Artist for October is Vincent van Gogh - Starry Night

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist whose paintings have had a far reaching influence on 20th century art.

Many of his pieces—including his numerous self portraits, landscapes, portraits and sunflowers—are among the world's most recognizable and expensive works of art. Little appreciated during his lifetime, his reputation increased in the years after his death. Today, he is regarded as one of history's greatest artists and an important contributor to the foundations of modern art. His younger brother Theo continually provided financial and emotional support. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is known of Vincent's thoughts and theories of art, is recorded in the hundreds of letters they began exchanging in August 1872.

Van Gogh suffered from anxiety and was unsettled for most of his life. He spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers in The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught in England. An early vocational aspiration was to become a pastor and preach the gospel; he eventually worked as a missionary in a poor mining region in Belgium. In 1879, he began to sketch people from the local Belgian community drawing scenes from ordinary life. In 1880, he took formal art classes, which included the study of anatomy, still-life and landscape. He began to paint in 1882 with the encouragement of his cousin-in-law anton Mauve. By 1885, he was living in Nuenen, where he painted his first major work, the Potatoe Eaters. At the time, his palette consisted mainly of sombre earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later work. In March 1886, he moved to Paris where he discovered the French Impressionists and made his artistic breakthrough. His work developed rapidly and grew brighter in color. He quickly developed a uniquely recognizable style, one fully realized by the time he departed for Arles in February 1888, having painted over 200 paintings.

Van Gogh did not begin his career as an artist until he was about 27. During his last ten years he produced more than 2,000 pieces, including around 900 paintings as well as 1,100 drawings and sketches. Most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years, amid recurrent bouts of mental illness. He died at the age of 37 from a self inflicted gunshot wound.

The inspiration for your layouts will come from this sample of his art work
called 'Starry Night'

Cheers
Shazza