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Dot Day projects for younger students

How to Paint Dots for Dot Day & Project Roundup

30

Min

There is just something about dots that make them the quintessential art project embellishment.

I don’t know if anyone loves them quite as much as Yayoi Kusama, who’s out-of-this-world artwork inspires art teachers everywhere. Kusama is one of those highly relatable artist’s for young students. Her artwork is approachable, whimsical and covered in dots!

But having kids paint dots is not always an easy task. I tried my best to do Kusama justice by coming up with different ways children could make polka dots as easily as possible…stencils, stamps, a hole punch, even clay to add a 3D element.

Dot Day projects for younger students with Yayoi Kusama

Here are a few techniques that I just loved…

STENCILING

I created this polka dot technique by accident. I had some tag board lying around and a big hole punch that I got from Michael’s craft store a while back. It’s a Martha Stewart Brand and is widely available in most of the stores.

I was using the tag board to punch out dots for a Kasuma project that I was doing for members of The Sparklers Club.

As I was amassing the punched out dots, I ended up with a stencil.

Instead of throwing out the hole-laden tag board, I turned it into another way students could create nicely rounded dots.

All you need is thick paint like premium liquid tempera paint or acrylic paints and a flat brush.

I used thick liquid tempera paint (Crayola) and dabbed the paint onto regular sulphite paper from Tru-Ray. (80 lbs)

Dot Day projects for younger students with stenciling

Q-TIPS

This technique is pretty common in the art room but just in case you haven’t done this before, you simply must. It’s wonderfully satisfying with the repetitive dots and colorful results.

I used liquid tempera paint, regular all-purpose sulphite paper and good old Q-Tips (this brand is best as the tips are thick).

Dot Day projects for younger students with Q-Tips

PUNCHED DOTS

Remember the dots from the first technique? This is what I do with them. Take a container of paper-punched dots, glue the paper with a glue stick and assemble over a colorful piece of paper.

Dot Day projects for younger students with punched dots

And the best time to do this project is now!

MORE DOT DAY PROJECTS

International Dot Day, based on Peter Reynold’s book, The Dot, is coming up on September 15th.

If you haven’t read this book to your students yet, please consider putting it at the top of teacher to-do list right away. It’s just the BEST.

The Dot is the story of Vashti who is overwhelmed at the sight of a blank piece of paper. Her art teacher gently encourages her to explore art her way. Most art teachers consider Peter Reynold’s books essential reads for the art room as he addresses the issues children face when learning how to be an artist.

I did an entire episode of what things to do on dot day on Art Made Easy plus added a video of one of the projects, too. Check it out HERE.

Behind Dot Day Projects – The Benefits of Expression: AME 065

Dot Day projects for younger students with Art Made Easy Podcast

9 Ways to Create Ben-Day Dots

For more colorful inspiration for your art room, these bold colors and comic book imagery of famous artist Roy Lichtenstein are sure to grab your students’ attention! With Lichtenstein’s birthday coming up in October, this is also a great lesson to teach the introduction of this artist.

Kusama Collage & Kusama Cat Project

Modern artist Yayoi Kusama is a fabulous artist for young students to learn about because her artwork is approachable and whimsical. With the Kusama collage lesson found inside The Sparklers’ Club, your students will love to create fun, dotted paper that they will turn into a playful flower collage.

Kusama Cat lesson is another great introduction for younger students who love mimicking Kusama as they create a unique, polka-dotted cat based on her series of polka-dotted animal sculptures.

Both of these lessons are found inside the Sparklers’ Club. Click HERE to join the waitlist and learn more.

If you would like more project ideas, follow us on Instagram @deepspacesparkle.com

Dot Day projects for younger students with Art Made Easy Podcast

What do you think?

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  • Raziya Swan

    I love it! 🙂

  • Susan

    Roy Lichtenstein too!

  • kforrest

    would you all please help me ? i am trying to print the article on how to paint dots and when i go to print, nothing is showing up. great project by the way.
    thanks,
    kim

    • Robyn

      I tried it too and it was blank. I decided to copy and paste the article into a Word Doc and print from there. Such a great idea and easy for my preschoolers to do!

    • Patty

      Thanks for letting us know. I clicked the Print button and it worked fine. Perhaps you can use Google Chrome?

      • jstopha

        I used Chrome and still got the blank pages.

  • Janey Campbell

    I would also use the paper with glued on tagboard dots for rubbing more dots.

  • lesliehebert93

    An old wine cork dipped in paint would make some amazing dots.

  • Gisella

    That was really fun, thanks!!

  • jhavendra

    it looks really nice

  • Jill

    What a fun project!

  • Marie-Louise

    Native Australian Aboriginal art have many beautiful examples of dot art.

  • Carol Phillips-Khan

    I like your ideas, Patty. Always, they are refreshing and upbeat happy projects. I’m going to work on your idea of using DOTS for dot day. Thank you. Carol, retired High School Art Teacher and owner of ART-WITH CAROL LLC.

  • Sarah McCormick

    Thank you for the Kusama reference, I had not made the connection, a big duh! I have a children’s book about her, too…
    I have a large class of preK 3/4 so sheets of sticky dots might be my rescue !

  • Anita Bhatty

    Love it Patty. I will be doing this next week. Thank you again and again.

  • bettyc.rivera

    Thank you for this lesson Patty!! I am learning so much from DSS!! Tomorrow is Sept. 15 and our first day of Art class. I am doing the Color Wheel Lion for 1 & 2 and they can use the dots to fill the negative space : )

    • Team Sparkle

      Hi Betty!!!

      Awesome choices🥰

  • Patty

    Love this idea. Could use in upper grades as well.

  • Terrece Crawford

    Awesome!!!

  • vicky swicegood

    LOVE IT!!

  • Graziella Dubacher

    Mega cool
    Das nehme ich gleich als Thema zu meiner Kunstwoche. Die Kinder sind zwischen 6-12 Jahre alt

  • Giezelle Benjamin

    I love it i want to learn more

  • Pamela Keller

    I love the Dot Day ideas. Could you tell me when Dot Day is? My K’s and 1st graders would love this!!
    Thank you so much for the ideas!!!

  • Lab

    Tried it before, most effective. Only problem getting kids to settle to task as they tended to keep enlarging dots to cover area more quickly.

  • Judy

    You have the BEST art for kids! Such clear instructions and fun too.

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