Vincent van Gogh

 

Many years ago, I was disappointed with where I was as a painter, it seemed I was going nowhere, horrible days lay ahead, and I decided to give up painting altogether and do something like hiking. Hiking was incredible but during those troubled times hiking seemed a useless thing to do. So I gave up hiking as a pleasant but unattainable pastime. I wondered what I could do until one day I saw the paintings of Vincent van Gogh.

Van Gogh seems to have been an oddity almost from the beginning. Childhood photos show him staring blankly at a distance, which was not a very promising start to begin with. As a child he was serious, quiet and thoughtful not the kind of thing that would get him anywhere good in the real world. After working unsuccessfully as an art dealer he became a missionary and drifted into solitude and ill health. Not only did he suffer from mental illness and poverty but he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. Perhaps in desperation that nothing else worked, he took up painting at the somewhat mature age of 27. What he created over the next ten years was astounding; 2100 artworks including 860 paintings. They were so good that they became some of the most recognizable works in the history of Western art. Unfortunately he became famous only after he died in poverty at the age of 37 by shooting himself having sold only two paintings. I was so inspired by his paintings that I decided to draw like him with oil pastel without in anyway copying him. Given below is my drawing together with the painting that inspired it.