Vincent Van Gogh (1st Assignment, ages 5-10)

I chose Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Starry Night” because it had been one of my favorite paintings in elementary school and it still is. I would continuously see a replication of the painting in my art classroom. The classroom ceiling had a variety of paintings on it. Some of them were famous replications and others not. During a period in art class, we watched a cartoon version of the story of Vincent Van Gogh’s life. Besides having seen it a lot in school, the painting reminds me of how life used to be all perfect and like a dream to me. The town with the church steeple in the middle reminds me of how perfect and peaceful I viewed the world when I was younger. When you add the exaggerated night sky in, I am able to reflect on the how magical the world would seem to me. I was so carefree and I wished I could stay there forever. The brush strokes in the painting are wavy on some and then thin and thick and are compiled to make a painting that invokes a comfortable feeling and puts you at ease. A lot of blue is used in the painting to depict the night which conveys a feeling of rest. Since mostly everything has stopped at nighttime. Yellow is also used because it was based on the morning when it is still night or dark outside.