Spending Time with Vincent

I finished my tiny (4 1/4 x 5 1/2") An Artist's Study on Van Gogh. This is the third artist study book that I've completed. I'm still in the middle of working on a second Van Gogh journal (this is true in the sense that I am literally, right smack in the middle of a larger journal devoted to studying his work and life.) Here's a little flip through video of the above journal pages. These two journals will eventually be brought together to create one larger journal (I have an idea in my head that I will share at a later date.)

A comment was left on one of my recent journal pages and it got me thinking. The only one that we should be comparing our work to is really ourselves. How do we learn the basic foundation and rules of our tools and materials? How do we improve on what we've learned? How do we push ourselves past what we know to grow? How do we expand on what came before? How do we grow as artists and human beings? 

By studying these other artists, I'm also pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I don't want to be these artists but I want my passion for creativity and art to come through in my work. I want my work to ooze the honesty and intensity that someone like Van Gogh's work does. People often ask what I'm after in my work and I think the best answer is probably honesty. I want to be as honest with myself on my pages as I can be. Raw honesty.

The pages above are more than twenty years of work. Each page is built upon what came before and what I learned, worked through and pushed past to get there. They are my mistakes, my growths, my opportunities, my raw heart spilled out onto paper.

My work might not ever hang in a museum or be seen by millions of people and that's okay. That's not why I'm drawn to create. I make the art for me and that's all I really want to do.

Additional Links of Interest 

An Artist's Study Online Workshop

Watch a video about my two finished journals (O'Keeffe and Kahlo) as well as my in process, larger Van Gogh book here.) 

More Van Gogh 

I have four copies of my self published An Artist's Study available here. Once they are gone, they will not be reprinted. Signed, numbered and with a print.