Giant Acorn, four versions

 After visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and poring over a Taschen book on Van Gogh, I was inspired to do a number of Vincent studies which I recently posted. Next I wanted to put the new skills to use and set about designing a large surrealism painting based on motifs and colours of the great Dutch painter. Ultimately that would become 'Five Apples For Vincent'. But the original plan was to have a giant acorn in the field! Using smaller sized papers I worked out several variations on the theme.  

In this version I copied elements from an old doodleism painting I did called 'Apple Eye, Violet Sky'. The central doodle-apple was replaced with a giant acorn ( I had collected some up from a hiking trip), and I added a curious squirrel. The idea was to use this as a preliminary painting for a larger work, but I felt the composition was too static, and the acorn was right in the middle of the design. 5 x7 hot press, watercolour, 2018

On the back of that painting I did a revised version. I stuck with the general idea and composition, but tried to alter the background and foreground to break the symmetry. It was a neat study, but wasn't exciting enough to turn it into a large painting. Instead, I did a remake of Apple Eye Violet sky, and called it 'Apple Eye, Shrimp in the Sky'

Undaunted with the idea of Van Gogh, I invented an abstract field with other familiar Van Gogh motifs such as a cypress tree, a searing yellow sun, rolling emerald green hills, and an eerie lack of shadow. These motifs were common in his many paintings done in St. Remy as he was voluntarily staying at an asylum for mental health. The wall you see at the end of this field was the wall that surrounded the asylum, he confined himself to the area for awhile and made many paintings of this area. Minus the giant acorn of course. 5 x7 hot press, watercolour, 2018

On the back of the previous version, I created a close copy but changed the sun for a lemon, included more texture, toned down the colours, and added 'starry night' swirls in the sky. Looking at it now, this would be a nice painting without the giant acorn in the middle! In the end, I dropped the acorn idea and used 5 apples from my fridge, and painted Five Apples For Vincent. Am I nuts?