The third grade art class I teach is scheduled to learn about Georges Seurat during the month of December. What better subject to employ pointillism than holiday symbols? Whenever Mike Venezia’s books are available on a particular artist, I kick off the lesson by reading his fun biographies (affiliate link). The kids especially love the comics and it sets the stage for introducing a project in the style of whatever artist we are studying.
Here’s the lesson in short:
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- At home, mount paper (I used 7X10 in) onto a piece of cardboard with masking tape. This will reduce mess and give a nice clean edge to the finished product.
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- Step 1: Lightly draw a simple holiday symbol (in this case, a tree). It should fill the page.
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- Step 2: Dip a cotton swab into paint to add details to the drawing.
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- Add more details.
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- Step 3: Fill in your drawing with a single paint color, leaving a bit of white space.
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- Step 4: Fill in those white spaces with varying shades of color.
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- Step 5: Complete other details of your drawing.
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- Step 6: Fill in the background with a variety of shades of the same color.
Materials needed: Pieces of cardboard, 7X10 multimedia paper, tempera or acrylic paint, paint palettes, cotton swabs.
Level of difficulty: For third-graders the idea of not mixing colors is difficult. They require repeated reminders regarding the technique of pointillism. Still, this project is relatively easy and should not take more than an hour, including reading the biography ahead of time.
I also created the following Powerpoint presentation: Holiday Pointillism to give the students detailed instructions on how to complete the project.