I chose Van Gogh's Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes Maries because I like boats and the ocean.  Van Gogh painted this in Arles in 1888. 

I put a lot of blue paint in my painting for both the sky and the ocean. I mixed white and dark blue paint with a paper towel on my picture to make the water look like it does. I added swirls in my sky like Van Gogh did.  I used white craypas in the sky to make my swirls. I think it looks like the wind is blowing. I also added stars in my picture so it would look like it is night time.  I like night time because I can see the stars in the sky.  It looks cool to see lots of stars. I used vertical lines to make the masts on the boats and markers to color the boats because if I used paint it would get too messy. I had to draw the boats on a separate piece of paper because I messed up drawing them the first time. I colored them with markers because paint would be hard to use. I would have trouble staying in the lines. Then I cut them out and glued them to my painting. This really worked well for me. I like the way my painting looks. I think my boats look a lot like Van Gogh's, except for the colors.    

If I could do something differently I would change the color of the white boat. I would make it green to be like Van Gogh's. I used white because I wanted my favorite color blue on it and blue wouldn't go with green because it's so dark.

I  liked this project because I learned how good an artist Vincent Van Gogh really was. He was not famous back then because people did not like his paintings or him. People must have been crazy when he was alive to not like his paintings! His paintings are magnificent and if he was still alive, I would buy all of his paintings  if I was a millionaire. I think this project was cool and I learned that you need to take your time and if you do, your work will come out good. I just enjoyed learning about Van Gogh's life.

By Jon

Click here to see the original painting online.