Painting Sunflowers PART TWO: Let's learn from Vincent

 Painting Sunflowers Lecture Outline

i) Vincent  Van Gogh's Influences

(a)  Dutch Masters

(b)  Delacroix

(c)  French impressionists

(d)  Japanese block prints and ink paintings

ii)  Explain how each of the above influenced Van Gogh.

(a)  Discuss and compare early works to Dutch Masters. Talk about light and browns.

(b)  Delacroix's influence on Vincent came from books prior to studying in Paris. Van Gogh's palette was heavily

influenced by Delacroix's color theory.

(c)   In 1888 Vincent said "I should not be surprised if the impressionists soon find fault in my way of working, for it has been fertilized by the ideas of Delacroix rather than by theirs because instead if trying to reproduce what I see

before my eyes use color more arbitrarily so as to express myself more forcefully. "

(d)  Vincent loved the graphic design of the Japanese. The

influence of the Japanese Block prints and painting style manifests itself in the geometric flat design that Van Gogh utilizes in his paintings. Like Japanese brush painting where paint strokes are iterated in differing type of stroke, Van

Gogh made marks with his brush and varied the mark in

strength and color. Japanese painting outlines form and fills in color. The outlining of Van Gogh's images is

reflective of 17th through 19th century Japanese painting and block print.

iii)  Technique Van  Gogh's Technique was heavy, wet into wet alla prima painting, (or he painted dry) using outlined form, using color instead of tonal colors to convey shadow and light, and is further explained below. 

iv)  Another Van Gogh  Sample Palette

Red Lake

Vermillion

Cadmium Yellow

Ultramarine Blue

Cobalt Blue

Cobalt Violet

Emerald Green

Viridian Green

Lead White (Flake White)

Earth Colors (Siennas, Umbers, Ochre)

   Technique:  Van Gogh:

1.  Used tinted canvas – commercially primed and tinted by Van Gogh.

Painted alla prima* or dry.

2.  Used a ground* of light pink, medium light pink and white. His ground was dry or wet. ( Have your canvas painted with your ground color before class. If not you will paint it in class andit will be a little more slowing to paint because your ground will lick up into your newly applied color to start.

3.  Used complementary colors and contrasted the complements, warm with cool, one light, one dark.

4.  Outlined objects.

5.  Focal points are multiple. One distinct focal point Van Gogh commonly used is in the upper left hand corner.  –Discuss.

6.  Paint is thick and one application on top another one stroke at a time.

7.  Van Gogh often used a course heavy canvas that demanded lots of paint. A smoother canvas has less tooth and thicker paint may appear a little less textured than the immediate appearance of paint on a courser canvas.

8.  He separated areas by outline and then painted wet into wet.

9.  He often reworked the paint and built it up alla prima.

10. Next, Van Gogh used strong strokes of color wet into wet to reinforce his outlines.

11. Van Gogh then let his paintings dry and finished describing his objects on top the dry paint.

12.  He didn't varnish.

l3.  Sometimes Van Gogh's ground would be split, i.e., blue grey top and vermillion pink bottom.  Then he worked in short horizontal strokes over the color joint of the 2 ground colors.

14.  To denote distance Van Gogh used narrow bands of color.

15.  He used white in most of his colors.

16.  He slabbed directionally to describe carpentry. (Buildings, tables, chairs).

17.  Van Gogh's technique is dense, opaque painting, wet into wet, and then lets it dry to drag wet paint over dry. The paint hops and skips over the uneven surface for a stippled look.

18.  He used mixed broken color. His greens and blue though were pure and unbroken.

Van Gogh quote talking about his use of contrasting compliments in answer to why did he choose to use these  kinds of opposites:

"To express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones."

*Vocabulary 

alla prima  : painting wet paint into wet paint, mixing color on the canvas by painting one color and then adding a second color to it wet into wet and changing the initial color.

ground : the base color or underpainting laid down as the surface color of the canvas. Parts of this color can be left to show through and influence the entire painting. A ground can also be left wet so that applied strokes lick up the paint color and influence the next applied color by mixing into it.