March 22, 2018

Paint like Van Gogh ~ with Sarah Wimperis

We are so lucky to have Sarah Wimperis, the only British artist-animator of the Oscar nominated Loving Vincent movie leading oil painting workshops at Pegasus Art.

Loving Vincent movie

From answering a very discreet advert on Facebook, Sarah has been on the most amazing journey. She spent five months in Poland, painting canvas after canvas in the exact style and palette of Van Gogh – eight weeks in one particular wheat field, painting a view that took Van Gogh four hours! She has walked in his shoes and has delved deep into the life of this most famous painter.

Four canvases per day

Sarah painted three hundred and eighty frames in total ~ an average of four canvases per day…..which translated into a grand total of thirty seconds of film! An astonishing 1,300 litres of oil paint was used by one hundred and twenty five artists from nineteen countries across the world. The film took six years of creative development, over 1,345 discarded paintings and 65,000 frames.

Channelling Vincent

In her workshops, Sarah reveals fascinating insights into the life and work of Vincent. It is well known that his creativity was intense, often obsessive – his work filled with energy and life. He often loaded up his brushes with colour and in later works, layered the oil paint thickly. She aims to help her students ‘channel Vincent’ and come away with a finished piece of work. Dutch fine art material producer, Royal Talens, donated water based Cobra oils for the students to sample. Van Gogh himself used Royal Talens paints, hence their namesake brand Van Gogh oils.

“I really enjoyed Saturday’s workshop. Sarah was interesting and informative and I learned lots from the day. It was a really lovely group too. Lots of support and encouragement for each other. A wonderful way to spend a day!” Alison Underwood

Keep going at it

“Being an artist is akin to being a runner. You have to keep going at it, in order to keep fit. If you hit a wall, you have to run through it! It’s the same for an artist.”