Rainy Day Activity : Pointillism

Pointillism art is a perfect rainy day activity. Actually, it’s perfect for any day.   It’s great for kids because it’s a fun and unique way to approach painting. They like it because it’s not hard to do.  Parents will love it because it only requires only a few simple materials.  All you need are some Q-tips, paper,  watercolors, a photo of what you want to paint, and your imagination.

Pointillism is a painting technique made popular by the 18th century French Neo-Impressionist George Seurot.  The technique involves painting with a series of dots instead of  traditional strokes.  The fascinating thing about this technique is that the farther you move from the artwork, the more your eyes see the painting as a single picture rather than a collection of dots. Below is George Seurot’s pointillism painting, “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” painted in 1884. It’s one of his most famous paintings and can be found in the Art Institute of Chicago.

You will need:

• Plain Paper (the thicker the better)
• Watercolors
• Q-tips
• Paper Towels
• Bowl with water

We started our art project by selecting a photo that we both wanted to paint.  Using inexpensive watercolor paints, we wet our Q-tips and gently rubbed it on the color we wanted to use first.  We started our dots on the main focal point of the painting, in our case it was the fox, and then we worked out way outward.  Remember to have several Q-tips on hand.  You will definitely need more than a few depending on how many colors with which you’re working.

The entire project only took us about 45 minutes.  Even better, clean up only took a matter of minutes.  Let me know if you try this Pointillism project in your home, and let how it turns out — perhaps you are raising the next world famous Neo-Impressionist pointillism artist!  If you are looking for other fun projects with kids check out my post on Tiny Baking with my Tiny Chef.