How to Paint Like Van Gogh: 5 Techniques to Capture His Style

There’s a reason Vincent van Gogh’s work still stops people in their tracks more than a century later. The swirling skies, the blazing yellows, the thick ridges of paint that practically leap off the canvas. You don’t just look at a Van Gogh painting. You feel it.

And here’s the good news — you don’t need a century of artistic evolution or a tortured soul to paint like Van Gogh. What you need is a willingness to experiment, a generous hand with paint, and a handful of techniques that he pioneered. In this guide, I’ll walk you through five essential techniques that will help you capture the energy, emotion, and unmistakable style of one of history’s greatest painters.

Whether you’re working with oils, acrylics, or even heavy-body paints, these methods will get you closer to that post-impressionist magic.

1. Embrace Impasto: Let Your Paint Build Up

If there’s one thing that defines Van Gogh’s work, it’s impasto — the technique of applying paint so thickly that the brush or palette knife marks remain visible. Van Gogh didn’t just paint on the canvas; he sculpted with colour.

Look closely at The Starry Night or Wheat Field with Crows. The paint isn’t flat. It’s textured, raised, almost three-dimensional. That texture catches light differently and gives his work a living, breathing quality.

How to do it:

• Use heavy-body paints. Tube paints straight out of the tube work best. Avoid thinning them too much.
• Load your brush generously. Don’t be shy. Dip in, press on, and let the paint sit on the surface rather than spreading it thin.
• Work with a palette knife. For those dramatic ridges, a palette knife is your best friend. Drag, press, and twist to create directional marks.
• Let layers build. Van Gogh painted wet-on-wet, sometimes reworking the same area multiple times in a single sitting. Don’t wait for things to dry if you want that raw energy.

Pro tip: If you’re using acrylics, mix in a gel medium or modelling paste to slow drying time and add body. Oils are naturally suited to impasto right out of the tube.

2. Master Directional Brushwork That Moves the Eye

Van Gogh didn’t just apply paint thickly — he applied it with intention. Every stroke has direction. In The Starry Night, the sky swirls in great sweeping arcs. In his wheat fields, the strokes march horizontally like wind-blown grain. In portraits, the brushwork follows the contours of the face.

This is called directional brushwork, and it’s one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal when you’re learning how to paint like Van Gogh.

How to do it:

• Decide where the energy flows. Before you paint, ask yourself: what is moving in this scene? Wind? Water? Light? Let your strokes follow that movement.
• Use consistent stroke shapes. Van Gogh often used short dashes, commas, or curved lines. Pick one or two stroke shapes and repeat them throughout the painting.
• Vary stroke size. Smaller strokes for detail, larger ones for background areas. This creates rhythm without monotony.
• Don’t over-blend. Let individual strokes sit next to each other. The eye will blend them from a distance, but up close, the energy of each mark remains visible.

3. Use Complementary Colours for Vibrant Contrast

Van Gogh was obsessed with colour theory. He studied the work of Eugène Delacroix, read Michel Eugène Chevreul’s writings on simultaneous contrast, and applied it all with fearless abandon.

His secret? Placing complementary colours side by side — blue next to orange, red next to green, yellow next to violet. This creates a visual vibration that makes both colours appear more intense than they would on their own.

Think of the bright orange sun against the blue sky in his Arles landscapes. Or the deep blue of his Bedroom at Arles walls contrasted with the yellow bed and chair.

How to do it:

• Start with a limited palette. Van Gogh often worked with just six to eight colours. Try ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, emerald green, chrome yellow, vermilion, and white.
• Place complements side by side, not on top of each other. Mix them on the canvas only at the edges where they meet. This creates that optical shimmer.
• Use a white ground or light underpainting. Van Gogh frequently painted on white or light-toned canvases to keep his colours bright and luminous.
• Don’t mute your shadows. Instead of using black for shadows, use deep blues, purples, or dark greens. This keeps the painting alive with colour.

4. Paint with Emotion, Not Just Observation

Here’s the part that separates Van Gogh from the photographers of the art world: he didn’t paint what he saw. He painted what he felt.

His colours weren’t always realistic. The sky in The Starry Night doesn’t actually swirl like that. The cypress trees aren’t really that dark. But they feel true. That’s the difference between illustration and expression.

When you’re trying to paint like Van Gogh, you need to let go of perfectionism and embrace exaggeration. Push the colour. Exaggerate the movement. Let the painting become a conversation between you and the canvas.

How to do it:

• Paint from memory or emotion, not just reference photos. Photos flatten light and colour. Paint what the scene made you feel.
• Exaggerate one element. Make the yellows yellower. The blues deeper. The strokes wilder. Pick one thing and push it further than reality would.
• Work quickly. Van Gogh often completed paintings in a single sitting. That urgency gives the work its urgency. Don’t overthink.
• Accept “mistakes” as part of the process. Drips, smudges, uneven edges — these are not flaws. They’re evidence of a living, breathing painting session.

5. Study His Composition and Leading Lines

Beneath all that wild brushwork and blazing colour, Van Gogh was a master of composition. His paintings are carefully structured, even when they look spontaneous.

He used strong leading lines — roads, paths, rows of trees, swirling sky currents — to pull the viewer’s eye through the painting. He favoured bold, simple shapes over fussy detail. And he wasn’t afraid of flattening perspective, borrowing from Japanese woodblock prints that he admired.

How to do it:

• Start with a thumbnail sketch. Spend five minutes mapping out the big shapes before you touch paint to canvas.
• Create one dominant path for the eye. A road, a river, a line of trees. Let it curve or sweep through the painting rather than sitting flat.
• Simplify. Then simplify again. Van Gogh reduced complex scenes to essential forms. Don’t paint every leaf. Paint the feeling of the tree.
• Use the edges of the canvas intentionally. Van Gogh often cropped trees or buildings at the edge, pulling the viewer into the scene as if they were standing right there.

Putting It All Together: Your First Van Gogh-Inspired Painting

Ready to try it? Here’s a simple exercise to practise all five techniques at once:

1. Pick a simple subject. A tree, a field, a street corner. Keep it uncomplicated.
2. Sketch the composition lightly. Focus on one strong leading line.
3. Block in your complements. Lay down warm against cool, light against dark.
4. Build impasto with directional strokes. Let every mark follow the energy of the subject.
5. Step back often. Van Gogh worked close but judged from a distance. Your strokes will read differently from three feet away than from three inches.

And remember — Van Gogh painted over 2,000 works in just ten years. He was constantly experimenting, failing, and trying again. Your first attempt won’t be The Starry Night, and it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to be yours.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to paint like Van Gogh isn't about copying his paintings stroke for stroke. It's about understanding the principles behind them: texture that you can feel, colour that vibrates, brushwork that moves, and emotion that doesn't apologise. Once you internalise these five techniques, you'll find they work for any subject, any medium, any style.

So grab your paints, load your brush, and don't hold back. Van Gogh didn't. And that's exactly why we're still talking about him today.

Want more technique breakdowns? Check out our guides on glazing in oil painting and palette knife painting for beginners.

About the author

Olly

Olly Farmer M.Sc, B.Sc, PGCE 25 years experience of Watercolor Painting and AI Art; teacher for 13 years; Creator of Art Tools; Art Gallery Contributor of Art Articles to Medium.com, LinkedIn and Facebook

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