May 8,2002

Dear  Vincent Van Gogh ,

My name is Justin. My favorite sport is basketball. I am  nine years old and in  the third grade. I enjoy having friends come over and playing with them. I drew and painted a self portrait of myself . I would like to be an artist  like you when I grow older . I  would like to tell you about my self portrait.  

 In my self-portrait I was happy because I had on a funny face. I had a choice of what to wear for my portrait. I really don't have a beard, but I do wear glasses. I wanted to wear a big straw hat too, so I would look like you did in one of your self-portraits.

I used curvy lines to give my beard some texture to look like hair. In my background I used horizontal, vertical and swirly lines to separate my background from my foreground. I used warm colors in my face because skin is a warm color. My straw hat is a warm tan because tan is the color of straw. I painted my shirt a color to show contrast. I used many shapes: oval for my face, circles for my glasses, and a triangle for the front of my shirt.

I hope people see that I am a happy boy. I  smiled  in my self  portrait. How come you didn't, Vincent ? I wish you were not so sad  in your self portraits.

I enjoyed doing my self portrait but I thought it was very hard to do. I can't believe you did over 40 of them!

 I hope you know that people love your paintings now. They think you are wonderful!

Very Truly Yours,

Justin