This snowman pointillism craft is super cute, easy to do and fun for kids of all ages. It also teaches some art history and the technique of pointillism. It is a great winter craft to do with your kids or in a classroom. I go in and help in Abby’s class once a week. I have volunteered to do some seasonal craft lessons with the kids. I go in on Monday’s, and I contacted Abby’s teacher Monday morning after the Thanksgiving break, wondering if this was a week she wanted me to do a craft to decorate the classroom. She said she would like me to do that. OK – Time to pull something together at the last minute before I went there that afternoon. I have done pointillism with my own kids in the past, which was the inspiration for this idea. To start the lesson with Abby’s classroom kids, I showed pictures from my M.C. Escher book. I then showed a piece of pointillism artwork I had done in high school. I talked about how pointillism is made up of a bunch of dots. I demonstrated how to make circles and add dots to fill it in completely. I then showed them the accessories they could add for the hat, scarf, buttons and eyes and set them to work.
Materials Needed:
Blue Paper
White Paint (I put mine in individual Dixie cups for the kids)
Q-Tips
Colorful paper cut to 1/2 inch strips
Black paper cut into 1/2 inch strips and 1 inch white rectangles
White Glue
Google Eyes
Buttons
For my example, I used a pencil and cups to trace around to create a snowman. I didn’t actually end up showing my example to the kids, so they could use their own imagination to create. You can trace perfect circles for your kids to trace with the dots or you can have them go free form like we did in Abby’s class.
The goal in pointillism to to do a bunch of dots. I made sure to show the kids how not to use the paint so they really understood the dot concept.
Keep going until your snowman is covered completely in dots.
Here is a student from Abby’s class doing her careful snowman. It’s fun to see the kids personalities come forward in their artwork. This girl was obviously someone who had a very deliberate execution of the exact concept.
After finishing the snowman, I encouraged them to add a ground, possible snowfall (most of them enjoyed doing the dots so added a lot of snowfall), scarves, cut to length, hats, eyes and buttons. I love the individual results of these snowmen. Such cute, unique creations.
*Note: The snowflakes on my feature example picture were done in post editing. You could look for a rubber stamp to add this effect.
I am going to use your snowman for a 4th and 5th grade art club. Thanks for the terrific idea.
I’m so happy to hear that. I hope it is a lot of fun. Thanks for letting me know.