A collection of imagery and sources designed to explore the idea that artists can be collectors and explorers.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
*If you are having issues viewing videos it may be due to your schools firewall or your cookie selection. Please check with your IT department.*
This resource is free to access and is not a part of AccessArt membership.
Introduction
The following videos and weblinks explore the idea that artists can be collectors and explorers.
By approaching the world with curiosity and openness, we can re-see the things around us and use them to inform and inspire our creative processes.
The following artists all venture out into the world, exploring familiar and new places and finding inspiration in the things around them. These artists then bring the things they “collect” back to their studios to make work.
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy is a British Sculptor who has become know for making art from things he finds in the landscape. Sometimes he creates the artwork in the landscape itself (he calls this “land art”), but in this video he shares how he takes ice and rocks from the landscape and lets it make a “drawing” as it thaws in his studio.
The video is suitable for children, however depending upon the abilities/experience of the children in your class you may wish to watch the video yourself, then turn the sound down as you play it to the children, using your own voice to help share what the artist is doing.
TateShots: Andy Goldsworthy, Studio Visit
Questions to Ask Children
Andy Goldsworthy says: “Art has this amazing ability to show you what’s there.”
What do you think he means by that?
Do you like the artwork in the video more because you can see how it has been made?
How much control does Andy have over the artwork he makes? Does he want more control?
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. He was a great collector.
His images are copyright protected but the Royal Academy has created some excellent videos about his work, and there are images on the site too.
Hassan Hajjaj was born in 1961 in Larache, Morocco, and now lives and works in London, UK. He is inspired by Moroccan culture and artefacts and his work crosses many disciplines including photography and design.
What kinds of things catch Hassan’s eye when he is looking around his environment?
Do you think there is a clear distinction between “art” and “life” in Hassan’s mind?
Lorna Crane the Brush Maker
Lorna Crane is an abstract painter whose work is inspired by the Australian landscape. She makes her own artist’s brushes using diverse natural and man-made materials, many of them found at Pambula river mouth on the NSW far south coast.
Questions to Ask Children
How do you think Lorna decides which things to pick up and turn into brushes?
Do you think two brushes are ever the same?
Which part do you think Lorna likes best: the collecting, the making brushes, or the painting with her brushes?
What could you make brushes out of? What marks would they make? What challenges might you face?
Alice Fox
Alice Fox took on an old allotment and on the allotment were a number of sheds. Alice spends time discovering the past through the things she finds and creates small, carefully crafted artworks, inspired by what she finds and natural materials.
A collection of imagery and sources which you can use to prompt drawing in schools and community groups.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
These resources are free to access and are not a part of AccessArt Membership.
Birds
Use this collection of films as source material for pupils exploring birds. In the first instance you might want to pause the videos as suitable points to enable the children to carefully look at the main forms and details. Try to create a sense of momentum – for example you might pause the video 4 times and ask the pupils to make a 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minute and 4 minute drawing at each pause.
Encourage close and slow looking by talking as they draw – use your voice to attract their attention to features of the bird.
When pupils are more experienced, you can also try getting them to make their drawings as the videos play – making quick gestural sketches.
A collection of imagery and sources designed to encourage children to explore the work of Paul Klee.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
*If you are having issues viewing videos it may be due to your schools firewall or your cookie selection. Please check with your IT department.*
This resource is free to access and is not a part of AccessArt membership.
Watercolour Paintings by Paul Klee
Take a close look at these paintings. Use the questions to talk about them as a class.
Klee was born in 1879 in Switzerland. When he was 35 he visited Tunisia in Africa, where his experience of the light and colours of the landscapes and architecture helped awaken his interest in colour.
He became less interested in painting exactly what he saw and in fact from 1915 onwards he never again worked from a model. Instead, he became interested in painting the colours around him, letting them detach themselves from the objects the colours were on. In this way his worked moved towards Abstraction.
He became interested in creating fantastical worlds, full of symbols, shapes, colour and line.
He took his inspiration from the world around him, and his imaginative response to the world, and also from poetry, music and literature.
Sometimes his work was serious and meditative, other times it was full of humour. He also loved the sounds of words and phrases and the titles of works were often very important to Klee.
Battle scene from the funny and fantastic opera “The Seafarers” (1923). Painting by Paul Klee. Original from the Kunstmuseum Basel Museum
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
What do you think is happening?
How does the title change the painting?
Why do you think Klee painted in blocks of colour?
How does the painting make you feel?
The Firmament Above the Temple (1922) by Paul Klee. Original from The MET Museum
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
Can you see the landscape and the sky? How has Klee painted them?
How does the painting make you feel?
Temple Gardens (1920) by Paul Klee. Original from The MET Museum
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
How does this landscape make you feel?
If you were there, in the painting, how would you feel?
Tell me about the colours. Why do you think Klee choose these colours?
Persian Nightingales (1917) by Paul Klee. Original portrait painting from The Art Institute of Chicago.
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
What materials do you think Klee used?
Can you see two letters?
The R and the N stand for Rose and Nightingale. Can you spot the rose and the Nightingales in the painting?
How does this painting make you feel?
How do you think the painter felt when he painted it?
This is an animation of one of Klee’s paintings.
Questions to Ask Children
How do you feel watching the animation?
What kind of world has Klee/the animator created?
If you could animate one of the paintings above, how would you bring it to life? What would you make it do?
In this video Klee’s paintings are shown alongside music.
Questions to Ask Children
How does the music change the way you look at the paintings?
Do you think Klee would have liked this video (remember Klee made his paintings at a time when there were very few films).
A collection of imagery and sources designed to encourage children to consider what role a plinth may play in creating or displaying artwork.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
*If you are having issues viewing videos it may be due to your schools firewall or your cookie selection. Please check with your IT department.*
This resource is free to access and is not a part of AccessArt membership.
What Is A Plinth?
“Limestone plinth with the feet of a male statuette” Licensed under CC0 1.0
In the traditional sculptural sense, plinths are usually heavy boxes or bases made from stone, wood or metal, which raise a sculpture above the ground.
Plinths sometimes protect the sculpture from the elements, such as a sculpture raised out of the way of puddles of rain in the street.
More often, the role of a plinth is to give the sculpture some kind of status. By raising the sculpture to a certain level, the sculptor can decide how the viewer interacts with the artwork.
Plinths also help create a separation between the ordinary everyday world around us and the art “object”.
Seeing an object on a plinth might encourage us to view that object as an artwork – as something special.
Questions to Ask Children
Have you seen any sculpture on a plinth in and around the place where you live?
Why do you think those sculptures are on plinths? How does the way the sculpture is displayed affect how you think about the sculpture?
Imagine two peas. One is on the kitchen floor, but an identical pea is on a plinth in a gallery. How does it change how you think about the pea?
The Fourth Plinth
Photo of “Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle,” by Yinka Shonibare, Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, London by Andy Hay
What is The Fourth Plinth?
The Fourth Plinth is considered to be one of the world’s largest ongoing public art commissions. Its main aim is to bring contemporary art to the public and to encourage debate about what art is.
The “fourth plinth” was originally intended to hold a sculpture of a horse belonging to William IV, but the sculpture was never displayed due to lack of money. For over 150 years the plinth remained empty, until in 1998, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) commissioned three contemporary sculptures to be displayed temporarily on the plinth. The legacy of those three sculptures was a rolling programme called the Fourth Plinth.
“One and Other” by Antony Gormley, Image by Feggy Art
Whilst Antony Gormley usually makes sculpture out of more traditional materials like steel, he was commissioned as part of the Fourth Plinth to produce a rather different kind of art.
Instead of working in traditional materials, Gormley used the plinth as a focus for creating an artwork which “became a portrait of the UK, now”. For 100 days in 2009, 24 hours a day, Gormley and the team coordinated members of the public to take stage on the plinth for an hour at a time. They could do whatever they liked, using the plinth to give their expression a literal and metaphorical platform.
Through “One & Other”, Gormley hoped that by giving the public free will to express their hopes and fears for what might be, a “portrait of the nation” would be revealed.
Questions to Ask Children
How would you use your time if you were given an hour on the plinth?
The Fourth Plinth Challenge
Can you find a “plinth” at school and coordinate a similar project?
How would children and teachers “apply” for a slot on your plinth?
Who would decide who gets a slot and what would your criteria be?
A collection of imagery and sources designed to introduce children to different types of sculpture.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
*If you are having issues viewing videos it may be due to your schools firewall or your cookie selection. Please check with your IT department.*
This resource is free to access and is not a part of AccessArt membership.
What is Sculpture?
Interactive Cloud Sculpture by Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett
“Interactive Cloud Sculpture” made of 6000 lightbulbs by Canadian artists Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett
Describe what you see. Think about the gallery space as well as the sculpture itself.
How would it feel to be in that space, interacting with the sculpture?
What do you think the artists are trying to say through the artwork?
Why do you think two sculptors collaborated on this piece?
How does it make you feel? What does it make you think?
Floating Piers by Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Floating Piers by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Italy, 2016
L’Arc De Triomphe Wrapped by Christo and Jeane-Claude, Paris, 1961
Christo and Jeanne-Claude are artists who have become known for wrapping large objects/buildings/environments.
Christo started out wrapping objects like chairs and books, interested in how the wrapping changed the meaning. More recently the large projects, which can take years of planning, are often made just for the purpose of enabling us to look at the world in new ways.
Christo says: “We make beautiful things, unbelievably useless, totally unnecessary.”
How long do you have to look at the sculpture before it has an affect on you? If you saw a still image of the sculpture would you feel the same way?
Food Sculptures by Nicole Dyer
Food Sculptures by Nicole Dyer
Nicole Dyer makes sculptures inspired by food. See more of their work here “Talking Points:Nicole Dyer“.
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
How do the sculptures make you feel?
How do you think the artist made the sculptures?
Faith Bebbington
Sculptures by Faith Bebbington
Faith Bebbington is best known for her sustainable practise; her large sculptures utilise lots of waste materials, with her biggest sculpture to date re-using over 2500 deconstructed plastic milk bottles!
A collection of imagery and sources designed to stimulate conversation around the idea of sculpture used to help us remember.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
Cretto di Burri by Italian Sculptor Alberto Burri
Alberto Burri – Cretto di Burri (Crack of Burri), 1984–2015, concrete, 1.50 x 350 x 280 m (4.9 x 1,150 x 920 ft), Gibellina, Sicily, Italy, photo: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by Luca Di Ciaccio
The Cretto di Burri alias Crack of Burri is a landscape artwork by Italian visual artist, painter, sculptor, and physician Alberto Burri
Located in Sicily, Italy, the project began in 1984, only to stall in 1989 when funds ran out. It was finally completed 30 years later in 2015.
This piece of land art sculpture, made from cast concrete, commemorated the destruction of the city of Gibellina in 1968 by the Belice earthquake.
The quake destroyed the landscape and left thousands of families homeless.
Alberto Burri – Cretto di Burri (Crack of Burri), 1984–2015, concrete, 1.50 x 350 x 280 m (4.9 x 1,150 x 920 ft), Gibellina, Sicily, Italy, photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 by Michele Cannone
Alberto Burri was an artist involved in the creation of a new town, 20 km to the west of the destroyed town. This article describes how the mayor was so impressed with Burri that he invited him to make a piece of art to commemorate the catastrophic event. At first Burri wasn’t sure, but after he visited the destroyed area he said:
I almost felt like crying and immediately the idea came to me: here, here I feel that I could do something. I would do this: we compact the rubble that is so much a problem for everyone, we arm it well, and with the concrete, we make an immense white crack, so that it remains a perennial memory of this event.
Burri and his workers collected the rubble and redistributed it, casting it into huge cement blocks to recreate the old streets.
“The cracked white concrete of this monument memorializes and conceptualizes the ordeal and suffering of the Belice earthquake, with the slits marking not just the literal streets and corridors of the old town but also the violence done to the land, people, as well as profoundly to the cultural memory of the site.” https://publicdelivery.org/cretto-di-burri/
Alberto Burri – Cretto di Burri (Crack of Burri), 1984–2015, concrete, 1.50 x 350 x 280 m (4.9 x 1,150 x 920 ft), Gibellina, Sicily, Italy, photo: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by Luca Di Ciaccio
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
Which words would you use to describe the whole piece?
Can you imagine walking through the structure? Flying over it? What would it smell like? Feel like?
What do you think the artist is trying to say with this artwork?
How does it make you feel?
What is the environmental impact of the piece?
Basic and Budget Friendly Art Materials for Primary Schools
To The Thames Barrier And Beyond
Talking Points: Inspired by Birds
A collection of imagery and sources designed to encourage children to consider how artists are inspired by birds.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
*If you are having issues viewing videos it may be due to your schools firewall or your cookie selection. Please check with your IT department.*
This resource is free to access and is not a part of AccessArt membership.
Ernst Haekel
Trochilidae–Kolibris from Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Ernst Haeckel. Original from Library of Congress. Ernst Haekel was a was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. Wiki
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
Look at the artwork as a whole – which words would you use to describe the whole piece?
Tell me about the details you like.
What do you think the artist is trying to say with this artwork?
What do you think the sculptures by Hoang are made out of ?
How do you think he made them?
How do you think he decides how much detail to include or leave out?
How do they make you feel?
What do you think the artist is trying to say with this artwork?
John James Audubon
John James Audubon was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictorial record of all the bird species of North America. Wiki
Pied oyster-catcher from Birds of America (1827) by John James Audubon, etched by William Home Lizars. Original from University of Pittsburg.
Fulmar Petrel from Birds of America (1827) by John James Audubon, etched by William Home Lizars. Original from University of Pittsburg.
Snow Goose from Birds of America (1827) by John James Audubon, etched by William Home Lizars. Original from University of Pittsburg.
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
Look at the artwork as a whole – which words would you use to describe the whole piece?
Tell me about the details you like.
What materials has the artist used?
What do you think the artist is trying to say with this artwork?
Can you describe the nature/personality of the bird? Why do you think that? How has the artist made you think that?
Pejac
Camoflage by Pejac. Silvestre Santiago, better known as Pejac, is a Spanish painter and street artist. He was born in 1977 in Santander, Cantabria, Spain. He studied Fine Arts in Salamanca and then Barcelona. In 2001, Santiago continued his studies in Italy at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Milano. Today the artist lives in Santander.
Inspired by the work of Belgium Surrealist Rene Magritte, Pejac plays with the idea of negative space in this installation piece. Explore images of the piece via the My Modern Met article
Questions to Ask Children
What do you see?
What has the artist done in this piece?
How does this piece of art make you feel?
What do you think the artist is trying to say?
Dusciana Bravura
Dusciana Bravura is an Italian Sculptor and Interior Designer.
AccessArt is excited to be working on a brand-new Primary Curriculum for Art to be launched in May 2022.
Following the success of the existing AccessArt Exemplar Curriculum and Progression Plan, AccessArt currently has nearly 9500 members – 70% of which are primary schools using AccessArt ethos and resources to help deliver a rich creative curriculum in the visual arts.
AccessArt has a unique model amongst providers of visual arts education resources. The charity and membership organisation work with hundreds of artist educators and teachers in the UK and overseas to build an evolving collection of high quality resources which enable open-ended creative exploration. This co-created resource bank means schools benefit from the experience of a wide range of leading practitioners in the field, whilst being curated, guided and led by the vision of Paula Briggs and the AccessArt team.
The AccessArt Primary Art Curriculum will aim to:
Go far beyond meeting the requirements of the current National Curriculum, enabling schools to deliver an exciting art curriculum in the here and now, but also act as a model which leads with vision and expertise to help inform future curriculum planning in England and beyond.
Offer schools a fully flexible scheme of work which can be followed in whole or in part.
Present choices for schools, and enable teachers to develop skills so they feel able to tailor the curriculum, develop their ownership, and create outcomes unique to them.
Be outward looking in terms of approach, activities and artists, making the curriculum fully inclusive and relevant to all pupils.
Encourage schools, teachers and pupils to think about WHY we teach art, as well as HOW we might do so, and vitally, to help build understanding of why art and artists are relevant to society.
Enable all teachers including non-specialist teachers and teachers with little experience to feel confident and happy teaching art, developing their skills and personal sense of creativity and wellbeing.
The new AccessArt Primary Curriculum for Art will be launched in May 2022 giving schools time to explore and plan before Autumn term 2022. The introduction of the new AccessArt curriculum will be supported by extensive online CPD session for schools, including suggested start points in the form of mini-curriculum which schools can utilise in the Summer term 2022 as a way to better explore what AccessArt can offer their teachers and pupils.
We look forward to keeping you updated over the next few months. Please do get in touch if you have any questions, and join our facebook group at
