Studying Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' and how to use a limited palette

 

Finished study of Van Gogh's sunflowers

 

The purpose of this exercise was to experiment with a limited colour palette, using it to understand how a few colours (hues) can be used to produce a variety of tints, tones and shades and a coherent painting. I decided to use a limited palette of white and combinations of warm and cool blues, reds and yellows to produce my own version of Van Gogh's Sunflower painting by studying his palette and likely process. This  was the result of a week-long workshop on the use of a limited palette of acrylic paints.

 

The videos which I followed to guide this process can be found on YouTube at:  https://www.youtube.com/c/MarkowskyArt/featured under the title :"How to Paint Series"

 

Colours used in the limited palette

The palette used included: 

Cerulean Blue - Cool

Ultramarine Blue - Warm

Quinacridone Magenta - Cool

Cadmium Red Medium Hue - Warm

Cadmium Yellow Light Hue - Cool

Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue - Warm

 

 

Simple Colour wheel - based on the limited palette

  1. The first step in the process was to construct a colour wheel using the colours that resulted from mixing different percentages of each primary colour (hue)

 

Study of Tint, Tones and Shades

 

2.  The next step was to produce a range of tints (mixes with white paint), tones (mixes with grey paint) and shades (mixes with black paint) for each primary colour (ie red, yellow and blue)

 

Exploring different combinations of colour temperature, tints, tones and shades

 

3. The third step involved exploring just what combination of colour temperature, tints, tones, shades and dilutions produced the most realistic illusion of volume.

 

Colour chart

 

4. The next step was to mix colours to investigate the array of blended colours possible.

 Finished study of Van Gogh's sunflowers

 

5. The Project involved 

(i) choosing a famous painting to study - which showed the use of a limited palette

(ii) researching the history of the painting 

(iii) researching the palette used

(iv) summarizing the research in a few paragraphs

(v) producing a painted study of the original, within a two-hour time frame

(vi) analyzing the results

 

A brief history of Van Gogh's Sunflower paintings        

     Van Gogh's Sunflower painting were made in Arles in the South of France, painted between 1888 and 1889. Van Gogh's Sunflower paintings were his experiments with colour, To him sunflowers represented gratitude. He completed seven Sunflower paintings, five are available in art galleries around the world. One is in private hands and another which was in Tokyo, was destroyed during WWII. To other painters of his time, thought that sunflowers were perhaps somewhat coarse and unrefined as a subject for art. But this is exactly what Vincent liked, and he also enjoyed painting flowers that had gone to seed.  Sunflowers today are a kind of visual shorthand for Van Gogh, whose dramatic and difficult life, culminated in his death from a self-inflicted bullet wound in 1890.   In fact, sunflowers were brought to his funeral.

Short background on the colours/pigments used in the original

            Van Gogh used three types of chrome yellow for his Sunflowers. His sunflowers are made with just tints and tones of these three hues. These have darkened somewhat over the years. Research has generated comprehensive information regarding the colours and blends of colours that Van Gogh used and the natural ageing process of the paint. Some of the original colour nuances have been partly lost due to the effects of discolouration. We now know that the colour changes in Sunflowers are mainly caused by a certain type of red paint (geranium lake) fading and a certain type of yellow paint (chrome yellow) darkening.