Last Friday I had the chance to observe a Fine Arts lesson with my Grade K-3 students. It was during this lesson that I became inspired by one of my students for a Visual Arts project. In the lesson, students were instructed to colour self-portraits, and to personalize it by using a variety of different colours. While most of the students were colouring, I noticed one student in particular was colouring with a different technique. Instead of using the marker to fill in solid blocks of colour, he used the marker to create tiny dots. I really like the look of this and thought it would be a fun technique to have all of my students try. While searching online to find a teaching component for such a lesson, I discovered that there actually is a name for this style of work. It is called "pointillism", and many famous painters use this technique when paining for example, George Seurat. What I especially love about this lesson is it wold not require a lot of materials. All you need are plates to put your paint on and q-tips to use as paint brushes. I also thought for younger students, instead of having them draw their own picture you could provide them with a template of a picture. So all they would have to do is add the dots of paint. You could also incorporate a bit of technology into this by having students perform this lesson on the computer with a paint program. If you are interested in doing this, I found a
blog that provides a further explanation of the process.
That's cool. I love when kids get to try new kinds of techniques.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that blog link! I am getting my students to do some stippling, and talking about pointillism might be a good connection to make.
ReplyDeleteYeah I also love this technique because it is so easy to do but it creates such a beautiful effect to your work! It also shows students that they don't have to be the best painter in order to make a great piece of art :)
ReplyDeleteI love pointillism! I am doing a similar(ish) technique for my gr 6/7s this practicum (for the art show) by teaching the students Aboriginal Dot painting (Australia). Also, depending on the maturity level/ability level of a class (or for adaptations) students can use fine tipped felt markers for pointillism or fat-tipped markers for dot painting. Thanks for sharing this Kathleen!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad Laura saw the connection to her Aboriginal dot paintings. The differences, I think, are that the dot paintings have patterns with large and small dots, and in pointillism dots of different colours are mixed to make the appearance of a new colour when you stand back a bit. Also, in pointillism dots can be closer together or further apart to show shape. I'm glad that you found the context for a technique you saw in the classroom, Kathleen - it was a neat discovery for you. It was exciting that the one student had the freedom to do his self-portrait with this technique, even though that's not what everyone else was doing. In an ideal art classroom, I think lessons would alternate between introducing new techniques and inviting students to apply techniques already learned to new projects featuring images of their own choice.
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