
In my art history class in college I was introduced to Georges Pierre Seurat. He quickly became one of my favorites along with Monet. This painting titled “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” was created by Seurat using a technique called pointillism.
Pointillism technique was developed in the late 1880’s as part of the Post Impressionist Movement. At that time many artists started using this technique which involved painting tiny distinct dots next to each other until the image is formed.
Seurat lived from 1859 – 1891 in Paris, France. He began working on this painting in the summer of 1884 at the age of 25. I remember seeing this painting on the large projector in the art history auditorium and was completely mesmerized by how beautiful it was and amazed it was painted with nothing more than a bunch of dots.
I loved this technique so much that I decided to give it a try. So I created this 5×7 inch Killer Whale image using a black fine tipped pen on paper. It was very tedious and my hand became pretty sore after just a short while. The entire image took me about a week to complete but l couldn’t imagine doing a very large painting like Seurat’s which measured 81.7×121.25ย inches and took 2 years to complete. I think my hand would fall off ๐
I must say that after creating my “little” piece of pointillism art, I had a whole new appreciation for the artists who used this Pointillism technique.
I hope this inspires you to create some art today! I’m taking a short break and will be back soon.
Thanks for stopping by!!!
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Your whale is just awesome! Pointilism caught my attention after seeing some of Seurat’s work online, and I’ve really had an itch to try a small piece when I get back to doing more painting in the fall. After hearing how tedious you found it, I don’t know how I’ll fare when I try it because I tend to be impatient if something takes me too long. But I’ll definitely be trying it. I love the concept of shadow and light formed by nothing but dots.
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Thanks Donna ๐Definitely give it a try. I would recommend doing small segments at a time to make it easier on the hand. Can’t wait to see what you create ๐
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I love your dot work. A beautiful whale. I can’t imagine having the patience for creating something like that. Well done!
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Thanks so much Sandra ๐ It took lots of patience and perseverance ๐
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Seurat, this is my favorite painting at the Art Institute in Chicago.
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Sadly I’ve never seen it in person, only reproductions. But it must be amazingly beautiful. Glad you were able to enjoy his work ๐๐
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