Our History of Art summer project moved forward from the Impressionists to the Post-Impressionists and first up was Vincent Van Gogh. We looked through my book of Van Gogh paintings, exploring the thick brush strokes, the vivid use of colour, the use of fluid line and pattern and we discussed the emotions each work seemed to convey in order to fix the connection between Van Gogh’s style and the Expressionists he influenced.
We all love ‘Starry Night’ so it hogged the limelight for discussion and in terms of inspiring our art work. While we listened to Don McLean’s song ‘Vincent’, we got busy creating. My 9 year old used metallic and glitter gel pens to draw a night sky filled with comets, my 8 year old used the same pens to draw a castle with a swirling sky above which he created by painting with his fingers and my 6 year old painted a swirling sky using a brush and then finger painted the yellow stars.
My 12 year old was the only one who took his inspiration from Van Gogh’s flower paintings. Of course, he had to channel his inspiration via Minecraft. He also worked on a very small scale to produce his drawing.
I went with the majority and based my art journal page on ‘Starry Night’. I decided not to reproduce a landscape or even skyscape but just to use it as inspiration for pattern and colour. I used various blue acrylic paints, including a pearlescent and a metallic, and then dotted yellow and gold paint for the stars. The journal page lacks a focal point so it doesn’t necessarily work asthetically but I enjoyed swirling the paint around.
You can hop over to my art blog, Pict Ink, to see my Van Gogh inspired Crazy Critter.
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