Halloween 2022

As you may recall from previous posts on this blog… I LOVE HALLOWEEN! I love decorating and dressing up and giving out candy – all of it! Here’s an interesting fact… when art historians love Halloween, they tend to do things a little differently. Case in point, this year I decided I would bring a […]

Art History Fun to Keep You Outta’ the Sun!

As someone who has lived in the Sunshine State for the majority of her life, I can boldly and assuredly say that summers in Florida are no joke. Summers here are hot, they are humid, they are unrelenting and they last until November. Mosquitos are vicious and ever-present and a heavy duty summertime storm can […]

Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles

I have never hidden the fact that I am a huge NERD. In fact, I am rather proud of my nerd status and have often celebrated it here on the blog. Well, I’m about to take my nerdy proclivities to a whole new level with this post. Are you ready? Today is Art Day is […]

My Covid Classics – #16

The Wandering Art Historian book club tackled Irving Stone’s Lust for Life last week and I am having big feelings. I can’t remember if this was my third or fourth time reading this book, but I do know that it was my first since researching, writing and producing my four-week class, The Legacy of Vincent […]

“False Impression” by Jeffrey Archer

I hate to admit that I haven’t been reading many “fun” books as of late. In 2020, I read 30 books and most of them were research oriented or books I was considering for inclusion in The Wandering Art Historian book club. Don’t get me wrong, it was still fun to read all those books, […]

Happy Birthday, Vincent!

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Vincent van Gogh has been in the news quite a lot lately. On Monday, a painting by Vincent was stolen from a small museum in the Netherlands. Just a reminder… Monday, March 30th was Vincent’s birthday! For more info on the art theft, check out this link… https://www.npr.org/2020/03/30/823965150/van-gogh-painting-stolen-after-thieves-apparently-smash-dutch-museum-entrance […]

Daubigny’s Garden

We all know how much Vincent loved color – that goes without saying. Lately, I have noticed that when I set out to study one of his works, I tend to lean into the color even more than Vincent does. With the sunflowers, I worked hard to get as close as possible to matching Vincent’s […]

Starry Night

“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.” -Vincent van Gogh. As an academic, I love studying Van Gogh because he gave us quite a gift – not just 800+ paintings, but hundred and hundreds of letters. Shout out to his sister-in-law, Jo, who had the foresight […]

Irises

I had a lot of fun painting this iris. Vincent is known for his many sunflower paintings, but when he moved to Saint-Remy to check himself into the asylum, we begin to see more irises and cypresses in his work. Of course, there could be a number of reasons for this: perhaps, irises and cypress […]

Wheat Field with Cypresses

After tackling his iconic sunflowers, you might be wondering how I choose the Van Gogh paintings to study. Well, I have this very handy resource, a Taschen book that includes ALL of Vincent’s paintings. Of course it includes essays and other academic information, but the fact that it also includes all of Vincent’s paintings in […]