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Finger Paint Pointillism

  • Art & Art History
  • Motor Practice
  • Pre-K
  • Kindergarten
  • Grades 4-5
  • Grades 1-3

Learn about the art technique pointillism through finger painting and create a colorful fish under the sea!

Materials


  • Adhesive Wiggly Eyes
  • Pencil

Instructions


Step 1. Gather your supplies.

 

 

Step 2.

 

Sketch a simple fish under the sea.

 

Step 3.

 

Using your finger tips only into the finger paints, and begin coloring in your fish. We dotted our fish’s lips read and around his head, we heavily dotted red and then our dots were less concentrated.

Tip: If you want less color, make your dots further apart and use your smaller fingertips. To work in different shades of each color, simply use less or more paint!

 

Step 4.

 

Fill in the rest of the fish’s body with concentrated yellow dots. Be sure to go over some of the red to create an orange hue, so the fish’s body has a slight gradient.

 

Step 5.

 

Fill in the top and back fin with blue, more concentrated near the body and less concentrated as you color away from the body.

 

Step 6.

 

Go over the blue in the top and back fin with yellow. Repeat these steps for the bottom fins and the fish’s face.

 

Step 7.

 

Using the green finger paint, fill in the seaweed.

 

Step 8.

 

For the sand, use yellow finger paint and cover the bottom of the page in scattered dots.

 

Step 9.

 

Fill in the rest of the sand with a mix of green and a little bit of red dots. Fill in the background with scattered blue dots for the ocean water.

 

Step 10.

 

Lastly, add an adhesive wiggly eye so your fish can see where he’s swimming!

Further Discussion:

Pointillism is a painting technique that was developed by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac which uses small dots of color (Red, Yellow, Blue, Black) to form an image. Pointillist paintings often lack various textures because brushes are not used, but the colors achieved through mixing and different shades creates realistic works of art.

 

 

 


Make a point to strengthen your fine motor and art skills with this pointillism finger painting craft!  

  • Connect the Dots: Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty experimenting with colors and techniques with finger paints — mix your paints to blend different colors and shades!
  • Art Elements: One of the nine elements of art is texture, which demonstrates how something feels. Depending on the type of art, this element can be real or implied — for example, it’s implied that the finger painted dots feel like fish scales but they don’t really!

Texture plays a huge role in art techniques, like pointillism and pop art! What other textures can your students explore? Trade paint for other textured craft materials like foam sheets, glitter glue, or poms