Autumn Art Lesson - Pointillism

5th Grade Art Docent Lesson - Pointillism

In an effort to get back to engaging my artistic side and give back to the community at the same time, I have volunteered to be an art docent for my son's class this year. Check out our first lesson of the year on Pointillism. The kids enjoyed it and so did I!

Materials Needed:

• Qtips
• Small Paper Plates
• Tempera Paints (At the minimum, Primary Colors)
• Card Stock Sheets (Standard Letter Size)
• Baby Wipes or Disinfectant Wipes for Clean up

Time Needed for Activity:

• Minimum of 1 hour 

Examples:

 Lesson on Pointillism:

I tried to keep the lesson very short so we would have plenty of time to complete the activity.

Bring in leaves that you have collected as inspiration or print a few pictures of fall leaves.

Encourage the kids to take their time and remember to make dots rather than brushstrokes with their Q-tip.

Before setting the kids off on their own, perform a quick demonstration for the class on a leaf of your own on the board or on a projector camera. Refresh the kids' memory on primary color mixing. Have the kids start by using all yellow or all red and introduce blue or red on the edges to make green or orange. Remind them to not be modest with the paint or mixing colors will be difficult.

I had other tempera paints for the kids to choose a background color for their art to make their leaves stand out more on the page. When doing this, show them the color wheel and teach them that the colors opposite each other on the color wheel will have the most contrast and will make their art really pop.

Leaf Outlines to create stencils on Cardstock:

Make plenty of stencils for the class to make that step in the process go quicker. I also encouraged freehand drawing their leaves for those who wanted to.

I hope your class enjoys this project!