Bringing Children's Creativity to Life
Art Ideas.
Take a Line for a Walk.
Responding to Music.
Sky Paintings.
Working with Black & White.
Colour Mixing.
Mono Printing.
Start by choosing an art idea and begin your journey
of inspiration and imagination. We hope you find our collection of curriculum-based resources useful and inspiring! For more art-based ideas, get in touch with us today.
Art Ideas.
Skeleton Trees.
Traditional Aboriginal Paintings.
Take a Line for a Walk.
Combine awareness of the qualities of line with painting skills and looking at tones of a single colour.
Method:
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Have a look at the different qualities of line (e.g. flowing, fagged, angular, etc.).
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Choose your favourite type of line, and start at one edge of the paper, and draw across to the opposite edge.
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Create some variations in the line and make it obvious it is walking across the page.
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Repeat this at intervals until the whole page is divided up into sections. Do not put them too close together as it will take a long time to complete.
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Start with some white paint, and mix in a little of your chosen colour.
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Add more colour to make a darker tone and paint another section.
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Continue adding more colour, making darker tones and filling in each section until all are complete and the whole page is filled.
Materials:
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Sheet of paper.
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Soft drawing material (chalk, pencil, etc.).
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Some mixed paint in one colour plus white.
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Paintbrushes.
Sky Paintings.
Explore the use of painting tools and learn to mix colour tints, while looking at the work of Van Gogh.
Method:
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Start testing out your skills by mixing a bit of the white paint with a little bit of one of the blues on paper.
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Continue to mix different blues with white to create a whole range of different tints.
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Now you have a palette of shades, have a look at Van Gogh's 'Starry Night'. See the ranges of blues used in the piece, and how thickly the paint has been applied.
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Paint a sky inspired by Van Gogh using the range of blues you have made.
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Experiment in different ways, create some more blue variations with more red and purple, or more white, or use a glue spreader/lolly stick to apply the paint in larger amounts, just like the famous painter.
Materials:
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Thicker sheets of paper or card.
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Mixed paint - cool & warm blues, plus white.
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Paintbrushes.
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Glue spreader/lolly sticks pr a palette knife.
Responding to Music.
A great way to approach mark-making as it opens up a whole different way of working, where there can be no right or wrong ideas, as it is all down to your own personal interpretation.
Method:
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Fold your paper into sections and number them into however many music clips you have.
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Listen to the your first piece of music.
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Now, listen to it again, but this time move your arm and make marks in the air in response to what you are hearing, to get a feeling for the movements.
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Play the music once more, but this time translate your feeling for the music onto the paper using your choice of mark-making tool.
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Repeat this for all of your chosen pieces of music.
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Once you have filled out all of the sections, you then have the option to experiment further with different ideas like overlaying different pieces of music, or trying different mark-making tools.
Materials:
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Sheets of paper.
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Your choice of mark-making tools (e.g. chalk, pens, pastels, pencils, paints, etc.).
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A variety of pieces of music / music clips.
Working with Black & White.
Develop your awareness of different tonal values through the use of a very restricted colour palette.
Method:
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First practice by creating a whole rage of different tones by mixing small amounts of black and white paint. Aim to create as many shades of grey as you can.
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Have a look at a local landscape, use existing sketches or look at the work of a landscape artist to get some inspiration. Winter scenes could be a good focus point.
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Use some white chalk to lightly sketch out the scene onto the sugar paper.
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Start painting with purely white paint, and leave it to dry.
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Then, begin building up layers of the different tones you created from lightest to darkest.
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Use different sized brushes to add additional detail and depth where needed.
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When those layers are dry, add the darkest tones in black paint.
Materials:
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Sugar paper in black, white, or grey.
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Ready mixed paint in black and white.
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White chalk.
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A variety of different paint brushes.
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Clean water in pots.
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Mixing palette (or a piece of scrap card).
Mono Printing.
An exciting and immediate method of printmaking where every print is unique. Mono means 'one' hence the name Mono Printing.
Method:
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Set up your printing surface ready for use.
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Spread some paint over the surface (a sponge brush works well for this).
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Draw into the paint using your tools, like your finger, spreader, etc. - this will remove some paint.
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Lay a sheet of paper over the design.
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Smooth gently over the back of the paper with a flat hand, to transfer the paint from the surface to the paper.
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Life up the paper starting from one corner until fully removed.
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Leave to dry face up.
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Spread more paint onto the surface and repeat these steps for a new print.
Materials:
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Smooth flat surface (e.g. Inking tray or a table top covered with some plastic).
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Quite thick ready mixed paints of different colours (mix with PVA glue if not thick enough).
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A variety of tools, like glue spreaders, scrapers, plain paper, etc.
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Plain paper.
Colour Mixing.
Yellow and blue make green, but which yellow and which blue? Practise and refine your colour mixing skills then investigate the ways artists painted trees.
Method:
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Choose a blue and yellow and try to mix together a bight, mid green.
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Once you have mixed your first choice of colours at your chosen amounts, see what colour has come out, and think what different ones you could make.
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Repeat this process to see however many different shades you can create. Maybe set yourself a time limit of 10 minutes or so as a challenge.
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Have a look at the different pieces of art you have collected of painted trees, and draw inspiration from their styles.
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Think about how the artists may have achieved the look they desired (e.g. lines, thick splats, dabs, etc.).
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Now, using the colours you made, and your new found inspiration, paint your own tree.
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Maybe try layering your colours on top of one another to create both new colours and to make foliage look more natural.
Materials:
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Plain or neutral coloured paper.
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Ready mixed paint in: Lemon Yellow, Mid Yellow, Cyan, and Ultramarine (or similar paints).
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Paintbrushes.
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Images of paintings showing tress in lots of different styles.
Traditional Aboriginal Paintings.
Develop your awareness of different tonal values through the use of a very restricted colour palette.
Method:
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Research and look into aboriginal paintings and decide on the symbol and colour palette you would like to use. Choose something which represents your own life (e.g. family, pets, hobbies, etc.).
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Once decided, sketch your symbol very lightly onto the paper in white chalk.
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Mix your chosen colours on a palette or scrap card.
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Choose an appropriate brush, and paint the main symbol in the centre.
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While drying, consider how to fill the rest of the paper - aboriginal artists often use dots in their artwork.
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Experiment with different tools to make dots (e.g. cotton buds, paint brushed, small sponges, etc.).
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Dots are usually applied in several tones of one colour, so mix these before starting to paint your dots. Don't forget to include white in your colour selection.
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Apply the first line of dots by outlining the central symbol in one of the chosen colours.
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Choose the next tone and add the next row of dots next to the first.
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Repeat this process until the whole sheet of paper is filled.
Materials:
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Sugar paper in black, white, or grey.
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Ready mixed paint in black and white.
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White chalk.
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A variety of different paint brushes.
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Clean water in pots.
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Mixing palette (or a piece of scrap card).
Skeleton Trees.
Create strange and isolated landscapes in silhouette using ink and wash techniques. Ideal for illustrating creative writing or as a starting point for the use of descriptive language.
Method:
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Brush across the whole page with clean water.
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Immediately put a wash of watercolour on top of the wet paper allowing the colours to bleed into each other.
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Allow the paper to dry completely.
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Paint a line of lack ink along the bottom of paper and use a drinking straw to blow the ink upwards into shapes.
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Aim to make the shapes look like spiky branches if possible.
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If necessary, add another line of black ink on top of the first one and continue to blow the ink up the paper into tree shapes.
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Allow to dry completely before mounting and putting on display.
Materials:
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Thick A4 paper.
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Watercolour paints.
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Paintbrushes.
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Clean water.
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Black ink.
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Drinking straws.
