Dot Mandalas

A couple of weeks ago, After School Art Club dove into this fun and relaxing painting project.  (The inspiration for this project came from the Art Room Blog)

We started by reading The Dot by Peter Reynolds. 

​After reading the book aloud, we got out our tempera cake paints and painted some big colorful dots! Then we went around and around and around the dots until our paper was full of colors.

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I didn’t  expect this, but we also got to learn some color theory. Layers of paint  overlapped and formed new colors!

After letting the paint dry, I got out some black liquid tempera paint and we added patterns to our dot painting. In each layer of color, I encouraged them to experiment with different lines and shapes. I explained that what we were making — this circular design with repeating patterns -- is called a mandala. People all over the world create mandalas to help them relax, meditate and pray. 

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What started as a dot, turned into quite a lot!

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