Starry Night Painter Underpainting May 26, 2010

The day arrived when I decided to paint in homage of Vincent Van Gogh.

Working from memory, of being on location outside Vincent's Asylum. I used the photo from yesterday's blog, and drew in the composition on a toned canvas. I used the two moonlight paintings as reference to capture the feeling of the night when I painted there back in 2003.

I rented, "Lust for Life" and watched Kirk Douglas, playing of Vincent Van Gogh, paint some nocturnes. He had candles afixed on top of his straw hat!

I asked my painter friend to pose for me, sketched a picture of him on my canvas, then turned him into Vincent.

I mixed up my palette based on those two paintings, and began to paint...

Asylum Night Spook. May 25, 2010

I love how shapes come together in the night. Not all is explained; things are in silhouette, and my imagination takes off!

This vision was just to the right of the image from yesterday's blog. I didn't need Eringer to creep up behind me and go BOO!! What was I looking at, a skull?

Well, it was creepy, so I got the idea that some day, I would paint a painting honoring Vincent: painting his famous painting, "A Starry Night". and I would use this image as reference, as a back drop.

Sometimes I see too much...

St. Paul des Maison Mental Hospital
Near St. Remy, France. Winter 2003

Asylum Night, St. Remy, May 24, 2010

It was getting late, and the moon was high. I was motivated to be lurking in the shadows outside the main entry to the Asylum.

I remember seeing the movie, "Lust for Life" staring Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh. There is a scene where he is being delivered to the Asylum in a horse and carriage; right to this gate. This timeless gate.

Many have entered here, some exit.

More silence, snow, and moonlight; and undisturbed night. Patterns of the moon light casting shadows across the road creeping slowly and deliberately before me. Somewhere behind this gate true genius was contained and studied for a brief period.

Van Gogh's imagination could not be stopped, or cropped. He continues to influence generations of creative thinkers, encouraging the avaunt Gard to stride out into the unknown.

Not much has changed over the years except for our understanding of mental illness can be embraced as a divine teacher.

Asylum Night
10x8 oil/panel
Collection of Robert Eringer

Moonlight Madness May 23,2010

It was cold, with blue light. The shadows were dark. Dead Quiet.

I chose this subject to paint because the gates at the Asylum were locked; (there was no getting back in).

I was on the outside looking in.

Oh, there was activity though. The lights were on, inside the room with baredwindows.Shadows would pass across the windows from time to time. The warm orange interior light in contrast with the blue moonlight added to the theme of madness.

It was during the silence I thought I heard voices wafting in the fog coming across the field next to me, where the rubble of Roman ruins lay. It was a good wine Eringer and I shared earlier that evening. (It must have had an affect on my auditory senses).

Because of the overall blue moonlight, I toned the board red so as to make a violet tonal harmony from a distance.

My thoughts: This is the same direction of sky that Van Gogh saw out of his cell window every night. Because the moon was so bright there were hardly any stars about, but there were a few; enough to put in to my painting.

I finished the painting, snapped a photo, then made my way across the field towards the entry gate to the asylum to do my second painting when a car approached; coming down the long, one hundred yard driveway in the darkness, I Popped out from the shrubs, in front of the car, near the Asylum gate and the driver slammed on his brakes, (in dramatic fashion), put the car in reverse, and quickly backed away in reverse, all the way back to the main road leading to St. Remy.

Guess I scared him. (So what if I was dressed in all black winter gear with a Russian Winter hat with flashlight attached!). Outside the walls of the Asylum, I wasn't lurking, I was working!

Silent Night, St. Paul des Maison
14x11, oil/board
collection of Robert Eringer

An Ear in Provence: Listening to the French (Tachydidaxy Travelogue) by Robert Eringer and James Harper (Hardcover - Nov. 2003)

For further reading:

http://surrealbounce.blogspot.com/2010/05/slim-agile-man-wearing-
sweaty-tee-shirt.html

Night of Antiquity, May 22, 2010

After an incredible dinner with Eringer at a restaurant (with a Micheline rating!!). Leaving Eringer behind to digest his Foie Gras, and literally get haunted in his hotel room, I drove the car back over the hill to haunt Van Gogh at the Asylum of St Paul des Maison. It was around 730 pm and the moon was fairly high in the sky. It was dark outside, with snow on the ground. The air was cold and still, and deadly silent. I was dressed in my heavy down jacket and Russian winter hat; (all my sub freezing gear from my Icelandic trip).

I parked outside the walls of the Asylum and walked around the neighboring moonlit fields, filled with Ancient Roman Ruins; a Romanesque Tower, and an Arc de Triumph. It was kinda spooky walking around these ruins by myself; which were in incredible condition for being almost 2000 years old.

I snapped a photo of them holding my camera's shutter open for about 15 seconds, then set up my easel and began to paint my first of two paintings; a 14x10 painting of a moonlit Asylum wall. Standing in snow for an hour and a half, the silence was deafening. I swore I could hear voices coming from the empty fields off to my right.

What were they saying? Better yet, what did they want me to hear?

Tule fog started creeping in adding a wee bit of mystery to the experience. It's O.K. I seem to paint better when I am on edge; in a heightened state of awareness...

Roman Antiquity-St. Remy
Night Photography by T. Van Stein
Winter 2003

An Ear in Provence: Listening to the French (Tachydidaxy Travelogue) by Robert Eringer and James Harper (Hardcover - Nov. 2003)

Night of a Van Gogh Moon. May 21, 2010

Eringer and I escaped the Asylum and drove to Les Baux, a thirty minute meander to the South of St. Remy. In my mind I knew I had come all this way, to paint Nocturnes in the place where "Starry Night" was created. I had to do this in order to pay homage to the Master, to connect with his spirit in some way. It was an opportunity I was not going to let go to waste.

As we made our way into the Valley of Les Baux the Moon that would later accompany me that night, began to rise to the East. I quickly grabbed my poshade box, (easel), and set up to capture the moon as it rose.

This was a proud moment; as I was motivated and inspired to just be in the neighborhood Van Gogh once witnessed. My thoughts: this was the same moon face which has risen every month since the dawn of Man. Only this time I would paint it with a different committent; to the concept of creativity and madness.

When I had finished, I turned around and grafitteed the stone road abuttment with my Anchor symbol, TVS.

I knew it was a stretch for me to come all this way with a family back home. It was going to be even more of a stretch for me to go back out that night, alone, and paint outside the walls of Van Gogh's Asylum.

Did I have the Cahones?

Moonrise, Les Baux France,
5x7, oil/panel
Collection of Robert Eringer

A Huge Presence in a Small Bed. May 20, 2010

Well, this was Van Gogh's bedroom. This was Van Gogh's Bed. What the hell was going through his head?

I hopped in his bed and put my feet up. Dang, short! No room to stretch! He must have been 5'2, or else he'd be forced to sleep in the fetal position for eighteen months.

My Artist Mentor, Dan McCaw use to say, "You should be able to paint inside a phone booth- if you have to".

Well, these confined quarters would have definitely tested my claustrophobic fears.

Lying there in Van Gogh's bed, I was all ears...

www.surrealbounce.blogspot.com


Photo by Robert Eringer