Letter about my self-portrait, just like Van Gogh.

Terneuzen,  29^th November 2012

My dear Lennert,

I would’ve liked to have written sooner, and now I will not postpone it any longer. How are you? I heard that you have taken up soccer again, which team are you now in and how are your teammates? I hope very much you will drop me a line when you have a moment to spare, so we can catch up.

I’m doing well. However school is really getting at me, lots of homework, assignments and tests. Luckily we can let steam off in art class. We had to make a Van Gogh-style self-portrait. To work like Van Gogh we had to use his two essential qualities, so using complementary colours placed next to each other and using brush strokes placed side by side. In the painting you had to show a mood. To start I sketched a silhouette using a very light line then I painted the background with my set of 3 colours, black, red and yellow. I have put the brush strokes all over each other in all directions. Using other colours and brush strokes I painted my face and hair and after that my clothing with the same colours as used in the background. I think the mood I want to show is very clear. Anger, stress, confusion.

What do you think of my self-portrait? As you see on the picture it isn’t finished yet but I’ll work on it when I’ve time. Write me soon.      

With a firm handshake,

Yours truly,

Lois

Van Gogh-Style Self-Portrait

For art class we had to draw a self-portait again, but this time in Van Gogh-Style. We had to make two self-portraits on different days to show two different sides or moods of ourselves. To work like Van Gogh we used brushstrokes side by side. Below you see my self-portraits, I got a 7 for it. I like the backgrounds but I don't really like the faces,  I also thought that was the hardest part, finding the right colour for your face and draw shadows etc. 

Bye,
Lois.

Self-portrait .

Our assignment in art class was to draw ourselves. We had bring a mirror in class and draw our own face. I really thought this was hard thing to do but it didn't turn out that bad. Below you see my self-portrait. I tried to draw some details and shadow on my face which I found the most difficult. I got a 7.5 for it.

Bye,

Lois.

Child's drawing.

For art we had to put a child's drawing from about 4 - 5 - 6 years old on our blog. Below you see a drawing I made when I was about 5 years old. I have 'tried' to draw myself with a smiling sun. It's very funny to see this drawing now.

Film

Hi,
Here the link to the short film we had to make for art: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvgw6Arj0eU&feature=share. It's about the life from Van Gogh with as actors Maxime, Anouk, Mick, Bart, Ezra and me. I found this a really nice project and we had a lot of fun. For the film we got a 8.5!
Bye,
Lois

Van Gogh.

Hi,
Our task in art class was now to paint one of the landscapes made by Van Gogh. I have chosen 'Landschap bij avondschemering'. Below you see the one I've painted. I got a 7 for it. Below the painting you see the assignment we had to write about the painting from Van Gogh. 

Introduction:

For this assignment we have to write about a painting. This painting should be by Vincent van Gogh, it also mayn’t be a portrait, you may only choose a landscape or a still-life. You have to give some information of the life of Van Gogh and of course about the painting you have chosen and give your opinion.

I’ve chosen the landscape named ‘Landschap bij avondschemering', which is painted by Vincent van Gogh in June 1890. Van Gogh was a Dutch painter who was born on 30 march 1853 in Zundert and on 29 July 1890 he committed suicide in Auvers-sur-Oise (France). He was a post-Impressionist painter, which was a art movement which the  impressionism succeed. Van Gogh had influence at many aspects of the 20 century art. He was one of the greatest painters in the 19th century. Many of his best-known works are made during the last two years of his life. However he made over 2100 art pieces which consists of 860 oil paintings and more than 1300 watercolors, drawings sketches and prints. Most of his paintings were self portraits, portraits, landscapes, still life's and paintings of flowers. He worked for a firm art dealers in his early adulthood, traveling between The Hague, London and Paris.

The painting is made in Auvers-sur-Oise nearby Paris where Van Gogh lived the last months of his life. Van Gogh loved the landscape and the light in the north. On the painting you see two pear trees very dark coloured and in the background the yellowish sky of the sunset. Furthermore there's a wheat field at the front and on the horizon you see the castle of Auvers surrounded by dark foliage. In the middle of the painting is a path, which is a bit going to the left, back to the horizon. The colours yellow, green and brown are most used in the painting. The painting is just made in one time, you can see that because of the stripes all on top of each other. Because of all the stripes on top of each other the painting isn't flat anymore, it's three-dimensional (Van Gogh used this in lots of his paintings). The painting is a variation of stripes, short, long, vertical, horizontal, diagonal, so all kind of stripes but not all through each other. Van Gogh already thought before making the painting what colours and what kind of stripes he was going to use. The painting is very wide (107 cm. which was exactly the half of the with of one role canvas in that time) and very low from size. There was a French artist, Charles-Franqois Daubigny, who also had lived there and he used that kind of formats, they think Van Gogh came to the idea because of his paintings. I think Van Gogh used both linear and aerial perspective. Linear because of the path in the middle which is getting closer further to the back and aerial perspective because you see that there are some things that are in front of another object, for example the pear tree on the left is in front of the castle. In my opinion this painting is more abstract than realistic, you can say that he just painted what he saw but the painting is a kind of vague, you don't see the details, only the general lines (which is one of the features of Impressionism). There's not really movement in the painting although the wheat field is at some places leaning to the left (maybe some wind?).

Actually I have chosen this painting because I really like the colours and the way Van Gogh used the stripes. Because of all the stripes painted in all directions and all on top of each other and because of the weird size of the painting I think people really should see this work of art. I think lots of people will agree with my but I think some people will find the paining to busy or just don't like the colours maybe they found it too yellow. If I owned the work I would gave it a place in my house, it’s of course very special to have one of Van Gogh. I'm real going to remember the colours and especially the stripes 

because I found that very special about this painting. To sum everything up I gave this painting a 9 because I like the colours and the stripes (as mentioned before..) but maybe if he used just a bit more details it would be nice to or use a bit less yellow. Overall I think Van Gogh did a good job!

Sources:

• http://www.vggallery.com/international/dutch/paintings/p_0770.htm
• http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?page=3323&collection=627&lang=nl
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2V7CV0HFQkw
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

Stained glass window.

Hi, 
We did a whole project about cathedrals a couple of weeks ago so also in the second extra hour of art class we spent time on this. This time we had to a draw stained glass window, you could do what you wanted and you could use all sorts of colours. I thought this was nice to draw because in churches I found the stained glass windows mostly the most beautiful part of a church. Below you see the one I have drawn and some sketches. For this I got a 7.5! =)
Bye,
Lois.

Skateboard deck.

Hi, 
Before we went to England, our assignment was to draw a skateboard deck.
The one I have drawn you see below. It was your one choose what you did with your skateboard deck, you could draw with pencil, crayons or paint, whatever you like. For my drawing I have got a 6.5. It's ok but maybe a could do better. 
Bye, Lois.

Visit to Canterbury cathedral.

Before the visit:

In class we looked at pictures of the cathedral. The cathedral looked beautiful and also very big. I think I'm really going to like the visit to the cathedral but I hope we will not have a guide who talks very boring. Furthermore I think the visit is going to be fascinating and exciting too. I don't know much about the history of the cathedral myself. I know many pilgrimages went to the cathedral, which they do now also. Luckily, we had some hand-outs before we went there, so that we know a bit more. In the hand-outs it said that the bishop wanted to have a cathedral with the highest tower in the region and that it's built around the year 1248. I hope we will learn about it more during the visit and especially enjoy our visit.

After the visit:

When we arrived at Canterbury we walked to the Cathedral. Then we were standing in front of a kind of gate. We went through it and then we were suddenly standing in front of the cathedral. I think it was like I had expected, beautiful and big. Almost everybody took some pictures. We met our guide and went inside. I was happy that our guide wasn't boring or something. First he told a few things about himself and then started about the cathedral. We went from west to east, just as the people did when they went on pilgrimage because in the west is the less holy part, further to the east is closer to Jerusalem, so more holy. 

The guide told us the story of Thomas Becket. He was archbishop of Canterbury form 1162 until he was murdered in 1170. Much people come on pilgrimages to Canterbury cathedral because of Thomas Becket. His body is in a tomb with a kind of holes in it so you can pray very close to the body of Becket. People also drunk blood of him because it was holy. This I found really weird. The whole story about Becket I'm not going to forget soon because I found it a really fascinating story and he was also important in the history of the cathedral. 

The middle of the cathedral where we went through a gate, I liked the most because it was very beautiful but actually the whole cathedral was. I liked the stained glass windows and the decorations to. In the stained glass windows mostly stories are told, our guide told us about it. 

I think we all enjoyed the trip and learned much about it!