Pointillism is an art style from the Impressionist art movement from the late 1800’s. Created by George Seurat, the painting is created with only dots where the artist aims for the viewers eyes to mix the colors rather than mixing themselves. The most famous piece in this style is George Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. I find this art style to be an important lesson I teach my students for two reasons;
- It focuses on color mixing and color theory to develop their knowledge of color
- It is an unusual way to make a painting and challenges what they are use to. They are not allowed to create brushstrokes or mix colors on their pallets. It can be a struggle, but a struggle that has a lot of benefits.
When I first started teaching, I would show this video on George Seurat. It is intended for younger elementary students. I started teaching high school a couple of years ago and looked for a video that explained pointillism as well as this video. I decided to show my high schoolers this anyways since it’s the most fun and informative. If you teach elementary art and are not familiar with Mati and Dada. I recommend these videos to incorporate art history into your classroom.
Materials
Paint (primary, white, and black)
Painting paper
Q-tips or surgical swabs (I recommend surgical swabs because the cotton does not pull apart as easily)
Steps
100 color mixing challenge
Before I start my lesson, I like to do this 100 color mixing challenge activity where they get the primary colors, white, and black and have to try to mix 100 unique colors. With this project, this is a good activity to complete because it helps them with color mixing and what colors are required in making new colors. They may be surprised by the color they have made and make a mental note about how they made it. I generally use some less than good quality paint since it’s more for practice than for actual artwork.
Project
- Introduction: I start with the video to give the students a background on pointillism. Afterwards, I discuss the illusion of space by creating landscapes with a foreground, middle ground, and background discussing how layers, proportions, and size help create depth.
- Rough draft: for this project, I had students make fantasy/alien landscapes, but I have also done it where it was just a normal landscape. I found that landscapes are the easiest to complete with pointillism, however, the subject of the painting can be adapted and changed as you see fit. Have the students create at least one landscape prior to receiving the good paper.
- Final draft: when students have completed their rough drafts, they are given the good paper and can begin their paintings. They sketch the drawing first and then add paint. I tell them to start with the background and move forward so that the images that are in the foreground have cleaner lines.
Rules
-students are only allowed to have red, blue, yellow, white and black paint
-they are to use the pointillism technique so they will not be mixing the color on the palette
-applying it to the paper/canvas
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In the Art Room with Mrs. D 