Alyice on February 27th, 2009

How To Create A Van Gogh Card

About two months ago, an artist told me that various pieces of my art reminded him of Van Gogh—that they were very impressionistic. While I never really studied Van Gogh’s art, or any other artist for that matter, I have been fond of several of his pieces so I took it as a wonderful compliment. Then I created the piece you see below and for the first time, I thought, “I see it.”

Supplies:

9 x12, 90 lb. watercolor paper
Cardstock
Paint brushes
White gesso
Mod Podge Matte or Golden Polymer Medium
Golden Fluid Acrylics
Pages from an old book
Colored tissue paper
Mulberry paper
Gold Metallic Dimensional Writer paint tube
Computer program (like: Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop Elements)

To create this “flowers in a vase” piece, follow the instructions below:

Cover a 9 x12, 90 lb. watercolor paper with Gesso and let dry.
Rip scrap papers into various shapes and randomly glue to the paper with Mod Podge Matte or Golden Polymer Medium.
Paint background using Golden Fluid Acrylics.
Sketch your floral design and vase onto the painted background.
Rip out pages of an old book; preferably pages that are tinted brown.
Randomly glue the ripped pages onto the vase, making sure to overlap the papers so that the painted background doesn’t show through.
Cut a floral design out of colored tissue paper or mulberry paper.
Glue and layer the cut outs until you get the floral shape and design desired. (In this case, I used approximately 100 floral cut outs.)
Paint over the vase with Golden Fluid Acrylics. Make sure the paint you choose is light enough that it leaves a hint of the text underneath.
Take a Gold Metallic Dimensional Writer paint tube and draw an outline around the flowers and the vase.
Let dry overnight.
Scan image into your computer.
Adjust brightness and contrast of the scanned image. (Mine was set to -5 brightness and +10 contrast.)
In your digital software program, add a paper texture. (Tip: I used Corel Paint Shop Pro and selected the Texture button, then paper. Under settings, I used: 400%, Smoothness 40, Depth 1, Angle 243, Intensity 50, Elevation 31, and 0 for Ambience and Shininess.)
Resize to 5w x 7h and run it through the “unsharp mask” and save.
Print the greeting card on cardstock.

Keep Creating

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Comments (2)

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Nicki says:
I love this but until the weekend is over, I am stuck either printing events for the Science Olympiad competition I run tomorrow or making food to take to my dad who was released from hospital on Tues. Next week – though – I am plotting out some time for this creation!

Nicki´s last blog post..Free Food
Posted at 12:55 pm February 27th, 2009
Alyice says:
Sorry to hear about your dad. Hope he gets well soon! Let me know when you post your work on your blog, I’d love to see what you come up with.
Posted at 1:06 pm February 27th, 2009

AlyiceEdrich.com
I'm a freelance writer, mixed media artist, SMVA, and the owner of The Dabbling Mum.

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