MY FIRST PAINTING

I received some fabulous drawings today in response to the wire sculpture drawing challenge. So far, I have not been successful in loading them onto the blog, so hopefully tomorrow you will be able to enjoy this fabulous artist's efforts.

In the meantime, I have been busy painting today! This is my practice piece.
I went to the library and found the most amazing book on my chosen artist. The book "The Work of Vincent van Gogh his paintings and drawings" by Reynal and Company is the heaviest book I have ever hefted! It has every painting and drawing known to be done by Van Gogh. What a fabulous book. I was amazed at the amount of art he produced in such a short period. His pen and ink drawings are magical. He drew and painted many of the same images over and over and over, working to get it perfected. There were pages from his sketch books - totally covered with drawings on every inch of the paper. What can we learn from this approach? Along with the images were excerpts from his letters. Often he mentions how he started 4 canvases that day! I made notes on his techniques, colors, brush strokes etc. then set the book aside and created my painting without looking at one of his. I am excited to do the first of my bozzettos tomorrow. The practice painting gave me an opportunity to try different approaches and experiment. I hope you have started your list of favorite painters and are starting your painting for this month's challenge.