“Two Cats After van Gogh” in the spring.
I love the earth tones of winter, all the living things lying in wait for warmer temperatures and longer days, but even with that I like to add some color to my front yard. From my “Cats After van Gogh” series of oil pastel sketches, this garden flag has “Two Cats After van Gogh” on one side and “In Window Light” on the other, full of summer blues, greens, yellows and oranges.
These “garden flags” are digitally printed on both sides of a heavyweight, durable indoor/outdoor woven printable fabric, and I finish by adding the rod pocket. (Bracket is not included.) Shipping is included. Flags are 11” wide x 15” tall and fit the most common garden flag bracket available, sold in most hardware and home renovation stores with a garden area.
My garden flags are designed with images of my feline artwork, from the quick colorful sketches I create each day to my detailed fine art paintings. They are made locally for me and I can work closely with the printer and have smaller quantities made, and therefore offer more designs.
I ship the garden flags flat so there’s no worry about excessive curling. Please ask about the brackets.
[ss_product id=’43ff59be-e767-11e5-9b55-0cc47a075d76′ ]Garden Flag, Two Cats After van Gogh[/ss_product]
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
I’m so pleased this design won both a Muse Medallion and the President’s Award in the 2013 Cat Writers’ Association communications contest, and it was also one of the main inspirations for pursuing the idea of somehow, some way, printing my art on garden flags. And the bright colors and the blue on both sides of the flag are meant for your summer yard!
A bit about the designs
When I first painted the original painting in this series, “Two Cats After van Gogh”, I posted my impressions and reasons for the style I’d used in oil pastel:
I am channeling Vincent van Gogh tonight, trying to work the same energy and form I see in his brush strokes. I can layer with oil pastel, but can’t apply or build up the thickness of medium that can be accomplished with paint; this sketch is also quite small, about 6″ x 5″, so I can’t work all the little strokes in as I’d like, but perhaps I’ll actually try this on canvas at some point, and something a little bigger.
I traveled with a friend in April 2012 to see the “Van Gogh Up Close” exhibit. Although it seems I love the Impressionists best, van Gogh is a step apart from the Impressionist styles we find most familiar in Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cassatt with his stylized forms and brilliant, often non-representational colors. I’d only seen a few original van Gogh paintings, and taking in an entire exhibit intended to show you van Gogh’s work near enough to touch and to see his influences filled my head with dimensional flower petals, rippling wheat textured in fields, dappled leaves seeming to move with the extra layers of paint—and colors! I closely studied the way he roughly blended colors into one another and what colors he used, the brilliant greens contrasted with the earthy sepia, lots of yellow and blue.
All the way home on the Megabus I remembered the colors and shapes and textures, and wanted to work the same energy and form I saw in his brush strokes, visualizing oil pastel to layer and blend the strokes as an experiment. Arriving home in Pittsburgh just a few hours later I saw Giuseppe and Mr. Sunshine, just quietly hanging together on the landing, Giuseppe sitting upright, Sunshine loafing, and visualized exactly what I would sketch.
Since then, when the pull of the textures and layers and colors draws me in, I’ve worked several other images in oil pastel in similar style. Oil pastel is not a popular medium, and I found it difficult to learn to handle. I’d actually done a few other landscape and still life paintings with them years ago, but put them aside in favor of my chalk pastels in my tiny crowded studio.
And the second one that’s on the other side of this flag, “In Window Light”:
Here Mimi lounges in the light from the window, slipping in under the mini blind. Who doesn’t know that posture of the vigilant kitty, not sleeping, just kind of hanging out and waiting for…well, humans tend to be pretty dull, but that gives kitties a lot of resting time. In the strength of the sun, all colors appear in her fur and on the old marble windowsill and the hot yellow sun outside the window, and I’ve no doubt Mimi enjoyed her nap.
Find more garden flags
You’ll find all the garden flags I carry under Handmade and Gifts > Gifts Produced From My Designs.
Find this art on other products
“Two Cats After van Gogh” is one of my most popular designs. You’ll find it on a:
and as a print on paper or canvas.
To find all items with this image, search “Two Cats After van Gogh”.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
