What do Australian Aborginals and a French painter have in common? Dots!
Georges Seurat was a French painter who lived in the late 1800’s. He is known for developing a type of painting called pointillism. But way before him, people in Australia were painting with sticks and quills.
What pointillism means is using small dots of color instead of brush strokes to make a picture. It really works a lot like pixels, or even cross stitch, but on a bigger scale and without a grid. And what that means for kids is that it’s a fun new way to paint. Even reluctant artists will appreciate how this is a different method of painting.
You can choose a few methods for mimicking Australian and Seurat’s dots. You can dip pencil erasers or q-tips in paint and press directly on to the paper. Acrylics work, and so do fairly dry water colors. You don’t want wet or runny paint, or you won’t get a nice dot. Young kids can even use their fingertips. Be careful with that though, most little kids will quickly revert to smearing paint style of finger painting. Instead of a line, you paint a line of dots. You can also use dot paint or markers, or the ends of chalk. For the chalk you want to hold the chalk vertically on the paper and twist.
You don’t even have to use paint. If you have a paint program on your computer, your kids can make a ton of pictures with the round brush tool. I’ve even seen teachers use tiny dot stickers for a lesson on Seurat or pointillism.
Why did Seurat paint with dots? He thought it made the eye see the colors as brighter, almost an optical trick. You can find Seurat’s work at online and at The Metropolitan Museum, The Guggenheim, the National Gallery and many other places. You may want to share pictures of his work with your children before you let them paint. And while you are searching museums look for the incredible details in Australian Aboriginal paintings.
Also See:
Easy Paint Projects for Preschoolers