Girls’ Camp Activity – Minerva Teichert Paint by Number Pointillism

When I saw this Girls’ Camp Activity, I immediately asked if I could share it. It is such an incredible object lesson. The young women had no idea what they were creating. Each girl was asked to complete a small paint by number on a piece of paper. Each paper looked like nothing but colored dots. But when it was all put together, the picture became clear. It was a gorgeous pointillism portrait of the Savior.

Allen Berg created the pattern and tiles, and then Miko Baca was nice enough to give further instructions on how she put it all together. Some other stakes have done this same activity as well. If you have done this project before, I would love to include any other tips or advice.

Girls’ Camp Activity Minerva Teichert Paint by Number Tutorial

Materials:

• Color copy of the template on card stock paper
• 3 bottles of acrylic paint per color
• Q-tips or small brushes for each girl
• Mini sauce cups with lids
• 6×4 foot plywood, foam board, corrugated plastic, or cardboard for the base
• Spray adhesive

Instructions:

1. Allen Berg created two templates. One for “Christ in a Red Robe” and one for “Rescue of the Lost Lambs.” I have heard that people are having trouble getting the files from his site. If you are unable to get the files, please contact me via this contact form and I can help get you a copy.

You can see the “Christ in a Red Robe” one above and the “Rescue of the Lost Lambs” should look something like this.

2. Print the PDF in color on regular card stock. The youth will need the color key on the side to know which colors to use. For this activity, Miko had them printed at Office Max to keep the colors consistent instead of using her home printer. There are 108 tiles (squares). PRO TIP: When printing on cardstock at a copy center, you can save a ton of money by bringing your own cardstock for them to print on instead of paying their cardstock rate.

3. After they are painted, each tile will be cut out and you will lose the labeling on the front. So make sure to label the grid letter and number on the back of each one.

4. Buy acrylic paints at your local craft store. They used the following colors, but you may need to substitute depending on what is available. The first page of the PDF includes swatches of all the colors that you can use to find alternative colors if needed.

A – espresso bean/burnt umber
B – charcoal/grey storm/pewter grey
C – burgundy
D – black
E – latte
F – rainy day grey
G – dark red
H – coffee
I – vivid pink
J – burlap
K – toile
L – pale grey
M – earth brown
N – taffeta pink
O – Christmas red
P – royal fuschia

Miko said she bought 4 bottles of paint per color and it was way more than they needed. She would recommend only buying three bottles per color. She ended up spending about $48 on paint.

5. Label each bottle of paint with the paint letter from the color key.

6. Get Q-tips for painting or small brushes. Miko bought two packs of Q-tips and then stuck them in plastic cups at the paint station.

7. Buy mini sauce cups with lids (Target, Amazon) to divide paints up for paint stations.

8. Label each mini sauce cup with the paint number. This worked out great because they had a big group and about 30 leftover tiles to finish. This allowed them to hand out the right paint color to each individual.

9. Have each girl paint the tile by dipping the Q-tip in the paint and making a dot on the corresponding paint letter. They had over 120 girls at Girl’s Camp for the 108 tiles. They set up 3 paint stations with the mini sauce cups, Q-tips, and tiles. It takes about 45 minutes to finish a tile. Not all the girls wanted to do one and some didn’t finish.

They broke the project up to give them time in between to finish the tiles and glue everything on. However, other Young Women groups who have done this and had each girl come up one by one to add their tiles to the plywood.

10. Once the tiles have dried, cut out each tile. Since the edges are jagged, this takes forever. It will be easier if you have each girl cut out their own tile.

11. Buy a piece of 6×4 foot plywood, foam board, corrugated plastic, or cardboard to use as the base. Miko used plywood and spray painted around the edges first to give it a frame.

12. Assemble the tiles in the right order using the key. Use a can of spray adhesive to glue the tiles to the board. As you glue and place tiles together, fill in any bare spaces with paint.

The Big Reveal

They didn’t tell the girls what they were painting, which made for a fun reveal later on. However, some girls threw their tiles away in the trash because they didn’t like how they turned out and didn’t know each tile would be needed. They had to count them all after they collected them and reprint the ones that were thrown away, about 7 or 8.

But they used the missing tiles as part of the object lesson at the reveal. They revealed the painting at the Girls’ Camp evening program with 4 empty tiles and then added the missing tiles as they spoke about how sometimes we feel like what we contribute doesn’t matter, won’t make a difference, we don’t show up or we get frustrated when we can’t see the bigger picture/plan of what God is doing in our life.

Miko said it was a TON of work, but definitely worth it. There were so many powerful lessons they were able to teach from it.

Rescue of the Lost Lambs

Natalie Jacobson did the “Rescue of the Lost Lambs” painting for her girls camp and it came out great!

Natalie said, “It was an incredible experience for the girls to paint and assemble. And then we literally had the Savior with us for the remaining days at camp, it was awesome! It added so much to our camp experience!… We displayed the picture in the church foyer a couple Sundays ago when I spoke in Sacrament Meeting, along with a few of the young women and another leader. It was awesome to have it there and for members of the ward to see something that we had worked so hard on!”

Thank you so much for sharing with us Natalie!

Looking for more ideas like this Girls’ Camp Activity?

See Young Women’s Activities