I took an acrylic painting class at a local art studio last weekend. The class was titled Paint Like The Masters: Van Gogh Cat. The image we were given as a reference pic seems to be AI generated and I can’t find an artist for it via Google Lens, so 99% sure it is AI.
I tried SO HARD to recreate Van Gogh’s style with those paint-heavy short brush strokes and layers of paint. And while I’m a great mimic, I just couldn’t fully capture his style. Instead I embraced a looser style and went to town building up layer after layer of thick, brush stroke heavy acrylic. I let the paint play across the canvas and really love the end result. Of course I also reworked the painting four times to get to a place I’m finally ready to call done. In all, I spent 8-9 hours on this painting, which is a lot for me.
Refernce pic and pics of the various stages below as usual!
And then the final version (Toned down the stars and removed one, brought back more of the darkest blue to define my swirls, cleaned up the cat’s tail a bit to feather the end and add lighter colors on the bottom edge to balance the bright stars above the cat, added some more subtle blue tones around the stars and in the swirls):
I like it a lot! Especially the paint structure. The reference looks AI-ey, I like yours much better. It’s been really interesting to see this painting develop over the last couple of days. I’m no a painter, so I usually only see the final version of something.
I was lucky enough to see Van Gogh’s Road with Cypress and Star irl and I remember how much visible structure it had.
@Immaculata - thank you! I’ve never seen a Van Gogh in-person, but I’d dearly love to! I love his style and the way some old paintings have such luminance.
I was lucky my highschool took us on a trip to the Kröller-Müller museum, which has a massive collection of Van Goghs - Mrs. Kröller-Müller was a wealthy art collector who turned her country estate into a museum and was one of the early Van Gogh collectors. When people visit my country they always go to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, but I think the Kröller-Müller museum is more impressive.
