Pointillism Puffer Fish Drawing

This resource is designed to teach students how to use the pointillism technique to aid their experimental drawing skills, focusing on the Formal Elements TONE, FORM, TEXTURE, SHAPE and PATTERN, by producing a puffer fish drawing. It can be used for Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 students. On the sheet there is the learning objective, a description of what the pointillism technique is, and the task instructions. There is a pointillism tone bar starter task for students to practise the technique using varied tonal shading first, before beginning the main task. This is repeated in a different manner in an extension task where students create a ‘POINTILLISM’ title tone bar to reinforce their shading skills used. The main task has a puffer fish reference picture, with a separate space to draw their own image. This sheet is also designed to engage students in ‘looking and seeing’, exploring an experimental technique, and in using the following Formal Elements of art:

• TONE
• FORM
• TEXTURE
• SHAPE
• PATTERN

The resource is two PDF files; one with a ghost outline template to support the less able/less confident students, and one without for the more able/gifted and talented students. It has been designed to be used within a scheme of work, but is also suitable for a one off couple of lessons, and/or cover session(s). It takes approximately two lessons to complete, if being produced to a high standard. I usually print this resource on A3 cartridge paper and my students work directly onto the sheet. Their sheets are then stored in an A3 portfolio with integrated clear wallets to record and store their project journey in a professional folder.

I have created other work which accompanies this as part of a scheme, such as aquatic and natural form lesson/activity sheets, and other drawing based resources of varying subject matter, which you may wish to look at in my shop.