A painting is an image created using colour on a surface such as paper or canvas.

Reception Class Art Gallery

Every child in our Foundation Stage class has their own individual clip where they can proudly display their art work for all to see! Our gallery is constantly changing and the children love to show it off to any visitors.

Reception - Using Shapes & Lines

The children are becoming increasingly confident when painting shapes and lines to create simple representations. They are naming the colours they are using and are starting to explain why they have chosen them.

Year One - Curious About Colour

We have been learning all about colours and how they can be used effectively within our works of art! Knowing the primary colours is a key skill for young children - if they understand how these can be mixed to create almost any other colour this lays the foundations for secure painters. This knowledge of colour mixing and 'changing' colours was developed as children were encouraged to find out what happens when they add white to a colour.

Many painters use colour to create a striking effect within their work, helping it to stand out from the crowd. We studied and appraised the work of local artist, Sergej Komkov and the great artist Wassily Kandinsky, identifying features of their work that we most liked. Opportunities were given for children to create their own work of art in the style of each artist. Through regular recap, discussions and a broad success criteria, the children's final project was to 'use colour and shape to create a unique work of art'. Children spent time browsing their art books for inspiration for this final piece and discussed their work throughout, sharing their inspiration, explaining why certain choices were made including the use of various brushes and even naming their creative works.

Year One - Sunflowers

The Year One children have been learning about plants within their science lessons. As part of this topic, the children visited the local allotments to see plants, trees and flowers first hand. On their walk, the children captured many photographs of 'pretty', 'beautiful' and 'interesting' plants, as described by Erin. On return to school the children studied their photographs further, printing them, talking about their observations and drawing key shapes to create simple representations.

We followed on from this by spending time studying the famous 'Sunflowers' painting by Van Gogh and learning a bit about who he was as an artist. The children showed lots of interest in this and some of them even undertook their own further research at home. Time was spent as a class exploring the use of different brushes and colour mixing to create multiple shades of yellow. We then used this to discuss the effects of layering when painting to create a more textured work of art, helping to bring each sunflower to life. Every child's sunflower was proudly displayed on our class display - it really did brighten up the room and was a conversation starter whenever a different adult popped by our classroom.

Year One - Joseph Turner

The fishing industry is of significant historical importance for the people of Hull. With plenty of docks, a first class transport museum in the city centre and the ongoing application for a cruise terminal, our history topic of transport remains relevant to the pupils of Hull schools. As we learn about the roles of those working at the docks and the triple trawler tragedy of 1986 a clear connection is made to the work of Joseph Turners 'The Shipwreck' and the unforgiving stormy seas. As students create their own vision of Hull's stormy seas they learn to apply the previously taught skills of colour mixing and lightening using white to create various sea blue tones, whilst also starting to learn how they can layer paints to add effects helping to bring a picture to life. 

Future studies will look at Turners 'Rain, Steam and Speed' and what happens when students attempt to capture a fast moving object when using ICT equipment.

Year One - Plants

As the weather changes and the plants start to grow, the children have been talking about the school grounds and how it looks different across the seasons. In science, the class went on a plant hunt and they have also used cameras to take photos of their favourite plants too.

Following this interest the children collected lots of natural things from the environment and worked collaboratively to create a unique work of art. The children decided before searching the outdoors what they would like their art work to represent, then had to think carefully before collecting items - what will you use that for? Each group was given their own space to produce their final piece; this took lots of careful thinking, and some adaptations had to be made as the wind kept surprising them.

This natural art work was then recorded in their art books where children made notes to remind them of their artistic journey and reflected on the work which they produced.

The following week, the class used the cameras to take photos of their favourite plants. These were printed and the children were able to snip and start to produced a plant collage in their art books and made some simple sketches, using colours for a purpose.

Continuing this journey, they revisited their previous painting work in their artbooks and discussed how they can colour mix to produce different shades of key colours when observing a daffodil to paint. The children were confident using their colour palettes to mix and many tested out the shades they had produced by either holding them up close to the daffodils, or testing a sample in their books to see how it looks on paper. Some close observations allowed them to identify the following; there were six petals, the centre was circular - but not a perfect circle, some of the petals pointed whilst some were more round, some petals were narrower than others, the stem was long and thin. These observations influenced their selection of brushes and their use of strokes.

Year Three - South America Linked to Frida Kahlo

Whilst learning about South America in their Geography lessons, our Year 3 class studied the work of Frida Kahlo. They started by learning about her life before moving on to appraising some of her famous works. This led to some great class discussions as the children identified their likes and dislikes of the art which they were presented with, whilst listening to the opinions of others.

The children started their painting journey by recapping their previous knowledge of primary and secondary colours. They showed this knowledge when mixing various shades of the same colour, naming each colour and making notes as their work progressed. Pupils then applied this knowledge of colour mixing to colour match when painting a portrait of Frida.

Year Four - David Hockney

Here you can see the build up to our David Hockney inspired works of art.

First we practised mixing colours that matched those on our paint sample cards. Then we created new colours of our own that represented happy/sad and hot/cold and gave them names. After that, we looked closely at some of David Hockney's paintings and discussed our favourite from the selection. We then mixed colours to match our favourite piece of his work before sketching small parts of it. After that we sketched a fait outline of our chosen artwork, thinking carefully about the proportions. We then used this as inspiration for our own final paintings.

Year Five - Willow Pattern Story

Year Six - Landscapes

1. Looked at landscapes in general and appraised
2. Looked at the work of William Turner and how he uses light
3. Experimented with light and shadow and other ways to create light
4. Looked at perspective (one point and 2 point)
5. Looked at creating 3d images
6. Combined these with other taught elements (trees) to create our own landscape
7. Looked at creating depth using colour
8. Looked at adding materials to paint to create texture
9. Applied this to paint our own landscape that we had previously drawn