Thoughts

Continued with painting the clouds, the mountains and the water and some of the grass, with blue and then again with white and acrylic gloss. I wanted to get the same clouded feeling that I get from the pictures and from my memory, foggy sort of and disappearing in the distance into a beautiful blue gray. Yet I can still see the grain of the wood and the brushwork is too much no matter how fine I am layering. May have to turn around and try different brushwork with small strokes like the impressionists, have done that before and it looked great but then the overall pictures was that way. With this I kind of started off much more detailed. I will see how it works. Because the idea is for it to be more diffuse and yet it shows too much of a brush and grain for me still.

Reading vanGogh’s letters to his brother Theo. What a wonderful relationship he has with his brother, who is a real mentor, admirer and supporter of his ideas and encourages him on every bend and corner, and who would know him better than his brother. VanGogh was very interested in drawing, which has come back into “fashion” after it has been living a very neglected existence. He is using it more as a tool for understanding and sketches for later works in oil, although he also writes about selling pieces for a living and being an illustrator. What a shame that they sell his paintings for millions and he hardly had anything to eat and barely a roof over his head and needed the help of his brother his whole life to make ends meet. And yet what a blessing for his brother to have so much faith in him, even if it where just for the sake of faith, which it isn’t. It also shows a great amount of compassion for his brother.

“Similarly in drawing, one must not count on selling one’s drawings, but it is one’s duty to make them so that they have a certain value and are serious; one must not become careless or indifferent even though disappointed by circumstances.”