Willingham Primary School Blog Feed - Art Blog

Year 5/6: Still Life Paintings, part 2

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 11:58:02 GMT

The next stage in our unit on Giorgio Morandi was to add colour. We used poster paint. Morandi is known for using tints and paler colours but the children were able to choose a colour scheme of their own. You may notice that many of these photographs were taken on Sports Relief Day when the children were not wearing school uniform.

Year 5/6: Still Life Paintings

Sun, 8 Mar 2020 16:38:35 GMT

Over this half-term, the Year 5/6s will be learning about still life paintings and taking their inspiration from Giorgio Morandi, a 20th Century Italian painter and printmaker who created more than 1,300 calm and contemplative still life paintings in oil.

Year 3 & 4: Cityscapes, part 1

Sun, 8 Mar 2020 15:14:22 GMT

The Year 3s and 4s have been looking at cityscapes in the history of art and are creating a picture of their own from their imagination and experience of skyscrapers and interesting buildings in London and other cities that they have visited.

Year 3 & 4: Van Gogh Sunflowers

Sun, 8 Mar 2020 09:41:00 GMT

The Year 3s and 4s have been studying the use of colour in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and in the last few lessons, have been looking in detail at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, specifically the version known as F456. They went on to paint their own pictures of sunflowers using some of the features that they had observed in the focus painting.

Year 3 & 4: Colour Wheels

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 18:48:47 GMT

This half-term, the Year 3s and 4s will be looking more closely at colour theory. We will go on to consider the use of colour in Impressionist paintings but in the first few lessons, we will be creating our own colour wheel.

Year 3 & 4: Greek Pots

Mon, 9 Mar 2020 21:12:33 GMT

In their history topic, the Year 3s and 4s have been studying Ancient Greece. In art, we have been making monster pots but in the last few lessons of the half-term, we are learning about Ancient Greek pots and creating a pot design of our own.

Year 5/6: Gillian Ayres

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 17:43:00 GMT

The Year 5/6s have been studying Abstract Art and in the last two weeks of term, have looked at Kandinsky’s influence on other artists, the development of Abstract Expressionism in 20th Century America and at the work of British artist, Gillian Ayres (1930 - 2018).

High Summer World of Light (2009)

Year 5/6: Wassily Kandinsky, part 2

Mon, 9 Mar 2020 18:58:20 GMT

Having spent some time working in sketchbooks, the next task for the pupils was to evaluate their work so far and decide on a final design for their finished piece.

Year 3 & 4: Painting our Monster Pots

Sun, 8 Mar 2020 21:27:09 GMT

The final stage in our monster pot project was to paint the now dry pots. The children had decided in advance on the colours they wanted and there was great excitement in the Art Studio.

Year 1 & 2: Monsters

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 12:10:41 GMT

The Year 1s and 2s have been very excited to see the monster pots which the older pupils have been making from clay. In art this week, we decided to draw our own monsters in oil pastel.

Year 1 & 2: Monet Impression Sunrise

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 09:32:22 GMT

The Year 1s and 2s are continuing their study of Claude Monet and over the next two weeks, will be creating a painting inspired by Impression Soleil levant or Impression, Sunrise (1879).

Clay day in Years 3 & 4!

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 14:33:38 GMT

Having created our monster pot designs last week, it was time to get out the clay. There is always great excitement in the Art Studio on Clay Day.

Year 5/6: Wassily Kandinsky, part 1

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 18:32:11 GMT

The Year 5/6s have been looking at the abstract art of the 1920s and have taken as their focus painting Composition VIII by Wassily Kandinsky.

Years 3 & 4: Clay pinch pot design

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 08:11:21 GMT

This half-term, the pupils will be designing and making pinch pots in air-dry clay. The pots have to be formed in a single lesson so it was important for the children to record and consider their design and the tools that they would need to use before we started.

Year 1 & 2: Weather paintings

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 17:47:50 GMT

The Year 1s and 2s have been learning about weather in their topic and in art, we have created weather pictures while learning about the colour wheel.

Years 3 & 4: Hokusai Paintings

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 13:27:15 GMT

Now that we had recorded and developed our ideas in sketchbooks, it was time to start the finished pieces of work.

Year 4: Christmas cards

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 15:45:05 GMT

The Year 4s started their Christmas card design by drawing a snowflake and star design in oil pastel and then adding a watercolour wash for the sky.

Year 5 & 6: Inspire 2020 - Landscapes

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 21:04:07 GMT

Inspire 2020 is an exciting project run by the Fitzwilliam Museum together with Access Art, based on the National Gallery's Take One Picture. Primary school children from all around Cambridgeshire have been invited to create artwork inspired by a painting in the Fitzwilliam's collection: Cupid and Psyche by Jacopo del Sellaio, an Italian painter who worked in Florence in the 15th Century.

Some of the best work will be selected to be exhibited in the Octagon Gallery in the Fitzwilliam Museum between December 2019 and March 2020. We were keen to take part and I attended a CPD session earlier in 2019 to find out more. The Year 5/6s spent much of this half-term planning and creating their own artistic responses.

Year 5 & 6: Inspire 2020 - Temple prints

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 22:08:47 GMT

As part of the Inspire 2020 project, run by the Fitzwilliam Museum and Access Art, our year 5/6 pupils have been given an opportunity to plan and carry out a project of their own choice inspired by the painting, Cupid and Psyche by the Italian Renaissance painter, Jacopo del Sellaio. You can read more about the initiative here.

Year 5 & 6: Inspire 2020 - Clay and feathers

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 08:03:26 GMT

One of the many exciting things about our involvement with Inspire 2020, based on the painting Cupid and Psyche by Jacobo del Sellaio, is that the projects have been planned and created by the children from the outset. In a single lesson, there are pupils printing, painting, sewing and using clay. The Art Studio is buzzing!

Year 1 & 2: Monet and Impressionism

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 10:39:58 GMT

The Year 1s and 2s will be learning all about Impressionism in the Autumn Term. We began by focusing on Monet’s Waterlilies and Japanese Bridge (1897).

The children were very excited to be able to take a virtual tour of Monet’s house at Giverny.

Years 1 & 2: Christmas cards

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 11:12:43 GMT

Every year in October, the children at Willingham Primary School design a Christmas scene which their parents and careers then have an opportunity to buy as cards, mugs or calendars. It always seems very early to be thinking of Christmas but we have a lot of fun.

Years 3 & 4: Hokusai, work in sketchbooks

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 14:19:01 GMT

The Year 3s and 4s have been studying the Japanese tradition of ukiyo-e or ‘pictures of the floating world’ and looking in particular at Under the Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai.

Year 1 & 2: Robots

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 09:49:52 GMT

For our initial project of the new school year, the Year 1s and 2s are designing robot pictures using pen and chalk.

Year 5 & 6: Artist Workshop

Sun, 23 Jun 2019 11:24:53 GMT

The pupils were very excited when Mr Ferris arrived to lead the next stage in the creation of our sgraffito panels.

Year 5: Scratchboard Preparation

Sun, 23 Jun 2019 12:47:55 GMT

Willingham Primary School has been lucky enough to be invited to take part in the Fen Edge Festival. After discussion with local artist Steve Ferris, who had kindly agreed to lead a workshop with the Year 5s and 6s, we decided to create a collaborative piece of work made up of individual scratch board panels.

Year 5: Dragons' Eyes

Thu, 16 May 2019 06:11:30 GMT

The Year 5s had an extended art lesson this week while the Year 6s were occupied with SATs. We continued to study the use of value and light in art and began by looking closely at the appearance and structure of the eyes of various reptiles before designing a close-up drawing of a dragon's eye.

Year 1 & 2: Cat and bird pictures

Thu, 16 May 2019 06:16:49 GMT

Each week in this half-term, Year 1 and 2 have looked at a piece of art by Paul Klee. Today, we studied Cat and Bird (1928) and compared its style with that of others works featuring cats by Klee.

Year 5/6: Bubble Pictures

Wed, 22 May 2019 12:55:10 GMT

This week, as part of our ongoing investigation of the use of value and light in art, the Year 5/6s created pictures of bubbles.

Year 5/6: Animal Pictures

Sat, 18 May 2019 19:20:10 GMT

This half-term, the Year 5/6s are studying the use of light and value in art. We looked at the use of chiaroscuro in the paintings of Vermeer, Rembrandt and Caravaggio:

Caravaggio, Saint Jerome Writing (c. 1605)

Year 1 & 2: Paul Klee continued.

Mon, 20 May 2019 07:32:19 GMT

In this second week of term, the children in Years 1 and 2 looked at Fire in the Evening (1929) by Paul Klee.

Year 1 & 2: Paul Klee

Sat, 18 May 2019 18:27:57 GMT

This half-term, the Year 1s and 2s will be creating art inspired by the work of Paul Klee.

Year 2: Allotment Pictures

Tue, 21 May 2019 18:23:15 GMT

The Year 2s have been comparing farming methods in the U.K. and Ghana. In art, we created allotment pictures using a wax resist technique.

Year 1: Root Vegetable Paintings

Thu, 16 May 2019 06:19:16 GMT

As part of their Geography work on farming, the Year 1s have been creating pictures of root vegetables.

Year 1 & 2: Adinkra Cloth

Thu, 16 May 2019 06:21:43 GMT

Over the past two weeks, the Year 1s and 2s have been learning about Adinkra symbols. We discussed how symbols can represent important ideas and concepts, learned how stamps in Ghana are made from calabash gourds and looked at the work of contemporary artists such as Owusu-Ankomah.

Year 5/6: Landscapes and mark making

Fri, 8 Mar 2019 19:14:33 GMT

The Year 5/6s will be looking at landscape painting and mark making this half-term.

Year 3/4: Self-portraits, part 1

Sun, 10 Mar 2019 10:44:08 GMT

The Year 3/4s are learning about Kings and Queens who made a difference and in art, we will be studying portraits and considering what they tell us about the sitter. The children will also be planning and creating a self-portrait which tells us something about what is important to them.

Year 2: Paper Weaving

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 07:59:29 GMT

In geography, the Year 1s and 2s will be comparing life in the U.K. with life in other countries, including Ghana.

Year 5/6: D. T. Challenge

Sat, 23 Feb 2019 10:25:58 GMT

This half-term in Year 5/6 will be devoted to design and technology. The pupils have been challenged to design, make and evaluate a toy made from recycled materials. It is entirely up to them to choose the toy, bearing in mind the intended customer, and then to see the project through from beginning to end.

Year 3/4: Complementary Colours

Sat, 23 Feb 2019 11:50:27 GMT

The Year 3/4s have been learning about the colour wheel. In the last lesson of half-term, we made pictures using complementary colours.

Year 1: Butterflies

Fri, 22 Feb 2019 09:52:32 GMT

In the last lesson before half-term, the Year 1s made butterfly pictures using oil pastel.

Artist-based projects at WPS

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 15:27:56 GMT

Mr Morel and I felt privileged to be asked to give a short presentation on how to develop a knowledge-rich art curriculum at the Wonder Years Conference at the end of January. Since then, I have had a few enquiries about the art curriculum at Willingham Primary School, and in particular, about the projects based on specific paintings and artists. As a result, I thought that it might be helpful to look back over some of the work that we have completed over the past eighteen months or so.

Year 1 & 2: Hundertwasser, part 2

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 16:40:54 GMT

In our last lesson, the children learned about Friedensreich Hundertwasser and started to design their own fantasy landscapes, thinking about pattern and composition.

Year 1 & 2: Hundertwasser, part 1

Fri, 22 Feb 2019 11:52:22 GMT

This half-term, the Years 1 and 2 are studying the Austrian artist, designer, architect and environmentalist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser .

Year 3/4: Canopic jars 2

Sun, 20 Jan 2019 12:25:53 GMT

Having modelled and left the clay lids to dry, it was time for the children to decorate their jars.

Year 2: Peter Thorpe Rockets

Fri, 22 Feb 2019 11:50:38 GMT

In our last lesson, we experimented with mark-making on a black background using chalk pastel and poster paint. The children were excited to begin their rocket paintings.

Year 1: Peter Thorpe Rockets

Fri, 22 Feb 2019 08:11:57 GMT

Having spent the last lesson mastering chalk pastel and paint techniques, the children were ready to create their own artwork inspired by the rocket paintings of Peter Thorpe.

Year 3/4: Canopic Jars

Sun, 20 Jan 2019 11:17:02 GMT

For their second project in this half-term, the Year 3/4s are designing and making canopic jars, originally used by the ancient Egyptians to preserve the organs of a deceased person for use in the afterlife.

Year 5/6: L. S. Lowry, part 2

Sat, 1 Dec 2018 07:12:52 GMT

Having completed their drawings, it was time for the children to add colour, figures and final details. You can see photographs of the earlier lessons here. We looked at Lowry's own colour palette and techniques and used the original drawings in our sketchbooks to try out different effects.

Year 1 & 2: Paint and pastel technIques

Thu, 29 Nov 2018 09:28:43 GMT

Next week, we will be creating pictures inspired by the rocket paintings of Peter Thorpe.