Dot Art Sticker Seurat by Yoni Alter Review

Reviewed by Helen Wyatt

I’ve always enjoyed art but never been especially good at creating my own works of art. As a child I would sketch and paint occasionally but aside from the odd paint by numbers kit, I didn’t ever really pursue art further than that. If I had had something like the sticker dot art books when I was a kid, perhaps things may have been different! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that putting stickers into a book would have made me a master but having a book that could guide me through creating some artwork that simply and beautifully replicated works of the old masters may have piqued my interest in art just that little bit further.

The 28-page book is just a little bit bigger than A4, and the cover clearly shows you that it is a dot art book, allowing you to recreate Seurat’s masterpiece using stickers. A simple concept, but this book, in association with the National Gallery, talks you through how the artist used colour to create vibrant and luminous scenes. When you open the pack, you have a large 79.5 x 53cm poster and 3200 coloured stickers spread over 14 sheets. The reader firstly is introduced to a brief informative essay, then you can immerse yourself into the task of matching the little circular coloured stickers to the outlines on the poster in order to recreate Georges Seurat’s Bathers at Asnieres.

The book has a very useful design feature of a folder-style flap in the front cover so you can store everything away when you’re done and get it all out again the next time you’re ready to carry on being Seurat! This keeps everything nice and tidy, and as long as you have the space to lay the poster out, you can really do this work anywhere. What is quite reassuring is that there is no need to be exactly precise with the placement of the stickers. If you did, I think this would drive me a bit mad as I would feel the need to stick/peel/restick until each sticker was placed exactly right. This poster allows you to be imprecise but still achieve the same result. Once the poster is complete you can proudly display it on your wall! It’s amazing to watch the colours build up and gradually reveal the picture which is so famous. It’s so clever how little dots of colour can create something like this, and it really impressed me.

This isn’t just a solitary activity; you could easily work on this with someone else such as your child, and enjoy this relaxing and entertaining book together, to wind down at the end of a busy day or on a weekend, making it a perfect Christmas gift for either an individual or a family. This would be suitable for an adult or a child and would be an excellent chill out activity for Christmas afternoon.

Along with the Seurat book, you can also get a sticker book of Van Gogh’s A Wheatfield with Cypresses. The dot art sticker books are available from the National Gallery bookshop and all good bookstores (RRP: £10.99).

I would recommend this as a relaxing purchase for yourself, for any arty child, or as a Christmas gift for the budding artist in your life.

Rating: 5/5

RRP: £10.99 (paperback)

Available to buy from www.nationalgallery.co.uk.