It’s officially fall: the perfect time to create a simple fingerprint or q-tip fall tree art project with your toddler, preschooler, or child! We love kids crafts, but we also love learning about famous artists.
Our home is filled with kid friendly art books, we take regular trips to the art gallery, and we love learning about art history and techniques as we watch "Pirates: Adventures in Art" on Kids' CBC. Every month we also try to learn about one artist in particular. We look at pictures of the artist's work, read stories about his or her life, and use what we have learned to create art of our own.
This month, we have been learning about Georges Seurat. Georges Seurat was a famous French painter who lived from 1859-1891. He is most well known for developing a new art technique known as pointillism. Pointillism involves using small, distinct dots of colour applied in patterns to form an image. A good way for kids to understand it is to have them think of a reallly pixelated image on a computer screen. That is essentially the digital version of pointillism. We practised using the pointillism technique to make two fall tree pictures: one with finger prints, and one with smaller dots made with the end of a Q-tip.
To make the simpler, fingerprint tree, you will need:
- thick white or cream paper
- brown construction paper
- red, yellow, orange and brown paint
- scissors and glue
1. Cut a tree trunk shape out of brown construction paper, and glue onto your background paper:
2. Squirt red, brown, yellow and orange paint onto a palette (yogurt lids work great):
3. Dip your fingers into the various colours of paint, and then make finger prints where you think leaves on the tree should be:
4. Allow picture to dry, and you're done! This would be a great project to keep the kids busy before Thanksgiving dinner.
To create the slightly more complicated Q-tip version, you will need:
- Thick cream or white paper
- brown, red, yellow, and orange paint
- Q-tips
- A paintbrush
1. Paint a brown tree trunk onto your background paper. Allow to dry:
2. Squirt yellow, red, brown, and orange paint onto a palette. Dip your Q-tip into one colour, and begin to make dots on your paper where you think leaves should be:
3. Continue adding dots in various colours until you are satisfied with the look of your fall tree:
This version is not really any more difficult than the fingerprint painting, but it is a bit more time consuming, due to both the size of the Q-tips and the need to allow the tree trunk to dry first. We enjoyed doing both and comparing the results, but whichever one you do, have a happy fall!
