artist he could possibly be. Yet the sad thing is that I feel he was so misunderstood! For example, this is what he wrote in Letter #164, from Brussels in April of 1881 to Theo:

A peasant who sees me drawing an old tree-trunk and sees me sitting there in front of it for an hour thinks I’m mad, and naturally laughs at me. A young lady who turns up her nose at the workman in his patched and dusty and sweaty work-clothes can’t understand, of course, why anyone visits the Borinage or Heist and goes down a coalmine all the way to the maintenages, and she, too, comes to the conclusion that I’m mad.”

Sometimes I wonder how many people ever really took the time to try to get to know him. I wish I could have, yet, I have his letters, so I feel I have his heart in my hands every time I pick them up to read them.

I have to say Vincent was a brilliant man who left us a legacy of amazing artwork to enjoy, learn from, and appreciate. Fortunately, his words were preserved as well so that we can see and hear for ourselves who he really was.

As Don McLean says in his song “Vincent,”

“for they could not love you, but still your love was true, and when no hope was left in sight on that starry, starry night, you took your life as lovers often do, but I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”

Have a wonderful day, and give someone you love a big hug. 🙂

Here is a painting I did in Vincent’s style with the short dashes of paint that was inspired by one of his letters he wrote to his parents in April of 1876. He was traveling on a boat and described the waters as “quite dark blue” and the “sun went down and cast a streak of dazzling light on the water.”

There was a little more to his description that I had forgotten about, so I may do another one. I also didn’t realize until now that his yellow hat he was known for wearing is kind of shaped like a sailor’s hat! Well, back to the drawing board!

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

THIS IS A QUICK DRAWING I DID FROM A PHOTO OF HIM WHEN HE WAS YOUNG. I DID WITH A GREY OIL PASTEL STICK. I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN, THOUGH, BECAUSE I DIDN’T GET HIS MOUTH QUITE RIGHT.

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY, AND GIVE SOMEONE YOU LOVE A BIG HUG! 🙂

WELL, ACTUALLY, MY FAMILY MADE MY MOTHER’S DAY, OF COURSE, BUT VINCENT HELPED!! THESE ARE MY MOTHER’S DAY PRESENTS!!