Need a group art project? 4th grade just completed a pointillism mural based on Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon at the Island of La Grade Jatte”.
‘La Parade’ by George Seurat. 1889
Day 1:
Introduce pointillism. We discussed how Seurat made paintings in a whole new way: instead of blending colors, he placed different colors of dots side by side and let the viewer’s eye mix them.
Close up view:
I passed out some greeting cards with pointillist art and let students examine them closely. They really need to see the art works up close to appreciate how many dots Seurat put in his paintings (tip: pass out magnifying glasses for a close up view). I added some great close-ups to this Seurat Powerpoint (sadly I am not sure who posted this Powerpoint).
Pointillist notecards + magnifier
- UPDATE: Thanks to Google Art Project, you can view A Sunday on La Grade Jatte at incredible zoom level (flash required).
- Google Art Project has a Seurat from MoMA in its online collection: you can view Seurat’s ‘Evening, Honfleur’ at incredible zoom level. Notice that Seurat used dots on the artwork and the picture frame!
- Individual warm-up project: make your name in dots on a 4.5″x12″ strip of paper. Color the background with dots as well. We used Q-tips and pan watercolors.
Make your name in dots as an introduction to pointillism.
Days 2-3:
Group project. I purchased the downloadable pdf mural ‘Sunday in the Park’ from Art Projects for Kids ($8). The pdf contains a 28-piece mural (perfect size for a 4th grade class!) which you print onto cardstock. Each student ‘dotted’ their respective part of the mural, using the coloring guide included in the download.
Seurat’s famous ” (aka ‘Sunday in the Park’). Seurat’s masterpiece contains over 3 million dots and took over 2 years to complete.
28 individual pointillist artworks come together to form Seurat mural.
The assembled mural is 55 inches x 40 inches.
We carefully assembled the mural by attaching long strips of masking tape on the seams (note: get a helper for assembly!). Bonus: it folds up like a map! Easy to store until the art show.
The completed mural.
The kids really enjoyed this project. I did notice there was a lot of variety in the assembled mural – some students made a near-solid dot pattern with almost no white paper showing. Others had sparsely dotted areas. Next year I will use this pointillism practice worksheet from Miss Young’s Art Room blog.
Pointillism worksheet from Miss Young’s Art Room blog.
Options:
Individual coloring sheet for ‘Sunday in the Park’. From Practical Pages blog.
Want an individual project based on ‘Sunday in the Park’? There is a great post including download on the Practical Pages blog.
Try out different materials for pointillism:
- Q-Tip + tempera
- Marker
- Unused eraser tip from a standard pencil + pan watercolor
- Unused eraser tip from a standard pencil + stamp pad
Stamp pad + eraser tip
How do you teach pointillism to your students? Leave a comment!
UPDATE 10/17/13:
NEW!!! Pointillism art project – make pointillist FOOD using watercolors, q-tips and markers! AWESOME pointillism video! Click here.
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What a GREAT post! Thank you…this is exactly what I was looking for to teach my 4th grader about Pointillism! We are going to make a suncatcher using clear pony beads (arrange them in a cake pan, bake at 400 for 20 minutes) to see a larger version of a Pointillism picture and I needed a week’s worth of lesson to teach about the concept first. THANKS!
So glad you like it. Your sun catcher idea sounds like a great pointillism project. I bet Perler beads (the ones you iron to set) could also be used for a fun project. Good luck!
Rina
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This is a great and easy project! I am going to use it in our “wacky artists” week during our summer camp! Thanks!
Hi Meredith
So glad you like the project. It would look great at the farewell or mini art show at the end of camp. The pointillism video is great too.
Thanks for this great idea! I am going to do this lesson with my 2nd and 3rd graders. The link for the mural didn’t work but I was able to find it by doing a google search. Just wanted to let you know!
Great! I hope the mural worked for your students.