Pointilist Snowmen

This is an easy project for younger grades with a unique approach: dot painting (similar to pointillism) using q-tips. 

When I taught this to first graders last year, we talked about the artist Georges Seurat and I showed them An Afternoon at La Grande Jatte, (you can check this out from the school library, PIC 198).

We talked about pointillism and looked closely at how the brush strokes differ from other kinds of painting.  The kids were very excited to try their hand at this.  We started with dark blue construction paper.  They were instructed to draw three circles: large on bottom, medium in the middle and small on top.  Next we dipped q-tips in white tempera paint and filled the circles with dots.  When the paint was dry, they used crayons to draw hats, scarfs, eyes, boots, and background details.

Here is a close up of the "dot painting." 

*Note* we don't have q-tips in the art supply room, so you would have to provide them yourself.  Luckily they are cheap!