Dena Peterson: Loving Van Gogh

Sometimes the world has a way of laying something in your lap. Something you were not aware of, something that turns out to be really special. Something totally unexpected. Back in February I saw a trailer for a movie called Loving Vincent, a remarkable film about Vincent Van Gogh’s life and death. It’s special because it’s animated using actual paintings in Van Gogh’s style. I was enamored with the movie and could not wait till it came out … after all, I love Van Gogh, and I love the idea of the first ever fully hand-painted feature-length movie. And it was not just painted by animators or with animation tools: Each frame is an oil painting done by an artist. There were over 100 artists brought into Poland to do the 65,000 paintings. Soon after seeing the trailer for Loving Vincent, I saw Dena Peterson, one of the artists who worked on the movie, speak at the Plein Air Convention. Dena was not only a great communicator, she had the audience really engaged. It’s such a unique story. S