Van Goghs Olive Trees

You have probably noticed that lately I have kind of been jumping around from one art media to another. I find myself in that state of mind where I have so many things that I want to try or do but can’t quite seem to decide which one to pursue. I hate it when I get this way. I wish I could just decide on one or two things and concentrate on improving my skills in those areas.

Looking now at my last post, that little piece seems kind of pathetic really. A child could have done better. But then again I was just playing around with a new technique and some new supplies.

As an example of what I am talking about, I wanted to see if I could do a small (thread painted) landscape. I was looking through my ever growing collection of images and decided to use this piece as my starting point.

Vincent Van Gogh-The Olive Trees-1889


















Not having any formal background in Art, I did not realize until recently that the great painters often painted the same piece numerous times, changing the colors with each painting. So this is one version. I really have no idea how many color ways there are of this particular piece.

This is my attempt that I recently finished:

















*click on images to see a larger version*

This piece is not actually matted as of yet. I added the mat through Paint Shop Pro. I am still actually trying to decide how to mount it.

I wish that I had kept track of how long it took me to do this. I worked on it sporadically for 2 or 3 days. It is printed on silk with a piece of muslin acting as a stabilizer. I used rayon machine embroidery threads. The embroidered area measures 5” x 7”.