Visual Arts Planning: Inspired by Artists

<< Go Back To Our Visual Arts Planning Collection

Explore our collection of resources Inspired by Artists for ages 5-11.

Tell us what you are planning to cover or explore this term in your school or institution and we’ll recommend resources or learning approaches which we think might feed your teaching.

Contact us by email.

Year 3, Ruth at Carden Primary School

Ages 5-11

Inspired by miro – collage and sculpture

Use the work of Joan Miro to explore colour, shape and composition.

Use the work of Joan Miro to explore colour, shape and composition.

painting inspired by Van Gogh

Painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh

Inspired by Vincent Van Gogh, this resource shares a method for painting on plaster using oil pastel, linseed oil and graphite.

quentin blake’s drawings as inspiration

Drawing inspired y Quentin Blake

Take Quentin Blake’s drawings as a starting point for three simple exercises.

colour composition and ben nicholson

Art work inspired by Ben Nicholson

Explore colour and composition inspired by Ben Nicholson.

Drawing toys inspired by gwen john’s

Drawing toys

Create drawings of toys inspired by Gwen John.

inspired by the textiles of henry moore

Water colour painting inspired by Henry Moore's tapestries

Use simple exercises to create tonal washes inspired by Henry Moore.

Our river – inspired by Georges Seurat

Collaborative large scale painting

Use Georges Seurat’s “Bathers at Asnières” (1884) as inspiration for a collaborative piece.

Where The Wild Things Are

A series of resources inspired by Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are”.

A series of resources inspired by Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are”.

Da Vinci – Drawings of inventions

Drawing inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci

An exciting resource based on Da Vinci’s notebook drawings.

Drawing with scissors

Collage in the style of Matisse

Based around an exploration of a historic painting, Jan Miller presents three activities which develop drawing, collage and printing skills.

drawing feathers

Drawing feathers

A drawing of a feather by John Ruskin inspired this activity suitable for ages 7 upwards.

heavy/light mobile – drawing and making

making mobiles

A project making mobiles based on the Calder-inspired workshops.

drawing water

Drawing water

Juxtopose studies of water by Leonardo Da Vinci, and contemporary drawings by Rosie Leventon.

Pop-Up Puppets

Making pop up puppets

Design puppets inspired by a painting.

drawing with wire inspired by calder

Drawing with wire

Create wire drawings inspired by the work of Alexander Calder.

drawing with mass

Drawing with mass and volume

A fun session using the drawings of the sculptor Henry Moore to explore drawings with mass and volume.

Japanese ceramics

Japanese ceramics

Use the work of contemporary Japanese ceramicist Usaka Koji to inspire vibrant paintings in a variety of materials.

11-16

still life drawing in a cubist style

Still life inspired by the Cubist style

This activity is a great way to explore Cubist ideas of drawing time and space or ‘temporal frames’, using carbon paper as a drawing material.

colour mixing

A colour mixing project inspired by the paintings of Winnifred Nicholson.

A colour mixing project inspired by the paintings of Winnifred Nicholson.

repetitive line drawing

Repetitive line drawing inspired by Henri Matisse

Inspired by Henri Matisse, this workshop encourages students to challenge pre-conceived ideas of what a drawing should be.

Drawing to Feed Making

Drawing to inform making

Three seascapes by J.M.W. Turner are used to provide a starting point for visual exploration.

Gothic revival – exploring glass painting

Tamsim Wimhurst puts four craft techniques: pouncing, tessellating, gilding and painting on glass, into a historical context.

Tamsim Wimhurst puts four craft techniques: pouncing, tessellating, gilding and painting on glass, into a historical context.

monoprinting inspired by goya

Exploring mono printing

Explore mono printing and expressive mark making on a large scale. This workshop could be easily adapted for teenagers.

Screenprinted campaign posters

Making campaign posters

Inspired by sewn Suffragette banners and Victorian large-scale printed notices, a group of teenagers worked together to create large scale campaign posters.

.

Propaganda Art

Propaganda art

This collection of resources share 3 sessions in which teenagers aged 12+ explored the art of Shepard Fairey.

exploring materials: clay and water

Experimenting with clay

Antony Gormley’s installation ‘Field’ as well as other images of experimental claywork were used to inspire students.

Sculpture from Sculpture

Creating sculpture

A great resource for looking at 20th century sculpture and sculptural processes.

Kinetic mobile

Making kinetic mobiles

In this workshop, students make kinetic wire sculptures based on the work of Alexander Calder.

all that glitters

Making decorative images with glitter and beads

Jan Miller shares a project based on the work of contemporary artist Andrew Logan.

Making Sculpture inspired by degas

This resource explores sculptures by French artist Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and shows how sculptural processes can be facilitated in a classroom setting.

This resource explores sculptures by French artist Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and shows how sculptural processes can be facilitated in a classroom setting.

graffiti

In this class we took inspiration from the motivations and methods of Graffiti artists.

In this class we took inspiration from the motivations and methods of Graffiti artists.

drawings inspired by degas

Drawing and painting inspired by Degas

This resource explores drawings by Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and how they might inspire drawing in the classroom.

beginning with bones

Understanding the structure of the human body

Teenagers make observational drawings of a skeleton to understand the structure of the human body and look at work by Alberto Giacometti and Henri Matisse.

journeys inspired by kandinsky

Painting inspired by Kandinsky

Inspired by Kandinsky, whose colourful paintings hovered between abstract compositions and graphic maps.

For remembrance day

Remembrance Day art

Work collaboratively to create a collaged frieze of paper soldiers in response to an artwork by John Singer Sargent and a war poem by Wilfred Owen.

monotypes inspired by degas

This resource shares how Edgar Degas (1834-1917), made his ‘inky drawings,’ or monotypes, and how the process of mono-printing can be further explored in the classroom.

This resource shares how Edgar Degas (1834-1917), made his ‘inky drawings,’ or monotypes, and how the process of mono-printing can be further explored in the classroom.

Tall Skinny

Using wire to construct

Using thin wire to make works with a strong presence, looking at two contemporary artists, Phyllida Barlow and Rebecca Warren.

how to use thermoplastic moulding

Making kinetic mobiles using thermoplastic moulding techniques

Following on from Laura Kohler’s Kinetic Mobile Workshop, this second project demonstrates very simple thermoplastic moulding techniques to create components for brightly coloured, kinetic mobiles.