By Paula Briggs

This article explores the current trend for using knowledge organisers in primary schools, and suggests alternative ways of thinking.

When I first heard people talking about a “knowledge-rich curriculum” I struggled to understand what they meant. I understood the words individually so could not understand why they made little sense to me, when taken collectively and applied to visual arts learning. I studied art at degree level and then later again at postgrad level and I have worked in arts education for over 25 years, and yet it never occurred to me to think of myself or my creativity as being “knowledge rich.” Of course I had picked up a fair bit of knowledge along the way, but that was not what was important to me – what was important was experience. I feel experience-rich. If I don’t know, I google, but there is no google (yet) to find experience.

Increasingly, AccessArt finds ourselves being asked to give our opinion on the use of knowledge organisers in primary art. Schools send their knowledge organisers to us, asking us to help “build in more depth”, and we struggle with that. The knowledge organiser tells us little or nothing about how art is facilitated – and that’s what adds depth. Here’s an example taken from an organiser:

You can see how it says nothing about “how” (or why or what if, or how do you feel). The words and ideas are so distilled, they become meaningless. Knowledge organisers require this type of distillation, but we worry the focus on knowledge organisers is masking a number of more important issues, which are getting more and more hidden behind those distilled words.

We’ve seen quite a few examples and it feels like it’s time for us to tackle the question:

Is it ever effective or even desirable to “organise someone’s knowledge” in art?

That question is loaded on so many levels and we need to pick it apart, and in doing so we need to ask a whole load of other questions and check our assumptions before we move forward.

Let’s Talk about Knowledge

Q. Do we worship at the altar of Knowledge or Experience? Can we do both?
A. Yes, but we need to start with Experience.

When we work with a class of eight-year-olds, they soon become familiar with the word “chiaroscuro”. They like rolling the word around in their mouths and they learn what it means. That is a piece of knowledge – a piece of declarative knowledge – and I can see it appearing on a knowledge organiser. It’s a little golden nugget of knowledge offered on a platter of which everyone is proud.

But I would put that piece of knowledge on a paper aeroplane and fly it across an ocean compared to the experiential understanding of chiaroscuro that the children build through the drawing sessions. That I would hold very close.

Let’s think about how chiaroscuro might appear on a knowledge organiser. Perhaps:

“The treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting”, or

“Chiaroscuro was one of the techniques used by painters of the Renaissance to make their paintings look truly three-dimensional”, or

“Italian term which literally means ‘light-dark’”, or

“Artists who are famed for the use of chiaroscuro include Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio.”, or, if we’re lucky:

An image which shows an example of chiaroscuro.

These are examples of knowledge passed down from teacher to pupil.

Let’s think now about how the child might experience chiaroscuro through practical exploration.

Maybe the child will explore charcoal, experimenting with how much pressure needs to be applied to make a “dark dark” or a “light light”. What happens when the hand is used to smudge the charcoal, or what happens when you introduce white pastel or draw on a dark ground? How does the energy of the mark making affect the mood created by the chiaroscuro? How can we use chiaroscuro to create a sense of drama, mystery or storytelling? How do we react to it as individuals – how does it make us feel? Can we use a torch to illuminate a scene in a cardboard box so we can work from a real life setting of dark and light? How about we dilute inks and use them with undiluted inks to create portraits? Can we use the white page as the light parts of the drawing?

Do you see the number of questions raised through the explorations above? Asking “what if”, exploring and sharing the revelation of what is discovered, IS the creative process. It is ongoing and never finished – the more you explore the more clues you find and the more journeys you are tempted to go on. Being given the “knowledge” without being enabled to experience it for yourself is a whole different process. Being given the knowledge is more finite, less deep, less rich, with an end point for you to “know”. In this sense knowledge can actually be limiting, not enriching.

The reality is, as artists we could spend a lifetime exploring chiaroscuro and we would never have finished learning. I don’t know many artists who would stand back and say “now I have a body of knowledge”, though they might say “now I have gained experience, insight inspiration, and understanding.”

Of course if a knowledge organiser is a summary of excellent experience, then great, but our instinct tells us; that is not often the case. Too often the knowledge organiser is used instead to hide behind – it can make it look like some serious, heavy weight ground is being covered, but we need to ask the question: What do we uncover in terms of experience when we look behind the knowledge organiser? That is the important thing.

So What of “Knowledge-Rich?”

There are of course elements of knowledge which a child should and will build throughout their experiential creative journey. There are terms to be understood, vocabulary to be used,  techniques to be described. There are materials and artists and concepts and movements and ideas. But, and this is a big but, because declarative “knowledge” can be more easily distilled onto an A4 sheet in clear and concise terms, it means that this type of knowledge is suddenly given huge priority over the experience of actually making art. By definition, the experience is nowhere to be seen on the knowledge organiser.

Yet ideally, the experience of making art is THE most important thing; exploring materials, using tools, thinking through ideas and seeing how they change when made real, taking creative risks, understanding why things succeed or not, being exposed to new adventures, and the opportunity to practice, practice, practice, – let’s call it the “studio practice”, is the thing that we should be concentrating on at all stages of art education. It is through this kind of practical experience that children build (and own) their knowledge and without that practical experience that knowledge is just theoretical. It is a classic mistake made in many primary schools with many non-specialist teachers that art theory and art appreciation and art history become muddled with studio practice and the prevalence of knowledge organisers is making the situation more heightened and leads to studio practice becoming undervalued.

So, even if you are creating knowledge organisers in other subjects at Primary School, let’s not assume it is in our pupil’s best interests to “organise knowledge in art”. Because whilst we are busy organising knowledge, we are not thinking about HOW we enable experience, which is far more important.

Let’s Talk About Organisers

Q. Should we organise “Experience” then, instead of “Knowledge”? Shall we start a whole new trend (because let’s face it that’s what Knowledge Organisers are) around Experience Organisers?
A. The short answer: possibly not.

We’ve explained why we would like to encourage schools to think about replacing the word “knowledge” with “experience” when thinking about art in primary school. Now we would like to challenge the word “organise”.

Declarative knowledge is suited to a knowledge organiser, experience is less suited to being organised. Organising experience into a shared A4 doc tends to stifle opportunity and growth for individuals.

Let’s look at the key elements of a creative experience at any age or ability – the things we should be enabling and celebrating, and you’ll see they might not sit comfortably within any kind of organiser:

• A personal journey – creative journeys might have the same starting point, and sit within a shared structure, but we want to see children owning their experience and able to move forward in diverse ways. This might mean one child gaining drawing skills from a project, and another child gaining literacy skills from the same project. One child drawing with charcoal, another using charcoal and pastel. Brave children (and brave teachers).

• Open-ended learning – we do not want to see a class producing 30 identical end results (see above), so we need to take an open-ended approach. By nature this is messy, but exciting, liberating and not easy to define at outset. Try to control the journey too much and you will limit discovery and disrupt ownership. You might think you are doing one thing, but you end up doing another.

• All experience is valid. Facilitating art is not about top down teaching. Instead it is about enabling an opportunity so that the child can discover for his or her self. Old truths are learnt again and again by us all, but we learn them in art for ourselves through experience.

The problem we have with the “organising” part, is that we don’t accept the creative experience can be “tidied” in a convenient format required by any kind of “organiser”, without losing integrity.

AccessArt would encourage schools to think again about using knowledge organisers in primary art, but if you still feel the need to use them, then let’s ask:

So, IF We Still Want To Use Knowledge Organisers in Art How Can We Improve Them?

• Don’t muddle knowledge organisers with teaching plans. If the purpose of the knowledge organiser is to help parents and staff identify what will be covered, then perhaps it is a plan not a knowledge organiser.

• If the purpose of the knowledge organiser is to help pupils recap and remember, then make sure it is written in language a child will understand. Remember not every one can “read” charts and grids. Think also about SEND requirements. For all children, make sure the content directly reflects what has been covered in class in such a way that the child can relate what is on the page to what they did in class (test this out: test the plan not the child;)).

• Better still, involve the child in its’ creation (though see alternatives below).

• Teachers should ask themselves: “What’s around the knowledge organiser? What scaffolding do we create to ensure a good experience to make the knowledge meaningful? How do we teach what’s on the plan?  Once you start asking these questions the onus goes to how the teacher facilitates, rather than being placed on the child to accumulate knowledge. Take a look at all the experiences shared on AccessArt to see what scaffolding might look like.

• Remember – we are talking about the visual arts – if you must have a knowledge organiser make it visual.

• Your knowledge organisers should try to reference experience. They should be open-ended and outward looking. Make them less about finite points of knowledge learned and instead, make them question-based, encouraging the child to apply their knowledge by reflecting. See how you can use a Class Crit to encourage reflection and discussion.

• Lastly, think about making your knowledge organiser a promise from the school to the child which the child can complete: “I have been given the opportunity to explore xxx and I learnt this yyy”

If We Have Been Persuaded To Leave Knowledge Organisers Out In Art, What Can We Do Instead? 

If knowledge organisers are used to plan, share, recap and show then we are very lucky, because the visual arts offer lots of opportunities to do all those things (and far more) without resorting to a knowledge organiser. Here are the good old fashioned tools we have at our disposal:

• Reference Material (displayed in books, websites, walls): The theme or area of study can be displayed in lots of ways.

• Sketchbooks: Children (and staff) can use sketchbooks to plan, share, recap, reflect.

• Conversation: One to one, group, peer, teacher: lots of ways to have conversations about the work which can help teacher check understanding and build experience. Notes can be made in sketchbooks as a result, alongside project work.

• Art Work: The beauty of the visual arts: “It didn’t exist and now it does”

Key Takeaways:

Knowledge organisers tend to make art tidy, and the creative process is rarely so neat.

In art, we gain most knowledge through experience. Art is about exploration and discovery and art in primary schools should be about enabling that for the child, so that they can learn for themselves, with our help. Let’s think about how we can Enable their Experience rather than Organise their Knowledge.

Don’t assume any non-specialist or NQ teacher has the skills to understand the “how”. Direct them to our resource How Do Non-Specialist Teachers Teach Art?

Protect time spent in “studio practice” in which pupils learn through doing, and embed building their knowledge (history/appreciation/contextual).  Question if the opportunities you provide for pupils are a balance of practical/theoretical skills and think carefully how they feed into (and off of) each other.

Ask yourself if knowledge organisers create a state of statis in teaching (same one used each year) and repeated learning? Is there space for innovation and reinvention each year? As soon as we have knowledge, we are at the end of that particular journey. Do they create statis in exploration too? Do they allow (celebrate) a pupil to diverge from the original plan because they have made a discovery?

Let’s try replacing a few key words and see how it changes our teaching:

Replace “teach” with “facilitate”. Let’s think about enabling a shared journey capable of enabling individual exploration. This is not top-down teaching where the teachers knows and the pupil’s don’t yet know. This is the teacher creating space (within a structure) for children to discover. The teacher can model discovering too – that’s very powerful.

Replace “knowledge” with “experience”.

This is a sample of a resource created by UK Charity AccessArt. We have over 1500 resources to help develop and inspire your creative thinking, practice and teaching.

AccessArt welcomes artists, educators, teachers and parents both in the UK and overseas.

We believe everyone has the right to be creative and by working together and sharing ideas we can enable everyone to reach their creative potential.

You May Also Like

Creativity Connects

Permission to Make

What did my child make this week?

Visual Arts Planning: Light and Dark

Offering to Teachers to ages 4-11

Pedagogy in 250 words

You might also like…

University of Liverpool Veterinary Science Schematic Drawing Task

Fay shares her working process in using drawings as a means of building understanding

Drawing for Science, Invention and Discovery

A collection of resources which explore methodical and chance drawing processes, together with visualisation, adaptation and memory drawing activities.

You May Also Like…

Assessment & Progression

You May Also Like…

Mark Making & Sound: Part One

Mark Making & Sound: Part Two

Pathway: Music and art

This is featured in the ‘Music and Art’ pathway

You May Also Like…

Mark Making & Sound: Part One

Mark Making & Sound: Part Three

Pathway: Music and art

This is featured in the ‘Music and Art’ pathway

You May Also Like…

Mark Making & Sound: Part Two

Mark Making & Sound: Part Three

Pathway: Music and art

This is featured in the ‘Music and Art’ pathway

Drawing to a Slow Rhythm

Inspired by Miro

Drawing to Music

DrawAble: Drawing for Recovery

“You can draw your way out of every situation”

When the UK first locked down in March and it was apparent that we were in this for the long haul, AccessArt decided to take the long view and think about how we could help pupils and teachers return to some kind of education in September 2020, given that we could not know, and still do not know, what shape that education might be.

And so DrawAble was born! Drawing is the perfect tool to help children navigate their way back into the world.

Drawing helps us revisit memories, explore emotions, and re-imagine our life.  Drawing helps bring us back to the moment, keeps us playful and inventive, and helps build and restore confidence. 

DrawAble is also testimony to some of the skills which artists bring to society, ones all too often overlooked.

Artists are brave people. Creativity often flourishes in a slightly chaotic space – artists are skilled at creating just enough chaos in their minds and with their hands to let ideas collide and new solutions emerge. Artists know what it means to say “I don’t know… but I do wonder…”

Artists understand the benefit of collaboration. Artists inspire and feed each other. Their ideas and actions support each other.  Artists remind each other it is ok to follow your instinct, and to have the confidence to form a vision. 

And artists are optimistic people. It is ALWAYS an optimistic act to make things with your hands, and to connect your brain and heart, and to produce, without knowing how it will turn out.

And these skills: bravery, collaboration, and optimism, are the very skills which will help us build our vision for how we would like to live, both as individuals and as a society. These are the skills we need our leaders to have, and these are the skills which make us feel better as individuals. 

Thank you so much to the DrawAble team, who have pulled together with incredible speed and energy to share their passions and create resources which we hope will help enable those skills in others. We also hope that by creating resources for September we can help take some pressure away from teachers – and a big thank you to all our wonderful teachers for all they do. 

All the DrawAble resources will be available free of charge from www.accessart.org.uk/drawable.

DrawAble has been funded by a legacy. Further DrawAble resources will be created in collaboration with other artists in the Autumn term. 

Paula Briggs on behalf of #Team AccessArt

Published by Black Dog Press, Drawing Projects for Children is a beautifully illustrated collection of activities that will expand the mark making abilities and imagination of children of all ages, and help fuel their passion for drawing.

The book features a collection of drawing exercises and projects taken from the AccessArt website, presenting them in a beautiful and inspirational format.

“A beautiful book, full of ideas and a vivid sense of materials – truly appetising and stimulating.” – Sir Quentin Blake

“Drawing Projects for Children is fantastic and I know it will be an inspiration to many educators.”

“I am so thrilled with the book! Thank you for your inspiration and excellence.”

Philosophy

I have been teaching drawing for many years, and my approach is based upon:

• Providing children with simple exercises and inspiring projects which give them a focus for their drawing exploration.

• Providing non-specialist adults with the tools to enable them to facilitate drawing in others.

• Helping children understand and experience the potential of different drawing materials.

• Balancing experimental mark making with exercises which promote careful looking and thoughtful drawing.

• Helping children understand the importance of risk-taking in drawing.

• Building confidence and experience to enable children to undertake their own drawing journeys.

The book provides a series of modular exercises and projects which can be used alone or in cominbation to build an exciting collection of work. Warm-up exercises are used extensively to help introduce the projects. The projects themselves are suitable for all ages of children, for use at home, in the school, in an art club, gallery or museum context. The book also shares ideas to enable parents, teachers or facilitators to devise their own warm-up exercises.

£14.95
Author Paula Briggs Paperback 144 pages 120 b/w and colour ills 26.0 x 20.0 cm 10.0 x 8.0 in ISBN13: 9781908966742

Bulk Buy

Network coordinators wishing to buy this resource in bulk should contact us here for direct purchase and discount rates.

Read Most Recent Reviews – August 2020

Eileen Adams, NSEAD

The chunky (8’’x10’) Drawing Projects for Children is a beautiful book: 144 pages, printed on thick paper, with colour illustrations on nearly every page. Well done designers Freddy Williams and Vanessa Wong! It is robust both in content and presentation, a book that will be of use for a long time. Black Dog, the publishers, claim to take a daring, innovative approach to our titles, to maintain high production values and authoritative content and to produce books that challenge, provoke and entertain. There is much here to inspire children to develop their love of drawing, to stimulate them and to engage them. This is not merely a ‘how to do it’ book: it is also ‘how to think about it’.

The book is in three main parts:

• Materials, drawing surfaces and faciltators’ notes
• Warm ups
• Projects

The section on warm ups provided a range of prompts for children to start drawing: exploring line, shape, tone, texture and rhythm to create different kinds of marks that could be manipulated in a variety of ways to create drawings.

The 26 projects vary in complexity and difficulty. Many are based on drawing from observation such as moving water and natural form. Some are prompted by experimenting with marks and materials. Some are concerned with drawing from imagination, such as animal cartoon characters. Some are about storytelling. Others bring new excitement to the activity, such as drawing by torchlight, making carbon paper prints or drawing on plaster. Some drawings come off the page and are developed in 3D. Some drawings turn into books.

Teachers, parents and other facilitators will welcome this book, chock full of ideas for drawing activities. They will also appreciate the explanations, instructions and advice that will help them support children’s efforts. I particularly valued explanations as to the purpose of each drawing activity. What was the intention? What might children experience? What might they explore – ¬ a material, a technique or a concept? What might they learn as a result? This book is not just about learning to draw: it is about drawing to learn.

All the advice is sound, based on Paula Briggs’s long experience of working with her colleague, Sheila Ceccarelli, in AccessArt, to support children and teachers. The projects have been trialed and tested at drawing workshops in Grantchester. They are transferable to other situations and other age groups – secondary students would benefit from exploring many of the activities. They have the potential to inspire young people and build their confidence and competence in drawing.

The whole tone of the book is about enabling children to experiment and take risks so that they are encouraged to push beyond what they consider ‘safe’ (safe drawings are those in which we know what the outcome is going to be before we have even started making them). This is such a relief when teachers and children in schools are being constrained and mis-directed by inappropriate assessment procedures and ways of valuing children’s work.

Prehaps the author should have the last word. \”One thing I am certain of is that we need to raise our expectations of the level of artwork children are capable of making. We need to give children access to more materials, more time and space, provide more focused support, and we need to feed them with projects to give them a reason to explore further. In return, they will demonstrate how fundamentally important drawing is to us as human beings, and they will reward us with the most beautiful, eloquent and remarkable drawings.”

Artful Kids

There are no shortage of practical books about art out there for children, but speaking as someone whose first love in art is drawing, I was curious to review Drawing Projects for Children by Paula Briggs, (published by Black Dog) as there are not so many which focus on the act of drawing itself.

This is not a book about ‘how to draw’ in the traditional sense, and is, I personally thought, all the better for it. Instead it is a truly creative book – the projects are aimed at encouraging children to explore different aspects of drawing for themselves – inviting them to think and create in different ways.

Well-structured, the introduction of the book includes notes about art materials, and is followed by some facilitator’s notes for parents or teachers (there are further facilitator’s notes added for some of the individual projects). There then follows a series of 10 simple warm up exercises devoted to different aims. So for example there are exercises in mark making, continuous line drawing, and activities aimed at encouraging children to work larger, or produce bolder or ‘stronger’ drawings.

The next section is the heart of the book where there are 26 drawing projects. These are unusual and imaginative, many of them with a fun element designed to appeal to children, while at the same time fulfilling a specific learning objective. There are projects which explore the properties of different art materials, and others which encourage children to ‘think differently’ founded on the author’s extensive experience of conducting drawing workshops with children of all ages.

Not just for teachers of art, the book could just as easily be used by parents who are interested in genuinely teaching their children some of the fundamentals of art practice – to explore, observe and be creative, and also by older children who already have an interest in art. One of the strengths of the book however is the range of projects which encourage collaboration, sharing or simply exploring and learning together. The activity from the book which we tried together (Drawing by Torchlight, which you can read about here) turned out to be quite successful on a number of different levels.

The book is lavishly illustrated and produced in paperback format, using quality paper, and at £14.95 I thought it was pretty good value for the quantity of inspiring material it contains.

Julianne Negri

How would you like a drawing book that encourages risk taking in art? A book that emphasises process over product? A book that encourages experimentation within guidance? A book that is full of messy-get-your-hands-dirty drawing projects? In short, a book with smudgy fingerprints all over it? Well if these things tick your boxes like they tick mine, Paula Briggs’, Drawing Projects for Children published by Black Dog Publishing is the art book for you.

Paula Briggs has not only created a beautiful object with this book. She has created a welcome antidote to a world (wide web) full of outcome based children’s activities that seem to be all about the photo opportunity to display on whatever platform – blog/insta/facebook/twitter – a parent chooses.

This is very much a gorgeous(smudgy) hands on book, divided into two sections – warm up drawing exercises and more in depth projects. So the only real way to review this book was to try it out. First – rustle up some children (fortunately not a challenge for me).

The book is firmly aimed at children but without any dumbing down of language or “fun speak” or the sort of cutesy Dr Suess sort of language you often find with this target audience. For example:

“All of the projects in this book also use a huge range of drawing materials from inks and watercolours to graphite and pastels. Remember, great drawing experiences are not always about the outcome, but often about the things you learn when you experiment. So get ready to try out some new techniques, and make some wonderful creations!”

This tone generates respect for the child artist, for the materials being used and for the activity being undertaken. I read sections aloud to the kids first and we discussed some of the concepts – risk taking, process, not worrying about “mistakes”, no rubbing out etc. These are hugely neglected concepts in the world of a 7-almost-8-year old’s art practice. They are at an age where they lose the earlier wildness of creativity and have been firmly indoctrinated into school ideas of right and wrong and drawing like the person next to you, with a seemingly strong preoccupation on getting eyes and noses especially “right”!

While Paula Briggs suggests this book is aimed to be used independently by children, I found it does benefit from focused facilitating. And for kids this age? Fairly strong facilitation is required. Fortunately I had a background in art and understood the materials and requirements of the tasks, but it is written with point by point instructions, a colour coded idea of levels of intensity and a material list like a recipe and is therefore very accessible. For preparation we made a trip to the local art shop with a list in hand – lots of newsprint paper, various pencils, charcoals and pastels and some ink – and we were ready.

We began with some warm ups which were wonderfully fun and challenging. This “continuous line drawing” warm up was a terrific way to display process over outcome. Pens, paper, still life and go. The kids had to look at the object and draw it while not lifting their pen from the page. They were happy to keep trying this for ages! Our second warm up was “backwards-forwards sketching”. This was a good way to focus on looking and observing while slowing down the hand and creating texture.

My kids are very physical and these drawing ideas are also very physical – hand-eye coordination, large gestural mark making and sustained concentration. We interspersed the activities with kicking the footy in the back yard to freshen up.

We enjoyed perusing all the projects in the book and the kids have ear-marked many they want to try asap. But the obvious “project” to undertake right away was the “Autumn Floor Drawing”. We ran around the house and street collecting leaves, seed husks, plants and all things Autumnal.

I found myself joining in and rediscovering the joys of charcoal and of delicate lines and shading in a way I hadn’t indulged in years. It was so relaxing, for me and for the kids, to play with the materials without any pressure on the result.

Drawing Projects For Children, while not completely independently accessible to younger children, actually benefits from involving a facilitator as well as the child. I found that Paula Briggs language and ideas generate an inspirational and stimulating practical art experience. Through warm ups and projects she extends children’s idea of mark making and drawing into a new realm. It challenges children (and teachers and parents) to explore, take artistic risks and to discover the fun inherent in drawing when there is no pressure for the outcome. It is a book we will return to and from just one day of experimenting it has already inspired these two kids to observe things a little differently and to think more about how to represent their world through art.

Drawing Projects for Children is highly recommended for those who love messy art. For those who want to encourage careful observation, thoughtful mark making and inspire artistic processes. For those who understand that experimentation and sustained exploration of a medium is more important than a quick simple art activity that results in a picture perfect photo opportunity. Go get the book, some supplies, some kids and get your fingers dirty.

The BookBag

Drawing Projects For Children is a beautiful, full-colour guide that encourages children to use a range of materials to create stunning and thought-provoking artwork. As the author points out, the end result is not always as important as the journey and this book helps children to move away from the more traditional, or ‘safe’ type of drawing styles and indulge in a little more experimentation and risk taking. The book is ideal for parents to use with their children, but each chapter is a self-contained lesson plan that facilitators and teachers can use with groups.

The theme of the book is all about experimenting with materials, so it is a good idea to stock up on the basics in order to get the most out of the projects. The focus is on using different paper and drawing media to create effects, so items like graphite, charcoal and pastels, as well as papers of varying textures, are useful items to have on hand.

The book also has some engaging warm-up exercises to help the child become more aware and mindful of physical movements and rhythms involved in the drawing process. For example, drawing to a slow rhythm using a metronome, or trying to create a picture using a single, continuous line can improve hand-eye coordination and observation skills.

The projects are suitable for all ages and can be as simple or as detailed as the artist wishes them to be. Projects include turning paper into fur, drawing by torchlight and printing with carbon paper. Each project encourages a thoughtful approach and introduces a new aspect of drawing or mark-making.

There is something in the book for everyone and it is visually appealing. My daughter is a budding artist and loves perusing the pages for ideas and inspiration. It would also be a useful resource for home-educators and childminders.

Fran Richardson, Artist Educator

“Being both an artist specialising in drawing and a parent who wants to inspire my own children to draw, I was glad to have discovered this book. Although pitched at an older child to read and follow independently, it offers guidance for parents and teachers who want to lead activities at home or in the classroom.

The layout is simple and pleasing with contrasting fonts in different sizes. It is fully illustrated with colour photographs of children making the work alongside examples of materials and drawings at differing stages of completion, which makes it both engaging and easy to follow. No prior experience is required so anyone can start immediately with the items already available at home.

I particularly like the way the author moves away from the traditional model of seeking to make a finished product though a series of specific steps to a focus on different techniques and the enjoyment of using materials in an experimental way, gently pushing at the boundaries of what children can achieve.

Drawing in charcoal by torch light, the picnic drawing party, or being your own art installation are things that I would never have thought of doing. I haven\’t had any experience of teaching children so I feel much more confidant that I will be working with them at the right level. Packed with ten warm ups and 26 projects with three levels of difficulty it offers value for money for any adult who wants to enjoy some creative time with children – a must for the holidays!” 

You may also like…

Make, Build, Create: Sculpture Projects for Children

Since 1994, AccessArt has worked to shape high quality visual arts education. As a Subject Association, we have attended All Party Parliamentary Groups and Roundtable discussions with various art specialists, organisations and Unions, to come together to advocate for the importance of art education. At these meetings arts organisations and experienced individuals agree:

• We need to better value the arts in education, placing arts subjects on an equal footing with STEM subjects, creating time and space for exploration and experience, as well as knowledge.

• We need to invest in Initial Teacher Training and CPDL.

• We need a reprieve from assessment which creates a climate of fear and drives us towards limited outcomes, in direct opposition to the kind of nurturing space art requires to flourish.

• The current Curriculum needs rewriting to ensure it is relevant, diverse and accessible to all.

Art education has been systematically attacked for many years. Art educators have had to defend, and therefore our dialogue has been defensive. We have defended the subject by using language we hoped would be understand by those in government – language which asserts itself but is spoken in their terms. We have taken the current model, shown its shortcoming, and the effects of those shortcomings, and suggested solutions. But all that has been done using the existing vocabulary which defines education today. And that is a problem, because it limits ambition and vision. We are driven to talk about assessment, monitoring, progression and knowledge, when the subject we hold needs a very different set of words to describe its rich, organic nature and build understanding of the potential for the subject to change lives.

The accidental or deliberate (depending on your viewpoint) misunderstanding of the subject area shown by those in power has demerited the importance of art education. By pushing a knowledge-rich, assessment-heavy, STEM-prioritised curriculum, the government has created a system in which the very words we need to use, as creative practitioners, teachers and pupils have been taken away from us. There is no space in the current curriculum to use words like “intuition,” “growth,” “personal,” “organic,” and “experimental.” We could hold such a rich, exciting, enabling subject in our hands – a subject which should be oozing with joy and richness, discovery and vision, but instead the government wants us to grip it as if it were a beast we need to beat down and control; something to be scared of which offers no real benefit to anyone. Is this misunderstanding on the part of the government, or is this fear? Fear that if we enable personal creativity we create a beast which enables free expression, resulting in a population not so easily “controlled”?

The language used by any government creates the culture through, and in which, we act, and in that way we become conditioned. We forget there are always other options, other approaches, and other words which describe other philosophies open to us. All the while we have been trying to defend art education by using the words they want us to use, and in that way we are becoming complicit, despite our intention, because we are not using the words we really need to use.

This struck home, finally, when I realised through conversations with school leavers that they could no longer use words like intuition, entitlement, dreaming, invention, play. These words are unfamiliar to them, and they no longer resonate.  These words, and therefore the ways of being they describe, are not available to them right now. They find it hard to embody these words. (Embody is an important word by the way).

So, yes, let’s keep defending the importance of art education, but let’s take a much firmer stance. We need to unfurl our own language – the words we really need to use – the words which more accurately describe an exploration of the future role of education in general and value of art education in particular. I am no longer going to be embarrassed to use the word love in relation to education. I am no longer going to purposely not use the words intuition, passion, fun and play, for fear of making art education seem less than; for fear of being dismissed.

Their words have been hurled at us for years – and now our whole educational and societal bedrock is built on silt. We need to start using words which build a solid place on which our children and young people can stand, and from which they can grow.

The language needs to be visceral. Honest. Brutal. We need to nail it and say it as it is. We have listened to and struggled with their vocabulary, and now they are going to hear ours. Please join us; let’ s use the words we really need to use, not the language we have been forced to use in a system which has been using the wrong language in the first place. We are artists after all, and we should not be apologetic that our vision, wisdom and insight comes from a very different place, is highly relevant, and to be listened to. Let’s use our language, and in doing so say exactly what we need to say.

As artist, educator, CEO and parent – this is what I really want to say…

Where do we stand, at this point in time?

How are our children standing on the earth, at this point in time?

How are we serving them, in terms of education, health, wellbeing?

Are we helping them build their sense of self? Sense of safety? From which they can grow?

Are we helping them understand the relationship between sense of self and connection with others? The relationship between compassion and action? Action and impact?

Are we helping them understand what makes them human? What makes a community? A society? Are we helping them think about purpose?

Are we showing them what healthy relationships look like? With each other? With themselves? With the planet?

Are we empowering them to dream, to envision, to imagine? Are we enabling them to communicate so that they can inspire and collaborate? Are we skilling them to affect, enable and build?

Are we enabling them to think critically and creatively, and to understand the difference between the two?

Where do we stand at this point in time?

We stand at a point, caught between the way society has been shaped by previous government policy (or lack of policy), and the future. We are ALL held at that point, no matter our privilege.

But it is not the only way to stand. And we should not accept it, or think we can’t affect it.

So how do we enable every person to stand on the earth grounded, belonging, able to dream, empowered to act?

Can we even imagine such a thing, or have we been so stripped of our ability to dream, confidence to be optimistic, ability to think?

Think about it now. Can you even imagine everyone you know being able to feel like they are able to work towards their full potential? Feel appreciated, valued, have something to offer, and able to contribute?

If you can’t imagine that, then please get angry and ask if we have perhaps been conditioned?

Don’t say it is idealistic.

Why do we stand the way we do, on the earth today? And how can we make change?

When we look, what do we see with our own eyes?

We see teenagers, emerging from their knowledge-rich, assessed-heavy, education, uncertain. Uncertain as to how they feel about their place in the world and unsure what their entitlement is to dream, act and affect, because they have been stripped of their permission. Ask a school leaver about intuition, and see how they answer. Do they know what that word means? Ask a school leaver about their dreams and hopes, and see how they answer. Ask a school leaver if everyone has equality of opportunity and see how they answer. Have they been enabled?

We see children and teenagers holding so much anxiety. Flight, fright or freeze – sense of self becomes fragmented and constricted and in that state we cannot go out into the world feeling safe and grounded ready to explore and contribute. Ask them if they feel safe and enabled. Ask them if they feel held. Ask them if they understand how what manifests as anxiety often starts as sensitivity – which can be a beautiful and vital thing which in turn can be explored, expressed and shared through art. Sensitivity need not develop into anxiety. It is not inevitable.

We see children and teenagers avoiding school, because their nervous systems know that school in its current state does not feel like the safest place for them. Do we understand what their bodies and minds need, now, to enable them to learn? Ask a child: What would keep you in school? In which lessons do you feel listened to and can flourish? What does flourish even mean? Has anyone asked you?

We see no time, no space. We send them hurtling, ticking off a list. Towards what? And the existential skills they have learnt are? Have we been brave enough to create generations who are curious? Brave enough to embrace the “other” – to explore differences and yet to be able to connect? Ask a child: Do you feel you have had the space to follow your interests and really understand? Have you ever had the experience of exciting an other?

We see a climate of crippling fear. Everyone looking over their shoulder, or averting their eyes. Ask a teacher: Can you imagine overtly valuing things that can’t be measured?

We see everything treated the same. Vanilla subjects. Tidy, neat, convenient. Don’t risk, don’t dare. Don’t create mess. Don’t give access to that tool. Don’t let them fail. Ask a teacher and ask a child: In what ways is art unique? What does art need to be allowed to flourish in your school? What even is “art”?

We see teachers who cannot find joy and love in teaching, because they are not enabled to find joy and love in teaching. Does Ofsted ask: Do you find joy and love in teaching? Do your pupils find joy and love in learning? What do we feel this takes from us, to ask this question? What are we scared of? Why can’t we use those words?

We see young parents and teachers whose own education has not shown them the promise of a more creative, holistic education, so they do not see the possibilities, do not know what their own children are therefore missing. Ask a young teacher: What is art for? How does it serve us? In what ways is it a catalyst? In what ways is it a sensor? In what ways is it a release? How can art make children feel safe?

We see how a curriculum which places emphasis on measurable knowledge which can be pedantically defined and assessed has destroyed the space for exploration, discovery, self-learning. Ask a child: Are you able to explore uncertainty without fear of being judged? Do you feel like you are only valued when you can achieve? Do you feel like you are valued enough for the journey you are on to be the thing which is celebrated? Ask the teacher: How do you feel about the facilitation of an exploration of unknowledge? How do you feel about a child discovering something you didn’t know could be taught (or measured)?

We see lack of vision. Our education system is a run-down version of a Victorian model. Does our education system embody aspiration? Just as the language we use reflects and shapes the culture we are in, our schools are a physical manifestation of our educational values. Ask a child: Does the environment in which you learn fill you full of excitement? Does it fill you full of confidence for the future? Ask a teacher: Does the pedagogy by which you teach stir your soul? Do you believe you are part of a system which is inclusive and aspirational?

We see whole communities who don’t feel any sense of cultural entitlement. It starts with valuing finger painting which seems so throwaway. Anyone can finger paint. But if you don’t let the exploration follow and grow, art remains just finger painting and of course we can do away with that. We see a basic misunderstanding that art cannot be facilitated with as much rigour as any other subject. That if we assume art is just “nice” then it is a luxury we don’t need. Ask a child: When was the last time you (choose a word: made, drew, painted, sung, acted, were introduced to an artist who shared your values, celebrated your creativity…)?

We see a culture in which we are embarrassed to use words like love, play, curiosity, and nurture in schools beyond EYFS. We have been disempowered to use language which celebrates individuality, and which acknowledges what it is to be human in schools. Ask a child and a teacher: Do you feel better after your day of education than you did before the start? Does the environment make you feel cared for and supported? Do you feel emotionally and intellectually richer? Was it fun? Do you feel fulfilled? Do you even know what that means?

Does this sound idealistic? Too big a job? Shall we just continue as we are? Turn our cheek. If being brave, visionary, radical feels hard, even impossible, then please understand the way we currently stand on the earth has not encouraged that kind of approach. By taking away our right to nurture our creative and critical thinking skills, we are being disempowered. It’s happening already. The books are already burning – smouldering rather than flames so we do not notice. 

Being brave can be small and quiet. We don’t have to shout. It doesn’t have to take years (it can’t). 

More heart. Less arrogance, less bullishness, more listening. More seeing with our eyes wide open. Less measurement. More holistic approaches. Less binary choices. A big re-think about what purpose education serves. Radical rethink about what a curriculum is. Greater ability to understand education has a responsibility to go beyond knowledge, which can be googled or accessed in the blink of an AI. More recognition that we are humans and we have traits, needs, desires which can be developed and tapped into. More modelling of who we would like to be as a society. More emotional intelligence to counterbalance artificial intelligence. More problem solving through experience. And willingness and ability to see the far, far bigger perspective.

So that one day, we might look on this point in time, as we stand upon the earth, and see it for what it is: a very small contracted dot, tight and defensive, that we have been engineered into through lack of vision, insight, confidence and love. From here we have to feel able to relax and expand outwards. To use the word love in education without embarrassment, and in doing so ensure we give opportunities to teachers and pupils which enable them to feel grounded, appreciated, empowered, connected and safe. And from there, we can all move forwards.

Which words would you like to use?

Paula Briggs, CEO & Creative Director, AccessArt, April 2024

Explore…

Not just ideas: Action Too

“One cold, rainy morning in January 1999, I received a phone call from the then DfES. The woman started the call with the words: “What is the best news someone could call you with on such a rainy January day?”

Explore and understand all that AccessArt has achieved and the impact we are making

Why AccessArt Can’t support oak national academy

“Like many educational publishers, we were concerned at the time about both the nature and quality of the resources created, the ethics of the creation of a curriculum by government, and also the potential impact of a so called “free” curriculum on commercial and charitable educational suppliers…”

Read why we think Oak is a flawed idea…

As part of our 25 year celebration, and to help advocate the importance of art education at all stages of life, AccessArt is pleased to announce we have partnered with Postcard Models, makers of beautiful models, based in South East Kent.

The AccessArt Art School

We are so excited! To help us celebrate our 25th birthday, Postcard Models have designed a very special kit for us.

The AccessArt Art School is a beautiful industrial building that you can make and customise so that you can create your very own Art School.  There is even an empty “billboard” so that you can paint or write your own message to the world about the importance of art to you. 

We have a number of these kits to give away at our upcoming Zoom CPD events. You can also win a kit via submitting your response to “Shout Louder About Art education” opposite. The kits are available to buy directly from Postcard Models.

Tag @accessart.org.uk @postcardmodels and #AccessArtSchool on Instagram when you share your AccessArt School!

Please note these kits are not for children. 

Shouting Louder About Art Education

AccessArt has been advocating for the importance of visual arts education for 25 years. 

We are collecting evidence from individuals as to why visual arts education is important to you and your audiences. 

Whether you are a parent, carer, or educator (any setting) please take the time to tell us what art education means to you. We hope to build a library of testimonies which help us further campaign for, and support, the need for visual arts education at all stages of life. 

Shout Louder About Art Education now. 6 respondents will win one of the Postcard Models AccessArt School kits (deadline 31st May 2024).

Thank you, Paula Briggs, CEP & Creative Director AccessArt

Part 2: Making Your Sketchbook Your Own
<< back to "Sketchbooks!" course page

We are going to start by making a sketchbook. You could just use a bought sketchbook, but if you do, we’d like you to spend some time adding on to that sketchbook before you start working in it.

The reason we are going to start by making a sketchbook (or developing a bought sketchbook), is because then the book will start to feel like it belongs to you right from the start. The sketchbook becomes owned the moment you start to make – you make personal choices, and you think creatively from the outset. 

Another thing happens when you make a sketchbook. 

When you turn a page to work in your sketchbook and are presented with a pockets instead of a white page, or a piece of graph paper which unfolds, or a piece of old map, it will inspire you to be more creative in the way you write and draw in the sketchbook. 

So, let’s get started. Decide if you want to make a sketchbook from scratch, which is very simple, OR  adapt an existing sketchbook. Either way, we’d like you to end up with a sketchbook that really feels like it is yours, even before you start to work in it. 

Making an Elastic Band Sketchbook

Elastic band sketchbooks are a really great way to make books which have plenty of personality and character!

Start off by collecting paper of all kinds – recycled paper, white paper, graph paper, brown paper… the more varied the better. You’ll also need corrugated cardboard for the cover, and an elastic band to fasten it all together.

Whatever size sketchbook you want to make, cut a piece of corrugated cardboard which is twice as wide as the finished book. Bend it in the middle to form a spine.

Next cut or tear a series of pages, again twice the width of the finished book. Fold these in half too, and then simply use the elastic bands to fasten it all together. the great thing about these books is that they are completely flexible – you can take them apart, take pages out, and add more pages, and really personalise them.

The cardboard provides a versatile cover which can easily decorated to personalise them further.

Extending a Bought Sketchbook
and adding “Spaces & Places” to regular sketchbooks

Take an existing sketchbook – it can be any kind, shape or size. The idea is to change the structure of the sketchbook. That might mean adding new pages made up of different types of paper, different sizes, even different shapes. Think about how you can create “places and spaces” within a sketchbook. When you start working in your sketchbook, coming across these altered pages can really help you make exciting work in your book.

So for example, you might want to bend and glue pages to create pockets. You might want to add bags to create collecting areas, or add fabric so you can paint on that instead of paper. Add whatever you can find or whatever you are attracted to, to change the shape of the places and spaces within the sketchbook. 

The idea is to be as creative as you can in terms of the way you change the look and feel of the book, so that when you are working in your sketchbook later, you are not only inspired by the world around you and by what’s in your head, but also by the sketchbook itself.

Have fun when you are doing this, and also remember that when you are drawing and writing in your sketchbook later, you are still free to keep changing the shape and the structure and the nature of the pages. That’s part of the fun of working in a sketchbook. So is isn’t a one off process, it is a starting point, and hopefully you’ll keep coming back to it as you continue to work in your sketchbook.

Remember you can post images of your sketchbook work on Instagram
Tag @accessartorguk #accessartsketchbook

Next…

3. Collage Exercise

Introducing different ways to work in a sketchbook

Or…

Back to “Sketchbooks!” Course Page

Access all resources

Collect the Following
<< back to "Sketchbooks!" course page

Drawing Materials (whatever you have in the house: pen, pencil, rubber, felt tips, markers, coloured pencils, pastels etc)

Assorted Paper (all kinds, including recycled paper from old letters and envelops, tracing paper, graph paper etc AND / OR

A bought sketchbook (any kind)

Scissors, glue, tape, string

Piece of corrugated cardboard

Large elastic band

It would be good to start collecting a pile of old magazines – if you can get your hands on old gardening supplements, nature magazines or children’s magazines.

As well as magazines you can look out for old wrapping paper, printed paper, postcards, old photographs, old books etc.

Remember you can post images of your sketchbook work on Instagram
Tag @accessartorguk #accessartsketchbook

Next…

1. What Makes a sketchbook “exciting”

What is a sketchbook?

Or…

Back to “Sketchbooks!” Course Page

Access all resources

Part 4: Drawing the Drawing Materials
<< back to "Sketchbooks!" course page

This exercise will really help you think creatively about how you use different medium to make drawings. The sketchbook is the perfect place for this exploration to take place. Have fun and see how far you can push it!

Step 1. Collecting the “Drawing Materials”

Go on a trip around the house or classroom and gather together as many “drawing materials” as you can find. You’ll start by collecting the obvious ones: different kinds of pens, pencils, markers, paints, chalks, pastels etc – whatever you happen to have in the house.

And then look even harder, and collect other things which will can be used to make a mark: a candle will produce a waxy mark which will resist paint, a piece of grass can be rubbed on paper to produce green, a flower petal to produce yellow. You can even make your own paint by mixing soil or coffee or tea with water. Gather your drawing “ingredients”!

Step 2. Start with the Obvious

Your challenge is to make drawings of the drawing materials, using the drawing materials! 

Choose a sketchbook page (again you don’t have to work chronologically). Start with just one drawing material, and make a drawing of that material, using that material.

For example, make a sketch of a marker pen, drawn with a marker pen!

And a handwriting pen drawn with a handwriting pen.

Work at different scales, and on different pages, choosing whichever drawing materials appeal.

Step 2. Combine 2 Materials Together

Choose two materials and make a drawing of them using both materials, for example, an oil pastel and a pencil.

Step 3. Explore How the 2 Materials Might Work Together

In this step, you will stop drawing the “object” (or drawing material) and instead just make marks with the materials. For example, try using the pencil over oil pastel. How’s that? Now try using the pastel over the pencil. How’s that different? Which do you like best? Make notes along side your experiments. 

Decide if you prefer working from observation (that is drawing what you see), or making more abstract marks without a form. Or both. Whichever you prefer, keep exploring and let the pages of your sketchbook fill with colour, marks, different media, and notes. 

Remember you can post images of your sketchbook work on Instagram
Tag @accessartorguk #accessartsketchbook

Back to “Sketchbooks!” Course Page

Access all resources

Part 3: Collage Exercise
<< back to "Sketchbooks!" course page

This exercise is to help you develop sketchbook skills. It gives you the opportunity to see how working in sketchbooks can involve lots of different activities: seeing, collecting, sticking, drawing, note-taking, making connections, thinking, doodling, discovering…

The exercise is in three parts:

Collecting Images – You’ll choose a selection of images from magazines, photos, memorabilia, postcards etc

Selecting a word – You’ll choose a word (from the list below)

Connecting – You’ll connect your selected images and the word, and use your imagination and memory to create visual stories.

Step 1. Collecting Images

This is an ice breaker exercise to help you explore some of the activities that can take place in your sketchbook.

You’ll use found pictures and words to create new images which are personal to you. Try not to overthink what you draw or write, just let your ideas flow and don’t talk yourself out of it! 

It may be useful to find some place in your sketchbook, maybe the back, where you can make tiny notes, during this exercise, to jog your memory of the process later. These might just be single words, or short sentences. Don’t worry about joining them up or connecting them.

The first part of the exercise is easy and should be fun too! Just very quickly and simply, without getting too bogged down into thinking, collect and cut out a group of images that you like.

Cut images out of magazines, maps, photographs, memorabilia, newspapers, post cards, wrapping paper, comics etc. Images can be completely random and totally eclectic. What connects them is your liking them and that’s all!

We suggest you allow about 20 minutes to half an hour on this part of the task.

The trick with this stage is not to get blocked or worried about what you’re going to do with the images.

Step 2. Select a Word

Have a quick read through all the words below. Without thinking too much, choose a word that you like the sound of. Just one word.

Fog, Scrape, Christmas decoration, Maraca, Ice-cream, Leaf, Yellow submarine, Ruler, Lightning rod, Internet, Headache, Brick wall, Picture frame, Nail polish, Raisins, Fire extinguisher, Home, Basket ball, Airport, Mirror, Together, Coat hanger, Ball room dance, Shooting star, Upside down, Sideways, Animal parade, Fishing net, South Pole, Doll’s house, Sore throat, Gingerbread man, Tooth brush, Handkerchief, Ankle, Bull’s-eye, Stick Figure, Shoulder pad, New shoes, Newspaper, Superhero, Helium balloon, Belly button, Circus, Seashell, Wine glass, For sale, Goggles, Hula hoop, Sandwich, Fly swatter, Alone, Code, Beach, Slot machine, Lawn, Toilet paper, Coat hanger, ATM machine, Top hat, Light at the end of the tunnel, Type writer, Cork, Crowd, Tennis elbow, Diamond ring, Ice skate, Holiday Cellphone, Broken, Tomato Ketchup, Self-service, Credit card, Peanut, T-shirt, Rosemary

Write the word in your book. You can write it in normal writing, or you can write it in a very visual font (if that appeals). 

That’s it! Now you are ready for Step 3!

Step 3. Working with Images & Words

Go back to your pile of  selected images and start to randomly stick them in your book – you don’t have to work on one page only, but can work on as many pages as you like. If you created “spaces & places” in your sketchbook you can choose which of these you want to work with.  You don’t have to work in chronological page order. If you are stuck for ideas, just start sticking – but have your word in the back of your mind all the time.

The process may seem very random to start with but the combination of the word and images will start to trigger your imagination and evoke memories, ideas or a visual stories. Without realizing it you will start to connect images together.

As you start to stick the images in your book, you may decide to cut your images up further, changing their meaning and using different elements from images. Don’t be afraid to cut into and jumble up images.

Use as many pages of your sketchbook as you like. Follow your instinct. When you hear that voice inside your head saying “I don’t know what I’m doing” or “This isn’t working” just ignore it!!

If a thought or idea pops into your head as you are cutting and sticking, write it down on the page.

The point of this exercise is to get ideas flowing and enjoy the process of working in a sketchbook. There is not a right or wrong way of joining up images and unexpected combinations and connections are likely to be made. 

Have fun!

Remember you can post images of your sketchbook work on Instagram
Tag @accessartorguk #accessartsketchbook

Next…

4. Drawing the Drawing Materials

Exploring drawing materials and thinking creatively

Or…

Back to “Sketchbooks!” Course Page

Access all resources