Pittington Primary School

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Art and Design at Pittington

Expressive Arts and Design

Nursery

In the Nursery, the children have had opportunities to explore a whole range of materials including natural materials that they found outside. They experimented with colours, textures and investigated the properties of different materials.

The children developed their skills using scissors and other simple tools.

Reception

The children in the Reception Class have developed their art and design skills and have showcased them in their very own Dot Art Gallery, to which the whole school was invited to visit.

They have practised mixing shades of colours in paint and chalk.

They used the story of The Tiger Who Came to Tea and their interests in the Artic to create masterpieces.

National Curriculum

Year 1

During the autumn term, the children studied the artists Claude Monet and Henri Rousseau.

They painted Monet inspired seaside scenes and then used quick, thick brushstrokes to create a whole class poppy canvas.

The children also looked closely at the paintings of Henri Rousseau which were inspired by his love of the Botanical Gardens in Paris. Using the painting, ‘Tiger in a Storm,’ they created their own work using complimentary colours.

During the Spring term the children looked at the works of Paul Cezanne and J.M.W. Turner.

The children have practised their painting and drawing skills using inspiration from Paul Cezanne’s paintings. They used different shades of green and brown pastels and focussed on light and texture. The children learned how to add white pastels to show light in their art work.

The children have used crayons to create texture in their work. They created their own Sunset painting using different sides of the crayon to create texture.

Year 2

Through the theme of ‘In the Dark of the Night,’ the children in Year 2 have been looking at the art work of Artemisia Gentileschi. They were challenged to mix as many gloomy shades and different shades of grey that they could.

The researched Artemisia Gentileschi and analysed her art work. They used their information to create a fact file about her.

The children experimented with pastels to show light and dark in a baroque style. Using their art and design skills and their knowledge of how light in paintings can symbolise hope, magic, comfort and happiness, the children created their own artwork with a light source. Their use of the lantern as an image was inspired by their learning in History of how George Stephenson created the safety lamp for miners in 1815.

Later in the term the children looked at how Van Gogh used dark backgrounds with bright colours to symbolise light. They recreated his painting ‘Starry Night’ as a collage using wool, wax crayons and poster paint. Using Van Gogh’s love of swirls, they created a string printing block to create tiles for printing.

The children also looked at artists who liked to paint landscapes. They compared and contrasted the work of John Ndambo and John Constable.

During the Spring term, the children explored the work of the artist Georgia O’Keefe. They created a warm and cold collage using flowers and plants. They also painted a flower in the style of this artist.

As part of the same theme, the children looked at the sculpture work of Marc Quinn. As a modern day artist, he paints and sculpts flowers on a large scale. Using his work as an inspiration, they created flower sculptures using aluminium foil.

More recently the children have looked closely at the work of Georges Seurat and his use of pointillism. They experimented with this technique themselves.

Year 3

The children in Year 3 started the autumn term by looking at the art work of Leonardo da Vinci. They found out a great deal about his life and his work.

They found out that Da Vinci used the sfumato technique to create his masterpieces. The children experimented with this technique.

During the second part of the autumn term, the children looked at the work of L.S. Lowry and observed the features of his work.

They practised drawing matchstick men using charcoal in the style of Lowry. It was not easy trying to capture the movement of the different people.

Finally, we created our own industrial scene in the style of Lowry using different tones of colour.

In the spring term, we learned about the artist Rosa Bonheur. We discovered that she loved to draw animals and perfected her technique of painting animals’ fur. Her most famous painting was ‘the Horse Fair.’ As women were not allowed to attend horse fairs, she dressed up as a man so that she could get into the horse fair to sketch horses.

We looked at the collage work of Megan Coyle and how she used different types of materials to create images and texture. We used paper to create our own collage animals.

The children have also looked at the work of Wassily Kandinsky. They used digital paint to create their own abstract art inspired by Kandinsky.

Year 4

The children started their art and design work in Year 4 by looking at the work of Edvard Munch. They looked carefully at the flowing lines of the background to create thoughts and feelings and used watercolours to create their own background wash using colours to represent the mood of the painting.

During the second part of the autumn term the children looked at the Art Deco style of painting and focussed on the work by Tamara de Lempicka.

The children were asked to look closely at examples of her paintings, paying particular attention to her choice of colour, lines and the subject matter. They recognised her use of bold lines, angles, light and shadows. They noted that all of her subjects in the paintings were women.

The children looked at shapes and patterns in Art Deco design.

The children created their own Art Deco inspired tiles using the computer Paint 3D. They included bold colours, sunburst motifs, geometric shapes and aspects of symmetry.

They extended their knowledge of Art Deco art to explore the work of the French artist, Rene Lalique. The children created their own Lalique inspired glassware.

During the Spring term the children in Year 4 looked at the art work of Robert McCall and his painting The Metropolis 2050. His work has been praised for creating a feeling of optimism and a sense of hope for the future.

Robert McCall used light in his paintings very effectively using cross hatching. The children drew spheres to practise cross hatching skills to show light and dark.

The children created their own futuristic visions on canvas using brightly coloured paint. Their canvases were not quite as large as Robert McCall’s but still captured our hopes and dreams for the future.

Year 5

The children in Year 5 started the year with looking at the work of Salvador Dali and his surrealism art. They looked at examples of his art work and noted the techniques that he used in his work.

They created their own examples of surrealism art.

The children looked at the art work of Andy Warhol and identified the key features of his work.

They produced their own Pop Art inspired Christmas card.

During the spring term, the children looked at the work of the architect, Zaha Hadid. They researched her life and some of her building designs.

Using some of Zaha Hadid’s designs as inspiration, the children designed their own buildings and created a model of their design.

The children explored a unit of work called Capturing Conflict and looked at the art work of Paul Nash. They looked at how he captures images of war and how there was usually an image of hope included in the painting. Using this, they created their own images capturing conflict.

Year 6

During the first part of the Autumn term, the children in Year 6 looked at the painting ‘Composition C with Red, Yellow and Blue’ by Mondrian and how it was used as inspiration by Yves St Laurent in 1965 to create six cocktail dresses. The children had to design an item of clothing inspired by the piece of art.

The children also experimented with the colours and lines from the painting to create different effects.

The children learned about Futuristic Art and looked at the work ‘Street Light’ by Giacomo Balla. The children created their own street light scene in the Futuristic style.

They then copied the style of Umberto Boccioni and created a sculpture capturing dynamics and movements in a Futuristic style.

During the autumn term the children looked at the work of El Greco and his painting of The Last Supper. Using the light and dark shades in the painting, the children recreated their own version of The Last Supper.

Year 6 also used air drying clay to created El Greco inspired faces. They focussed on using different hand building techniques, such as pinching, and used a variety of tools to construct the features of the face.

Nursery

We have been enjoying our work about growth and change. We painted some pictures of the sunflowers we had in a vase. We used different shades of yellow for the petals and used some different textures to add the centre of the flower. We talked about the different textures in the pots including flakes, sand, grit and sequins.

During our work about space we created our own planets. We noticed that the different planets were different colours and had different patterns. We used blobs of paint on our planet shapes and then used rollers with different patterns and textures to spread the paint creating different effects. We also experimented with wax crayons and a black colour wash. We drew a space scene using wax crayons and then painted on a black colour wash. The black paint created a background and did not cover the wax drawings which showed through. We have also experimented with different tools to paint including rollers.

We have taken part in various crafts including making Father’s Day cards and alien masks.

Our most recent topic was looking at the continent of Africa. We talked about the different animals that live here and the different patterns and colours they have. We used collage to create those patterns and colours.

Reception

Wood

We have been looking at how wood is being used in art. We handled wooden decorative items and researched unique wooden artwork. The children then used wood cut-offs to make their own masterpieces combining different media. The children were intrigued when they realised that we can use more than paper to represent our artistic ideas.

Paper Art

We have been talking about recycling and reducing waste.

We have been using paper in lots of different ways to encourage the children to re-use what they believe needs to be thrown away. We even started some ‘torn paper art’. The children are reusing old paper from the recycling bin, scraps from the art rooms, unwanted newspaper etc to create new artwork. They are learning the skills to visualise what they want to create and them make it by ripping or tearing paper in different ways to create a collage. The children even named their masterpieces! We looked at some artwork by an artist called Kurt Schwitters who made collage artwork from rubbish he found on streets!

Kurt Schwitters

Year 1

In the first half of the summer term, the year 1 children were learning about the artist William Blake and were inspired by his dreams and nightmares work. We created our own version of his ‘Dreams’ picture using pastels and pencil work.

We learnt about surrealism and took inspiration from Salvador Dali to create some amazing crayon pictures.

We looked at the sculpture The angel of the North and drew our own ink silhouette sunset of the angel. We designed our own balloon sculpture and went on to create a papier Mache balloon.

The second half of the summer term was spent focussing on self-portrait work. We created our own versions of pop art portraits, whilst taking inspiration from Andy Warhol and Roy Liechtenstein. We then used footballer and campaigner Marcus Rashford as our inspiration to create a pastel portrait.

Year 2

Year 2 have been inspired by the work of Ivan Aivazovsky and have created their own seascape scenes using different media. Seascape art gives a feeling of peace, calm and light and makes people feel relaxed. We used calming sea music as inspiration when producing our work.

We studied the work of Robin Mead and worked with watercolours, using our knowledge of complimentary colours to enhance our paintings. We then went on to use a black felt tip outline to produce a bold effect.

We created printing blocks with swirls and ripples to create a wave print.

We mastered the art of blending and layering when using pastels to produce our own silhouette seascape scene.

Year 3

During this summer term in Art, year 3 have been inspired by the artwork of Holbein and Pissarro. We have developed our idea about how Holbein painted life-like images of royalty and could paint them full size, which we saw when taking a virtual tour of art galleries, and also in miniature form as seen in virtual tours of museums.

A major painting focus was to copy Holbein’s technique of using of light and darkness to create 3d effects of realism.

The children have also been practising other techniques and in the final weeks of this summer term will re-visit printing repeated patterns, and to shape and stitch materials, the latter of which links with our DT textiles project.

We are currently learning Pissarro’s different painting technique and have practised more with colour mixing, short, loose brushstrokes to create smears and dashes which help create the sense of movement. In the final week of this summer term we will be using the techniques practised using pastels and paint to recreate his painting of Montmartre at night.

Year 4

Year 4 created collage figures, carefully selecting the right materials for an installation inspired by the multimedia abstract art of Joan Jonas. These figures then formed part of an installation involving vide, audio and collage work depicting scenes from the Greek myth Theseus and the Minotaur. The children had to choose between a range of different fabrics and paper cut from magazines to best represent each character from the story.

Year 5

In art in Year 5 we have continued to enjoy our progression through our new art curriculum. We have experienced the focus areas of ‘Exploring Expressionism’ and ‘The Power of Love’. Our focus artists have been Henri Matisse and Auguste Rodin.

As a class, we found ourselves inspired by the bold, confident brush strokes and colour choices made by Matisse in his portraits and looked to explore these elements in our own artwork. We worked on accurate proportions when sketching faces and then applied Matisse’s style elements to create out own portraits. We also looked at the impressionist style of collage used by Matisse and reflected rainforest imagery in this style. More recently, we have focused upon the sculpture work of Rodin and are exploring the sketching of the human frame.

Year 6

The first half of the Summer Term focused on the history of the anatomy of Art. Y6 were asked to reproduce Dürer’s Praying Hands, focusing on the topography. Using this skill, we then attempted to draw our own young hands. Can you tell which is which?

For the second half of the term, we explored Cultural Art. After looking at patterns typical of African art, we focused upon the contemporary artist, Richard Kimbo, who is especially acclaimed for his work with batik. We admired the detail in his fabrics and we zoomed in on one area of our choice to recreate with coloured pencils. It was tricky but we did a great job!

Nursery

The Nursery children have enjoyed using paint in different ways. They have painted pictures of bears using different sized brushes and used brushes to splatter paint to make their Easter cards. The children were introduced to powder paint and enjoyed experimenting with mixing different colours. We talked about both primary and secondary colours as well as looking at paint charts together.

During our work about ‘The Three Little Pigs’ we made houses using different materials such as straw and sticks. We talked about the different textures of these materials. During our work about the seasons we used pastels to make an observational drawing of some daffodils. The children enjoyed exploring and soon found that they could easily smudge the pastel colours.

Reception

Colours in the snow!

We have been experimenting with colours in the snow.

The children used their knowledge of colour mixing with paint to predict what would happen. We added blue and red food colouring together which made purple coloured snow! We then used yellow and blue which turned the snow green. Francesca said, “If you mix red and white together it makes pink!” so we also tried this.

We added red food colouring to the white snow to see if it would make pink. We discovered that the snow stayed red although it got paler when we added more snow. BUT if we were using paint (instead of snow) then white and red mixed together would certainly make PINK!

Plasticine

The children have been exploring and manipulating plasticine to create new effects. They have been experimenting with position, form, and texture by squashing, rolling and imprinting.

Drawing what you can see!

We have been looking at observational drawings and drawing what the eyes can see rather than we think an object should look like.

Year 1

In the first half of the Spring term the year 1 children were learning all about the French Artist Paul Cezanne. He specialised in still life and using light to make his paintings more interesting. In this unit we practised drawing different types of fruits and looked at proportion and size. We then used shiny fruits like tomatoes and oranges set up with a spot lamp to show a clear light source. We then drew the two fruits and used white paint to show exactly where the light was shiny on the fruit. We briefly looked at collage and used small squares of card in different colours to build up our fruit bowl concentrating on size. For our final piece of work we used a full fruit bowl of all the fruits we had worked with and pastels to create a still life picture. We used the skill of smudging to show the direction of where the light was coming from. We were very proud of our finished pictures.

The children at home during lockdown were also able to join in with our art unit and below is an example of a teaching video Mrs Rowell sent home when we completed our final piece using pastels. In the first half of the Spring term the year 1 children were learning all about the French Artist Paul Cezanne. He specialised in still life and using light to make his paintings more interesting. In this unit we practiced drawing different types of fruits and looked at proportion and size. We then used shiny fruits like tomatoes and oranges set up with a spot lamp to show a clear light source. We then drew the two fruits and used white paint to show exactly where the light was shiny on the fruit. We briefly looked at collage and used small squares of card in different colours to build up our fruit bowl concentrating on size. For our final piece of work we used a full fruit bowl of all the fruits we had worked with and pastels to create a still life picture. We used the skill of smudging to show the direction of where the light was coming from. We were very proud of our finished pictures.

The children at home during lockdown were also able to join in with our art unit and below is an pastels.

During this half term, our spotlight artist has been JMW Turner. We have researched his life and works and studied his romanticism style of art.

We have been learning about warm and cool colours and have thought about how they reflect our mood and feelings.

We have worked with water colours, practising our skills whilst using thick and thin brushstrokes. We used the painting 'Norham Castle, sunrise' as inspiration to create our own sunrise picture.

Year 2

Year 2 have been inspired by the work of Georgia O’Keefe this term. The children both at home and in the classroom have learned about her life, her work and some of the techniques she used.

The children have sketched a range of different flowers looking closely at line, shape and detail. They have used wax crayons, poster paints and water colours to explore colour and texture in their work.

They have photographed flowers closely mirroring the work of O’Keefe by filling the page with close up shots using an ipad.

In our work on sculpture we made our own playdough and made flowers from our imaginations. We looked at the work of artist Marc Quinn, particularly his flower sculptures made from metal. We experimented with aluminium foil and made our own flower sculptures – although not quite to the scale of Marc Quinn’s work!

The snow this term presented us with a blank canvas so we talked about the work of street artists and the scale at which they can work. We had lots of fun filling spray bottles with food colouring and water and created our own masterpieces using all of our observation work on flowers and the work of the artists studied.

Year 3

Every few weeks during the first two months of this half term, the year 3 children who were home learning received activities that helped them to continue accessing the art curriculum. The children both at home and in the classroom explored the animals of Bonheur’s paintings and inspired by recent examples of dog drawings were encouraged to observe their pets and draw them.

Some children then used their artwork to create a collage. In the weeks that children returned to the classroom we considered the textures that they would need to be able to recreate a whole class collage of a giraffe.

Then we focussed on the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, learned more about two of his paintings that incorporated rainbows and have the intention just before the Easter break to re-create a yellow, red and blue circles painting in his style, with geometric shapes and bright colours.

Year 4

Year 4 have been studying the work of artist Robert McCall who was famed for his huge space murals depicting futuristic worlds. The class worked on their sketching skills, annotating them with notes. They also experimented with cross hatching shading to show light and shadow. They finally created their futuristic visions on canvas using bright vibrant colours reflecting McCall’s view that space was an optimistic place full of bright possibilities.

Year 5

In art in Year 5 we have continued to enjoy our progression through our new art curriculum. We have experienced the focus areas of ‘Amazed by Architecture’ and ‘Capturing Conflict’. Through our use of the out online learning platform, these topic opportunities have been provided for home learners as well as those who have been learning in school through the lockdown period. This has included the use online video which was recorded in the classroom.

We were all truly ‘Amazed by Architecture’ and some of the discussions by the class about Zaha Hadid’s work have been engaging and inspiring. The children were really enthused by the subject matter and work of this architect. We were able to explore a range of her work, identifying elements of style and forming our own opinions upon them. We explored architectural sketching and this ended in a commission to design either a new school, football stadium or equestrian centre for Pittington .The children created their designs and were then asked to create model structures of them just like actual architects. If we are ever in a position of building a new school then we have some super ideas at the ready – take note Miss Wigham and school governors.

More recently, we have been inspired by the intriguing war art of Paul Nash. We have explored his work, making links to our earlier art focus of surrealism, and have begun forming our own ideas for a piece of work about either the Blitz or evacuation.

Year 6

During the first half of the Spring Term, Year 5 looked at the work of El Greco. We researched his paintings and discovered that he used to paint figures with elongated faces. We experimented with this style.

We choose people who inspired us and drew their portrait. We then sliced the portrait up into three sections and glued them down on paper leaving distinct gaps between each section. We then completed the portrait by filling in the spaces between each of the section to create El Greco inspired paintings.

We then explored the concept of Realism and focussed on the work of Gustave Courbet. We experimented with showing emotions through images using a range of media: pastels, watercolours and charcoal.

Art and Design in the Early Years

Nursery

During our learning about Autumn and Harvest the children became interested in the colours and patterns of the leaves that they found. We talked about art in nature and the different colours and patterns that you can find. We looked at the work of Andy Goldsworthy and tried to create some natural art like him in the garden. On our Autumn walk on the field we collected fallen leaves and then used these to make a leaf hedgehog. We talked about how to choose and stick the leaves so that they looked like the hedgehogs spines. We have also been experimenting with paint using different colours and different sized brushes. We enjoyed doing an observational painting of some fruits and vegetables. The children have also been keen cut and stick and explore collage art. They have made collage dresses to coincide with our book ’10,000 Dresses’ and talked about texture when using fur material to make a bear inspired by the book ‘We’re Going On a Bear Hunt’.

Reception

We have been researching African landscapes and art work. We looked closely at the detail on African leaf pictures that have been made using banana leaves…we attempted our own!

We have been exploring colour mixing, printing, cutting, sticking and joining when using the art room to create and design.

Art and Design in Key stage 1

Year 1

The children in Year 1 focussed on the work of Claude Monet, who painted using thick paint and used quick, often messy, brushstrokes. The children looked at how Monet used thick dabs and blobs of paint. They created seaside paintings and used tints to make different shades of blue to paint the waves. Year 1 children experimented with thick paint to create their own canvas work inspired by Claude Monet’s painting ‘Poppy Fields.’

In the second half of the term, the children enjoyed exploring the work of Henri Rousseau. They created leaf prints using different shaped leaves and hand prints. They also worked on their skills and sketched tigers, which were inspired by the painting Tiger in a tropical storm.

Year 2

In art this term we have been looking at how light and shade is used in paintings. We have learned to create a dark wash background and experimented with spraying light coloured paint to create the effect of stars in a night sky. We have flicked and dripped paint to create a splattering of light on a dark background and added pattern and texture by adding dots and lines with different sized brushes.

We have analysed the painting ‘Starry Night’ by Van Gough and recreated explosions of colour contrasting dark and light colours using paint and pastels.

We have recapped our knowledge of primary colours from year 1 and created colour wheels by mixing primary colours to produce secondary colours.

In the second half of the autumn term we looked at landscape artists. We compared the landscape paintings of John Constable with John Ndambo. We created our own African Landscapes using pastels.

Art & Design in Key Stage 2

Year 3

Year 3 would like to share with you examples of art, both finished pieces and when we’ve been practising to improve skills learned in key stage 1.

When comparing Leonardo Da Vinci and LS Lowry we learnt that examples of Da Vinci’s artwork can be seen in museums and art galleries in this country, especially his sketches. Lowry’s art showed life in the region of England where he grew up and lived. Both artists painted portraits, but their techniques differed from realism with softened features to bold outlines of forward-facing people.

We have used their techniques by using pastels for the sfumato effect and acrylic paint that can be picked at to create texture. Hopefully, we will complete a whole class interpretation of Lowry’s painting named ‘Coming from the Mill’.

Year 4

Children in Year 4 have focussed on symbolism, in particular, The Scream by Edvard Munch. They explored the use of paint in flowing lines to express their own thoughts and emotions. The children created their own version of The Scream using the same open brush strokes as Munch. They also worked with pastels, paying particular attention to their blending and layering skills.

In the second half of the term, the children have been inspired by Art Deco, they researched art deco over the years and evaluated the designs of buildings, jewellery and paintings. The children have looked at 3d effects and created posters inspired by art deco. They designed their own Art Deco pattern, which they then painted onto a ceramic tile.

Year 5

In art in Year 5 we have explored the focus areas of surrealism and pop art. This has included competing artist studies on both Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. With surrealism, we explored the use of imagery in the artwork and how dark colours for the backgrounds help to draw attention to bright foregrounds. With pop art, we have explored tertiary colours and have used popular images and logos to inspire our painting and printing.

Year 6

For Y6, the first half of the Autumn Term was spent learning about art in fashion and how Mondrian’s designs inspired Yves St Lauren in the 1960s, so we designed our own fashion item in a similar style.

We also studied abstract art and took a topical image and made it into a Mondrian style painting.

In the second half of the Autumn Term, we studied Futurism art. We recreated Balla’s ‘Street Light’ painting using the divisionism technique.

We then made sculptures to reflect dynamism inspired by Boccioni’s ‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’ sculpture.

Art and Design in the Early Years

Nursery

The children have been focusing on traditional tales and have created some artwork based around ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. We looked at different materials and shapes which could make the pigs’ houses and then experimenting with designing and making our own house pictures using collage, straw and paint effects. We also used some goat outlines and explored using different textures and patterns to create our own goat designs. We particularly enjoyed using fur, patterned wallpaper and dot patterns. We all created our own goats and then talked about our artwork during group time.

We have also been looking at the season of spring. The children looked for signs of spring in the Nursery garden. We talked about spring flowers such as daffodils and tulips. We had some spring flowers in Nursery and looked at them carefully with magnifying glasses, we named parts of the flowers and then painted them. We tried to include the stem, petals and leaves in our paintings.

Reception

We have been using art to support our learning in all areas.

We have looked closely at non-fiction books and on-line photographs of animals in the world around us. The children have created observational drawings of animals that interest them. We have explored colour and sketching techniques to make our drawings as realistic as possible.

We have also been looking at shape art to support our learning in mathematics. We have used two dimensional and three dimensional shapes in a range of ways to make artistic models and sculptures.

Art and Design in Key Stage 1

Year 1

Throughout the Spring Term we have been exploring different artists. We have looked at how they can specialise in a different areas, for example, Andy Goldsworthy. Andy uses natural materials to create his pieces of art, which include sculptures and land art. Andy Goldsworthy has been a favourite with the children and they have loved creating their own art with natural materials both in school and at home.

Year 2

During the first half of the term in year 2, we studied the work of the artist and sculptor Alexander Calder. We sketched our own animals, using a backwards and forwards sketching technique, then traced them, using a single line sketch. We then created flat wire sculptures of the animals. We also enjoyed using watercolours to create a silhouette effect of our animals in their natural habitats.

During the second half of the term we focussed on one particular sculpture, ‘The angel of the North' created by Sir Antony Gormley. We learned how he used a cast of his own body to create the angel. We created our own pictures of the angel using pastels and learned how to layer and blend, using the pastels and our finger as a tool. We also enjoyed sketching the angel.

We are looking forward to creating a whole class sculpture using clay, inspired by Antony Gormley's The Field.

Art and Design in Key Stage 2

Year 3

In year 3 the children researched the artwork from Norman Cornish, the architect Daniel Libeskind and designer James Dyson. In our sketchbooks we improved our skills at using the complete page with multiple sketches rather than one single drawing per page. We researched the sketchbook of Axel Scheffler who was the illustrator for the Julia Donaldson's Gruffalo books to help improve our confidence to practise our skills on a single sheet without starting all over again or turning to a new page.

The children also looked carefully at leaves and produced observational drawings using pastels.

Year 4

In art in Year 4 we have explored the focus area of steampunk robots. This has included looking how to develop clear lines within our sketching and observational drawings of machine parts. We have also looked to design our own robots in the steampunk style and created artwork which features them.

Year 5

Our art work this term has been inspired by our class reader ‘Journey to the River Sea’ and our Geography work on South America. In collage we looked carefully at the shapes and colours of plants and their leaves in the Amazon Rainforest. We sketched outline shapes, did wax rubbings of leaves in our environment and explored mixing different shades of green with paint.

We also looked at animals living in The Amazon Rainforest and massively improved our drawing through careful observation and watching video clips with instructions and visual demonstrations. Our sketchbooks clearly show progression over time as well as rapid progression within one lesson – take a look at this example within 1 lesson of how someone in our class improved in their work on a red eyed tree frog – amazing!

As an introduction to symmetry in maths we made Blue Morpho Butterflies with paint and folding paper. We then looked at the details on the wings and sketched the lines, adding areas of light and shade with coloured pencils. Our next step in sculpture was to create Blue Morpho sculptures in clay – school closed but the children were each given some clay to take home and continue this during home learning. I look forward to seeing the results!

We also looked at drawing from different perspectives and chose a toucan as the subject for this. We then experimented with showing motion and drawing birds in flight, then combined this with our work on toucans to show them flying through the sky.

We then put all of our learning together to create large scale pieces of art work showcasing all of our new skills. Well done year 5 I feel like we’ve been to the Amazon Rainforest this term!

Year 6

In Art this term, Y6 have focussed on activism art, in particular the works of artist Frank Shepard Fairey, who is an activism artist and also has his own clothing range.

We created our own activism posters which focussed on environmental issues, animal rights, LGBT, equality and many other issues.

Whilst reflecting on our own beliefs and values we then went on to draw self- portraits. We learned how to proportion the face and use different shading and smudging techniques to create a realistic portrait of ourselves. We then placed tracing paper over our self -portrait and created some vibrant pointillism self- portraits.

As a class we feel strongly about using art to express ourselves and decided to create Tie dye clothes using our own designs. We used different techniques such as folding, swirling, and marbling to create the most amazing t shirts!

In January we were invited to Belmont Community School to experience an art lesson. We worked collaboratively to produce a piece of work by experimenting and exploring a range of mark making techniques.