Painting Van Gogh by numbers
April 28 2011

Picture: MSNBC
Here's an interesting series of photos from Dafen art village in China, where most of the world's fakes are made. From MSNBC:
A combination picture shows the half-hour process of painter Zhao Xiaoyong working on a Van Gogh self-portrait in his gallery at Dafen Oil Painting Village in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province April 24, 2011. Zhao said he has sold more than 70,000 pieces of Van Gogh's paintings, with the price ranging from 200 to 1,500 yuan ($30-$230) a piece. Dafen village, a suburb in Shenzhen, is believed to be the largest mass producer of oil paintings in the world. Artists here manufacture some 60 percent of the total global trade volume, according to China Daily. Thousands of artists and dealers rent shops or exterior walls on buildings to display and sell oil paintings, but they will soon need to find other places as the local government has pledged to ban the practice in an effort to brush up its image before the upcoming Universiade, local media reported.