Inside: Celebrate Valentine’s Day and love and hearts with these Valentine’s Day Pointillism art projects.
The day after Christmas, my kids turned to me and asked me the same thing they ask me every day after a holiday, “so when’s the next holiday?”
My kids have been counting down to Valentine’s Day ever since Dec 26th.
And now that we’re actually close to the holiday, we’re busting out our Valentine’s Day crafts and books.
We write Valentine’s kindness notes to each other and decorate with our beginning sewing projects and we start counting down with our Valentine’s Day Countdown Clock.
And since we’re always looking for fun ways to celebrate every holiday, we’re making these Valentine’s Day Pointillism art projects.
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 Valentine’s Day and I love Pointillism, we connect Valentine’s Day and all things heart to pointillism with this Valentine’s Day craft made entirely out of dots.
Want more books to connect to this project?
Here are our favorite Valentine books:
Supplies Needed to Make Valentine’s Day Art with Pointillism
- white cardstock paper or small canvas
- Q-tips
- red, white, red, and black acrylic paint (tempra paint is fine for the cardstock paper)
- pencil
How to Make Valentine’s Day Art with Pointillism
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.
1. On the cardstock or canvas, lightly draw a heart. Leave room on the sides to add an arrow if they’d like.
2. Use the red paint to dot the outline of the heart.
3. Use the black paint to dot the arrow.
4. Use pink and red paint dots to fill in the heart.
5. You can also use the paint to write out the word “LOVE.”
We used the “o” to make a heart.
Outline the letters with dots in red or pink.
6. To add to the Valentine’s Day pointillism art, we added a border of dots.
You can use these Valentine’s Day art projects as Valentine’s Day cards or as art on the canvas.
It will help them countdown to Valentine’s Day.
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