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So, I have mentioned in some of my weekly updates that I have recently taken up digital painting. The first couple paintings were following along with Bob Ross. The third painting I started was also a Bob Ross-style painting. However, shortly after I started that painting, I saw an ad for a free video tutorial on YouTube for “How to Paint Starry Night.”
Now, in my defense, I did continue working on the painting I had started before then… However, one night when I was pulling up the file to continue working on my in-progress painting, I had a few moments where I had a lovely thought cross my mind. Namely, “You know… I could just start painting Starry Night.”
Well, wouldn’t you know it, that was an awfully compelling thought. It was particularly compelling given my fondness for both Vincent Van Gogh and Starry Night. In fact, it was compelling enough that I put the one painting on hold. Shortly after that, I started going through the tutorial to learn how to paint Starry Night.
In my update for this week, I mentioned that I had finally finished my rendition of Starry Night. In some ways, I was trying to be faithful to the Starry Night we all know and love. Other times, I simply liked how certain elements turned out and decided to keep them as is. You can see the painting below.
My Starry Night
I did use Van Gogh’s Starry Night as a reference for things like the stars and several other elements, but for the most part I was following along with the tutorial. As such, most of the guide I was using was a painting that was not intended to be overly close to the original. The tutorial actually kind of felt like one of those “paint and sip” painting parties, which are certainly fun. They actually remind me a lot of what Bob Ross did with regard to making painting accessible to anyone, regardless of skill level.
To be honest, it was probably the right kind of feel for a tutorial for painting something like this.
Thinking about painting your own rendition of a famous painting can be more than a little intimidating. However, with a tutorial that breaks things down step-by-step, it is a lot easier to tackle otherwise daunting projects. In fact, through doing this painting, and comparing it to Van Gogh, I feel like I can better see what he did. The way the strokes flow and provide movement in the different sections of the painting. How his use of color emphasizes certain elements. There are so many elements that I hadn’t really thought about until I was trying to achieve a similar effect.
Overall, I am happy with the way this painting turned out. There are a few things I would probably do different next time I do this, including more actively using Starry Night as a reference. I would also like to refine things a bit more, and get a bit closer to the style and level of skill Van Gogh possessed. While I was working on this painting, one of the things that piqued my curiosity was how long did it take Van Gogh to paint Starry Night. One of the answers I found said that literally, it took about a day, but figuratively, it took about a thousand paintings.
That was actually a good reminder that the skills we possess are a combination of the assorted tasks that have come before. Our first painting, book, or other project isn’t going to be as smooth as our hundredth (or thousandth), but at the same time, the only reason our later projects go as smoothly as they do is because we have learned how to do certain things better. We make mistakes, figure out how to correct them, and then next time we don’t make quite the same mistakes. Overall, we improve on multiple fronts the more times we try something.
Now, then… I suppose I have a painting to get back to now that I have successfully finished this one. I hope you enjoyed seeing this painting as much as I enjoyed painting it. If any of you would like to check out the tutorial, you can find it at this link. This one was from Texas Art & Soul, which appears to do a lot of the painting party sorts of videos. There are also other tutorials that can be found by doing a search for “how to paint Starry Night.” If any of you do give it a shot, I would love to see your paintings.
What are some of your favorite paintings? Have you ever attempted to create your own rendition of them? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
Thanks for reading.
~ Theresa
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