Georges Seurat (1859-1891), was a French Post-Impressionist painter that was famous for making entire paintings out of colored dots, a technique called pointilism. The dots would merge together to create shapes and beautiful landscape scenes. Your child will create an ode to the master of dots by making his own masterpiece one dot at a time while learning to mix colors!
What You Need:
- Poster paint
- Paintbrushes
- Water cup
- Paint palette
- Colored pencils (alternative to paint)
- Watercolor paper
- Still Life (fruit is recommended)
- Pencil
What You Do:
- Show your child A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, by Georges Seurat. It can be found on the Internet. Point out how the entire painting was created with dots. Show him how blue and yellow dots trick the eye into seeing green. Red and yellow dots blend to create the illusion of orange, and blue and red dots can make people see purple!
- Have your child help set up a still life for him to recreate. Some ideas for a still life are fruits, vegetables, flowers, bowls and vases.
- Discuss what colors he sees in the still life. Have him point out the highlights and shadows in each object.
- He can lightly sketch out the composition he'd like to paint using a pencil.
- Using the tips of paintbrushes, encourage him to make lots and lots of small dots, filling in each shape he drew as he goes. Remember to use lighter colors for highlights and darker colors for shading.
- Every once in a while he can literally step back from his painting to see how it's coming together—up close it will probably resemble a collection of colors more than anything else.
- Allow the painting to dry completely.
Now he has his very own dotted masterpiece!
Fun Fact: Georges Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, was created using multi-colored paints without pre-blending so the eye of the viewer could blend the colors together. Seurat spent two years creating this painting which is 10-feet-wide and almost seven feet tall. In preparation for the painting, he created 60 drawings while at the park watching people.
By Ellen Dean
Ellen Dean has worked as an art educator in Thailand since 2005, working with both children and adults. She has also been a professional artist working in painting, sculpture and photography since 1996.
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