By James Grimditch.

In this case study post, HLTA James Grimditch from Brooklands Farm Primary School shares with us how AccessArt’s resources support the school’s delivery of a rich and varied visual arts curriculum.

Over the last few years our school has had a complete restructuring of its Art curriculum. During this time we have undertaken a rigorous search for valuable and trusted resources that would compliment our planning and suit the needs of our children. Having discovered AccessArt in 2019, we were really excited to start exploring some of the online material that it offered. We found that many of the activities linked directly with some of our chosen projects as well as including further reading and step by step instructions for teachers. Today we continue to use AccessArt more than ever.

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Pathway: Fashion Design

This is featured in the ‘Fashion Design’ pathway

Talking Points: Hormazd Narielwalla

Talking Points: Tatyana Antoun

Talking Points: Alice Fox

Talking Points: Pyer Moss

Talking Points: Rahul Mishra

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Pathway: Cloth, thread, paint

This is featured in the ‘Cloth, Thread, Paint’ pathway

Talking Points: Frank Bowling

Talking Points: Hannah Rae

Talking Points: Alice Kettle

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Pathway: Stick Transformation project

This is featured in the ‘Stick Transformation Project’ pathway

Talking Points: treehouses

Pathway for Years 1 & 2

Disciplines:
Sculpture, Drawing, Collage

Key Concepts:

• That there is a relationship between drawing & making – we can transform 2d to 3d.

• That we can use observational drawing and experimental mark-making together to make art.

• That we can work from similar stimulus or starting point but end up with very different individual results.

• That the individual results can then be brought together to make a whole artwork. 

In this pathway children continue to develop their understanding of sculpture and build their making skills.

The exploration starts with careful looking and drawing, and from this “grounded” basis children are encouraged to take creative risks by using experimental mark-making with a variety of media.

Children are then invited to explore how they can manipulate their drawings in an intuitive way to make 3d forms. Paper is twisted, folded, crumpled to become 3d and added to a simple structure. Children explore balance to finally created an individual bird.

The class birds can then be brought together to make a “flock” – with each child’s artwork valued as part of the whole.

Themes:
Birds, Wildlife, Local habitat

Medium:
Paper (sugar and cartridge), Soft pencils, wax crayons, watercolours, pastels, graphite, scissors, glue sticks, cardboard or foamboard, paper clips or wire.

Artists:
A variety (see resource)

If you use this resource in your setting, please tag us on social media: #InspiredBy @accessart (facebook, twitter) @accessart.org.uk (instagram) and share the url. Thank you!

Teaching Notes

Find the MTP for this pathway here.

Please find the CPD session recording of the Making Birds pathway here.

Find an In The Studio session recording exploring observational and experimental drawing of feathers here.

Curriculum Links

Geography: Use language which supports understanding about continents (migration), maps, habitats.  

Maths: Explore the relationship between 2D/3D shapes, weight, measuring. 

Science: Explore birds, habitats, seasons, food chain 

PSHE: Supports Peer Discussion, Collaboration, Responsibility to the planet. 

I Can…

• I can look carefully at photos and films of birds, take in the details and overall shapes, and then made drawings of what I have noticed.

• I can drawn from life looking closely.

• I can experiment with a variety of drawing materials and test ways to make marks that describe what I see.  

• I can use colour in my drawings and mix two or more different media together.

• I have looked at the work of other artists who have been inspired by birds and I can share my response to their work.

• I can fold, tear, crumple and collage paper to transform it from 2d to 3d.

• I can use a variety of materials to make my own sculpture, and I have taken on the challenge of making my sculpture balance and stand.

• I have seen how my sculpture can be part of a class artwork. I can see how all our sculptures are individual.

• I can share my work with my classmates and teachers, and consider what was successful for me.

Time

This pathway takes 6 weeks, with an hour per week. Shorten or lengthen the suggested pathway according to time and experience. Follow the stages in green for a shorter pathway or less complex journey.

Materials

Sketchbooks, soft pencils, coloured pencils, handwriting pens, oil/chalk pastels, feathers, A2 cartridge, sugar paper, newsprint. 

Project 1: Rubbings- Small objects, wax crayons. 

Project 2: Drawing Fur (adapt to feathers) – Feathers, pastels, soft pencils.  

Corrugated card or foamboard, wire or paper clips, glue sticks.

Pathway: Making Birds

A PDF of this pathway can be found here.

• Aims of the Pathway

  This pathway aims to help children begin to understand the relationship between drawing and making, 2d and 3d. Pupils explore how to transform materials into sculpture, moving from mark making to balance and structure. 

• Week 1: Drawing as Research
  

  Drawing from Photographic Sources

  

  Visit the free to access “Drawing Source Material: Birds” resource to find films of birds shown in close-up.

  Pause the films at various points so that children can work in their sketchbooks to make drawings of birds.

  Encourage close and slow looking by talking as they draw – use your voice to attract their attention to features of the bird.

  Create momentum with the drawing by inviting pupils to make drawings of various timed lengths, before moving on to the next paused image/drawing.

  Experiment with a variety of media: soft B pencils, handwriting pens, pastels.

• Week 2: Developing Skills
  

  Drawing from Observation & Experimental Mark-Making

  

  Explore the “Feathers: Perfect for Mark-Making” resource.

  This time working from real feathers rather than photographic imagery, encourage the children to take creative risks and explore how they can draw feathers using a variety of mediums.

  Work in sketchbooks or on larger pieces of paper (A3) and experiment with how the paper size changes the nature of the mark-making (for example use sugar paper and cartridge paper).

  You might like to show pupils this work by artist Andrea Butler, in which Andrea shares how she uses the textures and colours within birds to inspire her artwork. 

• Week 3: Working Slowly Towards 3d
  

  Manipulating Paper from 2D to 3D

  

  Still working on paper, but this time on sheets of newsprint, sugar and cartridge paper, pupils will explore what happens when you fold, tear, crumple paper and start to manipulate it towards 3d forms. 

  Explore these three resources and decide which elements you would like to explore with your children:

  • Making Rubbings

  • Turning Paper Into Fur (adapt to feathers)

  • Manipulating Paper 2d into 3d

  Make sure you encourage playful exploration and celebrate invention. Pupils are not working towards a fixed outcome, instead they are developing making and creativity skills. 

• Week 4, 5: Watch & Make
  

  Explore Sculpture

  Pupils are now going to start making their sculptures.

  

  Watch the “What Is Sculpture” animation if you didn’t watch it with the class earlier in the year.

  

  Take a look at the free to access “Talking Points: Inspired by Birds” resource if you’d like to talk about how other artists have been inspired by birds. Work in sketchbooks guided by the “Show Me What You See” resource.

   

  

  Use the “Making Birds” resource to enable children to pull all their learning together and make small sculptures. 

• Week 6: Celebrate
  

  Reflect & Share

  Finally make time to display the birds as a “flock”. Here is an opportunity to talk about many pieces made by separate people can be exhibited as a single artwork.

  Use the “Crit” resource to help you explore how to talk about the work.

  

See the Pathway Used in Schools…

If You Use AccessArt Resources…
You might like to…

Join our Facebook Group

Join the AccessArt Network group on Facebook and ask questions of others using our resources

Share and Tag

Share photos of work made by tagging us on social media

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Transform materials into birds

Challenge students to create sculptural birds

swoop

Explore birds and migration

flock

Create a school installation featuring a personalised bird from each child

Pathway for Years 1 & 2

Disciplines:
Sculpture, Drawing

Key Concepts:

• That when we make art in 3 dimensions it is often called Sculpture.

• That we can generate ideas through playful exploration.

• That we can build understanding of the properties of materials through manipulation.

• That making sculpture is a partnership between materials, ideas, hands and tools.

• That we can reflect upon our intention when we see our ideas made physical.

In this pathway children are introduced to what sculpture can be, and invited to explore the work of other sculptors whilst taking a playful and inventive approach to making their own sculptures.

The pathway encourages children to start voicing their response to sculptural artworks, including their own, and to give them time and space to explore properties of materials, and what happens when you join one or more materials together to construct new forms.

Theme:
Transformation & Invention

Medium:
Construction Materials (card, paper, wood, wire, string, fabric including recycled and found objects)

Artists:
Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Faith Bebbington, Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett

This pathway will take approximately half a term, based upon a weekly art lesson.

If you use this resource in your setting, please tag us on social media: #InspiredBy @accessart (facebook, twitter) @accessart.org.uk (instagram) and share the url. Thank you!

Teaching Notes

Find the MTP for this pathway here.

Curriculum Links

Geography: Adapt the playful making approach to make sculptures of ports and harbours, towns, cities, villages, The Great Wall of China etc.

Maths: Uses language to support understanding of 2D/3D shapes, sequence, measuring, position & direction.

Science: Uses language to support understanding of properties and manipulation of materials.

PSHE: Collaboration, responsibility to the planet.

I Can…

• I have explored what we mean by “sculpture” and I thought about what I like about different pieces of sculpture.

• I can use my sketchbook to make drawings inspired by sculptures I have seen, to help me think about what I like, and to remember what I have seen. 

• I can use my hands to make small sculptures out of lots of different materials. I can bend, twist, fold, cut and fasten. 

• I can use my hands to make sculptures without designing first. I can just see what happens if…

• I can discover that sometimes working with materials is hard work – things break or my fingers hurt – but that is all ok!

• I can share my work and listen to what other people like about it. 

• I can look at other people’s work and sometimes share what I like about it with them. 

Time

This pathway takes 6 weeks, with an hour per week. Shorten or lengthen the suggested pathway according to time and experience. Follow the stages in green for a shorter pathway or less complex journey.

Materials

A3 Sugar paper, handwriting pens.  

Construction Materials (see list here )

Pathway: Playful Making

A PDF of this pathway can be found here.

• Aims of the Pathway

  This pathway aims to introduce children to the idea of Design through Making: a playful approach to exploring materials and constructing sculpture. 

• Week 1. Introduce the idea of “Sculpture”
  

  What Is Sculpture?

  Use the “What Is Sculpture?” resource to introduce children to the idea that when we make art in 3 dimensions it is often called Sculpture.

• Talk
  

  Enable Children to Be Curious & Articulate

  Use the animation above as a starting point to talk about Sculpture made by Sculptors.

  Use the artworks and questions on the free to access “Talking Points: Introduction to Sculpture” to help children explore sculpture made by other artists. 

  

  Explore the work of artists Linda Bell and Nnena Kalu through free to access “Talking Points: Linda Bell” and “Talking Points: Nnena Kalu“.

• Work in Sketchbooks
  

  Show Me What You See

  Invite pupils to make drawings of the sculptures using the free to access “Talking Points: Introduction to Sculpture” resource above. Create drawings in sketchbooks inspired by the videos and images using “Show Me What You See“. 

  

  Remember that children are using drawing as a way of collecting information and adding their own thoughts. They can also add words etc (no need for sentences). 

  Remember there is no need/requirement to add learning objectives to sketchbooks or to mark the pages in any way. 

• Week 2. Start Making
  

  The AccessArt Making Prompt Cards

  Time to let the children explore materials and tools and connect hand, heart and head. Before you introduce children to this activity, watch “Design through Making“.

   

  

  In this warm up session, introduce children to “The AccessArt Making Prompt Cards” a wide range of materials and invite them to make in a playful way without a predefined outcome in mind. 

  Openly invite the children to explore the materials without “knowing” what they will make (“We are going to be explorers and inventors…”). This comes easy to young children and we tend to grow out of it as we get older – but it’s an important skill to acknowledge and retain. 

  Collect together materials on the materials list in the Teacher notes column, and choose one or more of the prompts. 

  

  At the end of the session, tidy the room and clear a space to show the “sculptures” made. Remember these are just “doodles” of materials – and are the first stage in exploring the properties of materials, and how we can connect and combine to make new objects. 

  Ask the children to try to guess the prompt card used, and to talk about the sculptures as a class. 

• Week 3 & 4. Find Your Focus
  

  Make Your Sculpture

  Choose from one of the projects below, or adapt a similar approach to your own area of focus/curriculum theme.

   

  

  All the resources below share the common aim of enabling children to explore materials, simple tools and their ideas, with plenty of freedom to play and invent. 

  Give children plenty of time and space to explore, take creative risks, discover and share, without working towards a predefined outcome. Encourage and celebrate individuality.

  Have sketchbooks open on tables and encourage children to make notes (whatever form they take), and record and reflect.

• Project 1
  

  Creativity Medals

  

  Jan Miller is an Art and Design Technology teacher and magazine editor with 25 years’ experience. Invite children to create imaginative and unique “Creativity Medals” using recycled materials.

• 
  

  Or…

• Project 2
  

  Making a Roller Coaster

  

  KS1 children use their imaginations and sense of fun to collaborate to create a “Model Roller Coaster” with moving parts. 

• 
  

  Or…

• Projects 3 & 4
  

  Boats That Float & Sea Creatures

  Both these projects were illustrated with older children, but they follow the same playful making approach. Adapt by keeping tools simpler (ie scissors, but no pliers or glue guns).

  Boats That Float 

  Sea Creatures

• Week 5/6
  

  Presenting, Talking, Sharing, Documenting & Celebrating

  

  Time to see the work which has been made, talk about intention and outcome.

  Invite children to display the work in a clear space, and walk around the work as if they are in a gallery. Give the work the respect it deserves. Remind the children of their hardwork.

  If you have class cameras or tablets, invite the children to document their work, working in pairs or teams. Think about how the work is lit and what it is displayed on. Encourage them to feel able to change the background, turn the sculpture around etc. Explore how children can take high quality photographs of 3d artwork with this resource.

  Use the resource here to help you run a class “crit” to finish the project. 

See the Pathway Used in Schools…

If You Use AccessArt Resources…
You might like to…

Join our Facebook Group

Join the AccessArt Network group on Facebook and ask questions of others using our resources

Share and Tag

Share photos of work made by tagging us on social media

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Making shells

Create shells out of recycled materials

Cardboard challenge

Get children thinking about how they can make something stand

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Pathway: Expressive Painting

This is featured in the ‘Expressive Painting’ pathway

Pathway for Years 1 & 2

Disciplines:
Drawing, Collage, Sketchbooks

Key Concepts:

• That drawing is a physical and emotional activity. That when we draw, we can move our whole body.

• That we can control the lines we make by being aware of how we hold a drawing tool, how much pressure we apply, and how fast or slow we move.

• That we can draw from observation or imagination.
  

• That we can use colour to help our drawings engage others.

In this pathway children are enabled to build an understanding about the way they can make marks on a drawing surface. They explore how the way they hold a drawing tool, and move their bodies, will affect the drawings they make. 

Children will begin to explore mark-making and experiment with how they can use the marks they make in their drawings. 

They are introduced to the fact that they can make drawings as a result of observation, without a seen subject matter. (i.e. from action or imagination) and that they can make drawings as a result of observation. Through their drawings children are able to talk about what they can see and how it makes them feel. 

The focus of the exploration is around spirals – an ancient symbol which we all recognise, and which lends itself to conversations around growth, movement and structure. 

Children are introduced to sketchbooks as a place of personal exploration, and enabled to make a sketchbook or personalise a bought sketchbook. 

Themes:
Pattern, Structure, Movement, Growth, The Human Body, Sound 

Medium:
Graphite stick or soft B pencil, Handwriting Pen, Pastels & Chalk, Paper, (Sketchbook Making Task: Paper, string, elastic bands, glue)

Artists: Molly Haslund

If you use this resource in your setting, please tag us on social media: #InspiredBy @accessart (facebook, twitter) @accessart.org.uk (instagram) and share the url. Thank you!

“To paint a line for a minute and walk with it was something I had never done before, and it made me think a lot about how good simple things can be.” Chris Ofili

Teaching Notes

Find the MTP for this pathway here.

See the recording of the hour long zoom CPD to introduce teachers to this pathway.

Curriculum Links

Science: Uses language to support understanding of concepts of growth, human body and natural forms.

Maths: Explores pattern, symmetry.

PSHE: Peer discussion, collaboration

I Can…

• I can draw from my finger tips, my wrist, my elbow, my shoulder, my body.

• I can make a drawing using a continuous line for a minute or two.

• I have made a sketchbook (or perhaps decorated the cover of a bought sketchbook) and I feel like it belongs to me.

• I can draw from observation for a few minutes at a time.

• I can make different marks with different drawing tools. I have seen the different marks I can make with a soft pencil, a graphite stick and a handwriting pen.

• I have explored how water affects the graphite and pen, and explored how I can use a brush to make new marks.

• I can make choices about which colours I’d like to use in my drawing.

• I have seen the work of an artist and listened to how the artist made the work. I have been able to share how I feel about the work. 

• I can talk about what I like in my drawings, and what I’d like to try again.

• I can take photos of my artwork.

Time

This pathway takes 6 weeks, with an hour per week. Shorten or lengthen the suggested pathway according to time and experience. Follow the stages in green for a shorter pathway or less complex journey.

Materials

A2 newsprint, A2 cartridge or black paper, sugar paper (torn into squares), soft pencils, graphite sticks, chalk, handwriting pens, or graphite, sticks, coloured card, cardboard, recycled/scrap paper, elastic bands.

Pathway: Spirals

A PDF of this pathway can be found here.

• Aims of the Pathway

  This pathway aims to introduce children to the idea that making a drawing is a physical activity which uses the whole body and connects head, hand and heart. 

   

• Week 1: Make drawings using your body
  

  Making Spiral Drawings

  

  Invite children to use their whole body to create large scale “Spiral Drawings“.

  Use soft B pencils or graphite sticks. Work on large A2 sheets of paper (newsprint is fine).

  Invite students to experiment with different materials – graphite sticks, soft B pencils, handwriting pens, chalks.

  • Create large scale drawings.

  • Make spiral drawings to music.

  • Stand up and work in the playground using chalk. 

  • Juxtapose emotions eg.  ‘Create a quiet spiral… then create a LOUD spiral.’ Invite children to tune into how they are feeling and create a spiral that reflects their mood.

• Look & Talk
  

  Molly Haslund: Outdoor Drawings

  

  Explore our free to access “Talking Points: Molly Haslund” to discover an artist who makes drawings outside using her body as a drawing tool. Pause the videos and invite children to create drawings using the “Show Me What You See” method.

  Fast engineering challenge: Respond to Molly Haslund’s work by asking children to make a tool that creates a circle when it has a drawing material attached. Use sticks, card, cardboard, tape, twine, straws etc.

  Juxtapose children’s exploration by looking at the work of women who make kolam in front of their homes every morning in the “Talking Points: The Ancient Art of Kolam” resource.

• Week 2: Develop your drawings
  

  Make Snail Drawings

  

  Create a “Snail Drawing” on a large square of white cartridge paper or black sugar paper, using chalk and oil pastels.

  This exercise explores different qualities of line, colour blending, mark making and makes a wonderful mounting piece. 

• Week 3: Introduce sketchbooks and either make your own sketchbook or personalise a bought sketchbook
  

  Make an Elastic Band Sketchbook

  It’s important that children feel a sense of ownership with their sketchbooks. Invite children to create their own elastic band sketchbooks using recycled paper and card. These sketchbooks will create an ideal platform for exploration and creative risk taking. Ask children to decorate the cover using collage.

• Or personalise a bought sketchbook to nurture ownership
  

  Making Spaces and Places in a Sketchbook

  “Make Spaces and Places in a Sketchbook” to change the way children use their sketchbooks and help to develop sketchbook techniques in future sessions.

  In the next session children will start working in their sketchbooks. 

• Week 4 & 5: Two drawing exercises
  

  Two Exercises to Encourage Close Looking & Experimental Mark-Making

  Working in a sketchbook, invite children to try the following two drawing exercises below.

  Continue with the spiral exploration by applying drawing skills to making observational drawings of shells.

  Where possible work from real shells, making sure each child can clearly see what they are drawing. If you do not have real shells then you can work from “Drawing Source Materials: Shells“.

  Do the exercises alongside the children (to model your own open exploration), or before the lesson so that you understand how it feels.

  By the end of this session children will have completed a number of  line drawings in their sketchbooks. 

• Exercise One
  

  Observational Drawing: Continuous Line

  Start the session by creating a calm meditative environment. Use this exercise to create “Observational Drawings using Continuous Line“. Encourage careful observation and intentional mark making. 

  Depending on how much time you would like to allocate to the warm up, you may want to ask children to experiment with scale, different materials, dominant and non dominant hand. 

• Exercise Two
  

  Experimental Mark-Making with Water Soluble Pens

  Adapt this resource and experiment with “Mark Making with Water Soluble Pens“

  Rather than try the whole resource which was originally written for older children, focus upon enabling the children to see what happens when they add water to observational drawings made using a handwriting pen (check first that the pen you use is water-soluble) or water-soluble graphite. How are the marks changed by the water? 

  As the children may not have experience of the colour wheel yet, strip this activity back to focus on the line, texture, and light and dark areas. 

• Week 6: Celebrate
  

  Share, reflect, discuss

  

  Time to see the work which has been made, talk about intention and outcome.

  Invite children to display the work in a clear space, and walk around the work as if they are in a gallery. Give the work the respect it deserves. Remind the children of their hardwork.

  If you have class cameras or tablets, invite the children to document their work, working in pairs or teams.

  You might like to get children to assemble the snail drawings made in Week 2 into a “class” Backwards Sketchbook.

  Use the resource here to help you run a class “crit”.

See the Pathway Used in Schools…

If You Use AccessArt Resources…
You might like to…

Join our Facebook Group

Join the AccessArt Network group on Facebook and ask questions of others using our resources

Share and Tag

Share photos of work made by tagging us on social media

You May Also Like…

Letting shape and colour co-exist

Layer chalk, pastel and pencil to use shapes intuitively

Backwards forwards drawing

Develop understanding and knowledge of subject matter through careful observation