Inside: Celebrate Halloween, pumpkins and Jack o’lanterns with this Halloween art with Pointillism project. Your kids will make their own jack-o-lantern out of dots.
The signs are up. The pumpkin patches are coming.
And that’s cause for squeals of delight as we drive past the soon to be filled empty lots.
Heading to a pumpkin patch is one of my family’s favorite things to do each fall because that means one thing…
Halloween is upon us and they get to carve up their jack o’ lanterns with crooked smiles.
My kids love to celebrate Halloween and it’s their second favorite holiday.
They start counting down to trick or treat in August.
We celebrate Halloween with art projects like Halloween Ghost Footprints and sewing jack o’lanterns on meat trays.
We pass out You’ve Been Boo’d buckets to their friends and You’ve Been Boozed goodies to my friends.
And we get ready to celebrate a kinder Halloween with our teal pumpkins and these Halloween Kindness Notes for our trick or treaters.
But this year we’re celebrating Halloween by adding in a little art history in the form of Pointillism by making jack o’lanterns out of dots and creating Halloween art with Pointillism.
What is Pointillism Art?
When I was in college and took the mandated Art History courses, I discovered and then fell in love with Pointillism.
Maybe it’s because it reminded me of those Hidden Magic Eye Puzzles from the 90s.
My professor showed us a tiny, zoomed-in piece of art and all we saw was dots.
Little tiny dots.
Then he zoomed it out to the gloriousness that is A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
And once I saw the painting hanging in the Art Insitute of Chicago, I was sold.
The tiny dots that magically turn into gorgeous art is mesmerizing.
I ran across the street from the museum and bought my tiny daughter the board book, Sunday With Seurat
And when my kids were older, we graduated to these kid-friendly art history books on Seurat.
This awesome YouTube Video of Art with Mati and Dada and Seurat is a great way to further explain Pointillism to our kids.
If you have younger kids who don’t have the fine motor skills for Q-tips, get them these Dot a Dot Art Markers and they can create their own art.
And since we love Halloween and I love Pointillism, we connected October 31st and all things pumpkin to pointillism with this jack-o-lantern craft made entirely out of dots.
Want more Halloween and pumpkin books to connect to this project?
Here are our favorite Halloween books:
Supplies Needed for the Jack o’ Lantern Halloween Art with Pointillism:
- small canvas or cardstock paper
- Q-tips
- orange, yellow, green and brown or gold and black acrylic paint (tempra paint is fine for the cardstock paper)
- pencil
How to Make the Halloween Art with Pointillism
1. Draw a pumpkin on your canvas and draw in a jack o’ lantern face, pressing lightly.
2. Dip a Q-tip into the orange paint and one dot at a time, outline the pumpkin.
If you are using acrylic paint, let your kids know it’s “forever paint” for clothes.
And remind your kids not to smear the paint by using the Q-tip like a paintbrush. Instead, show them how they can make tiny dots close together to make it appear like a line was formed.
3. Outline the face of the jack-o-lantern in orange paint.
4. Use gold or brown paint to dot in the stem of the jack-o-lantern.
5. While you wait for the orange paint to dry, create a dark night background by adding black paint dots around the outside of the jack o’lantern.
6. Use yellow paint to color in the face of the jack o’lantern so it looks like it’s glowing.
This jack o’lantern is one that won’t get moldy and nasty after the candy has been sorted and the costumes turned in for pajamas.
And it doesn’t involve pumpkin goo up to my elbows so my kids can come in for the fun part and carve out a crooked smile.
But it does still involve crooked jack-o-lantern smiles.
Want MORE Halloween Fun?
Pumpkin Kindness Sort – what is kind and what is not? Play this fun game!
Halloween Kindness Cards- print these and hand them out with your candy or with your non-candy treat to spread a little kindness this Halloween.
Footprint Ghosts- remember how little your little ghouls are with this fun and sweet and EASY Halloween craft!
Halloween Sewing – teach the beginning basics of sewing and practice fine motor skills with this Halloween sewing craft!
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