MAMA #2: All about Vincent Van Gogh on his birthday

The second in my series of 'Making A Mark Archive posts' is about Vincent Van Gogh. If you read all my blog posts, listed below, and follow up the links it'll keep you occupied all day!

Vincent Van Gogh was born 167 years ago today on 30 March 1853 in the Netherlands. 

In 2007 I did a very big project on Van Gogh and have written periodically about him over the years. This is a list of my Van Gogh blog posts categorised by:

• Van Gogh and Drawing
• Van Gogh's Paintings
• Van Gogh and Flowers and Gardens
• Exhibitions
• Videos
• Miscellaneous posts

They include include lots of images of wonderful drawings and paintings by Van Gogh.  Many of them are my photographs of the originals in exhibitions.

The one below is my copy - in coloured pencils - of his painting of Almond Blossom which I did as an exercise while doing my project on Van Gogh. 

A copy of Van Gogh's Almond Blossom 1890 (in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)
9" x 12", coloured pencils on hot press papercopyright Katherine Tyrrell

Van Gogh and Drawing

"I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing." Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890)

His approach to drawing was a revelation for me in terms of mark-making.

I remember learning that all those who talked about Van Gogh as if he had a manic approach to his artwork - working very quickly - had very obviously never ever tried drawing with a reed pen and ink!

Cottage Garden, 1888
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)
Reed pen, quill, and ink over graphite on wove paper;
61 x 49 cm (24 x 19 1/4 in.)
Private Collection
Exhibited at: "Vincent Van Gogh - the Drawings" Metropolitan Museum of Art -

• Van Gogh: Drawing media and techniques (2007) - This post focuses on Van Gogh's drawing materials and how they influenced his style. This is one of the most popular blog posts on my blog. I rather think a link to this has crept into the resources of some lesson plans about teaching drawing!
• Van Gogh: More About Drawing (2007) - Links to websites which provide a very useful perspective on Van Gogh's approach to drawing
• Van Gogh: Drawing Landscapes (2007) - More about Van Gogh and Drawing - this post focuses on his landscape drawings.
• Van Gogh: Drawing Figures, Portraits and Self-Portraits (2007) - At one stage in his career, Van Gogh hoped to be a portrait painter in Paris.

Van Gogh's Paintings

Self portrait as an art (1888) - Van Gogh
painted shortly before he left Paris for Arles
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

• The Real Van Gogh - Portraits (2010) - This post highlights what I learned about Van Gogh's portrait painting from the RA exhibition - and the context of Van Gogh's letters.
• The Real Van Gogh - Orchards and Blossom  (2010) - Van Gogh was very interested in Japanese art. Blossom time meant the countryside around about Arles became for him the western equivalent
• Van Gogh and the Yellow House in Arles (2010) - One of the joys of visiting the Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London is being able to see the painting of the yellow house
• Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings (Taschen) - This comprehensive study of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) represents a rarity in art history: a detailed monograph on his life and art combined with a complete catalogue of his 871 paintings.
• The Art of the Landscape - Van Gogh's Palette 1882
• The Art of the Landscape - Van Gogh's Perspective Frame

Van Gogh' Perspective Frame
Illustrated in Letter 254 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 5 or Sunday, 6 August 1882
As seen in Royal Academy of Arts: The Real Van Gogh Exhibition - The Artist and his Letters exhibition

Flowers and gardens by Van Gogh

• Flowers in Art - and Van Gogh #1 (2007) - Copying the paintings of other artists in order to learn new skills is an age old tradition and one in which Van Gogh himself followed
• Flowers in Art: Van Gogh #2 - Sunflowers and the value of repetition (2007) - Van Gogh painted a series of sunflowers. Initially four in Arles - two of which he hung in Gauguin's bedroom in the Yellow House in Arles and then subsequently another three which were copies.
• Hokusai, Van Gogh and the iris paintings - Van Gogh's iris paintings were produced while he was resident in an asylum in Saint-Rémy, France.
• Gardens in Art: Drawings and Paintings by Van Gogh (2007) - I've very much enjoyed doing the research for images, information and links about the drawings and paintings Van Gogh made of gardens

Other Exhibitions 

• If you missed Van Gogh in Britain at the Tate  (2019) - about the images in the major exhibition of Van Gogh's artwork done in Britain. Drawings and paintings by Vincent Van Gogh are also included in an album attached to my public Facebook Page titled Van Gogh and Britain
• The Real Van Gogh at the Royal Academy (2010) - a landmark exhibition which I will never ever forget!

crop of "Two Cut Sunflowers" by Van Gogh
oil 1886
(the painting was acquired by Degas in 1895 when virtually nobody was buying Van Gogh's work)

• The economic impact of Van Gogh's Drawings (2007) - It's estimated that the exhibition "Vincent Van Gogh: the Drawings" generated $251 million in spending by regional, national, and foreign tourists to New York
• Van Gogh and John Updike - a review - a wonderful essay/review by John Updike of the 2005 exhibition of Van Gogh Drawings at the Met. in New York
• Van Gogh's Bedrooms in Chicago 

Other videos

• Vincent Van Gogh's Notebooks Dec 10, 2014
• Video: Vincent van Gogh at the Musée d'Orsay (2009) - Almost any of Van Gogh's paintings are worth looking at very closely. This is my video of the 18 Van Gogh paintings in the Musee d'Orsay.

Miscellaneous posts about Van Gogh

Below is a list of my blog posts about Vincent Van Gogh excluding those listed above

• Introduction to the Van Gogh Project - about a project to study Van Gogh
• Van Gogh, colour and a colour study - Van Gogh's letters contain some 324 references to colours. The Van Gogh Musuem also has some interesting narrative about use of colour
• The Visual Translation of Japan in Late 19th-Century Paris - about the impact of Japanese prints on artists in late 19th century
• A map of Van Gogh's London - Did you know that Van Gogh lived in London for a while?
• Vincent Van Gogh's Notebooks - about an old BBC programme
• Compilation - Van Gogh's Sunflowers on Facebook Live
• Five Van Gogh Sunflower paintings on Amazon Live on 14th August 2017
•  Hockney on Van Gogh and The Joy of Nature (2019)

Plus posts about Sarah Wimperis 

Sarah Wimperis was the only English painter on the "Loving Vincent" project

• Sarah Wimperis talking and teaching about how Van Gogh paints
• Sarah Wimperis explains how to paint like Van Gogh for 'Loving Vincent'
• The only English painter of 'Loving Vincent'