A summary of the Art curriculum

The art curriculum changes every year partly because the pupils themselves play an active role in choosing the topics and activities they will attempt. The projects are dependent on: the ability levels of different classes, particular areas of interest that the children have mentioned and/or areas of technical weakness that have been identified through sketchbook use or previous class projects. Additionally more able pupils are often set different individual projects that are tailored more closely to their needs.

All pupils use their own time to develop their own projects, closely monitored by the Head of Art who regulalry offers feedback, advice and one to one demonstrations.

A typical curriculum might look something like the suggestion below.

YEAR 4

Christmas Card Design

An in-depth look at illustration with particular emphasis on Christmas card designs. We looked at changing trends within art and how styles, colours and techniques move in and out of fashion. Using this knowledge the class experimented with techniques and styles and then used these to create their own Christmas card designs.

Good sketchbook technique

Guidelines outlining what sketchbooks are for and how they should be used.  The class looked at examples of good sketchbooks and examples of which materials, subjects and techniques they should be developing.

Line, tone, texture, lighting and colour

Correction of basic techniques.

Line exercises

Representing different emotions and styles of music with different types of lines.

Texture exercises

Making rubbings of different textures and experimenting with different media to recreate drawn, painted and multimedia representations of the texture rubbings.

Cave painting project

Texture

Investigations into creating textures by using tissue, textured papers and a wide variety of materials to make rock like surfaces.

Line and form

Making marks and animal forms using sticks and fingers, focusing on proportion.

Colour

Mixing different browns and ‘earthy’ colours to create hand print backgrounds.

Layout

Basic layout skills based on overlapping, variation of scale and positioning of subjects.

YEAR 5

Christmas Card Design

An in-depth look at illustration with particular emphasis on Christmas card designs. We looked at changing trends within art and how styles, colours and techniques move in and out of fashion. We discussed how simplification of form, dividing cards into boxes within boxes, heavily textured techniques and how purples and turquoises were in fashion this year. Using this knowledge the class experimented with techniques and styles and then used these to create their own Christmas card designs.

Picasso & Cubism

The class studied the life and works of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. Though we looked at the Blue & Rose periods the focus was on his Cubist paintings. The class then experimented with a variety of materials in order to recreate his painterly effects. Two different ways of blending and merging oil pastels were demonstrated and applied to the classes’ studies.

Photography and Photoshop

The basic concepts of photography such as the relationship between shutter speed and aperture, camera settings, resolution and lighting were taught. The class then photographed their facial features from several different angles and pieced them together using layers in Adobe Photoshop. They will then use this as reference for their own Cubist self-portraits in the near future.

YEAR 6

Christmas Card Design

An in-depth look at illustration with particular emphasis on Christmas card designs. We looked at changing trends within art and how styles, colours and techniques move in and out of fashion. We discussed how simplification of form, dividing cards into boxes within boxes, heavily textured techniques and how purples and turquoises were in fashion this year. Using this knowledge the class experimented with techniques and styles and then used these to create their own Christmas card designs.

Mono Printing

The children looked at mono prints by professional artists and then designed and created their own based on drawings they had created.

Lino Printing

The pupil’s main project of the year was to learn about the process of lino printing. We looked at what makes a good lino print and then the techniques involved in this printing process. The class were allowed to choose any subject that they liked and then were shown how to adapt this into a strong black and white print.

Proportion in the human body

The class was taught about the rules of proportion in the human body and face. They were shown how to measure angles with a pencil when working from direct observation. Techniques that enable artists to quickly record their subjects were then demonstrated – Oval Action Figures and Gesture Drawing. The pupils then held quick poses as their classmates developed drawings of them in their sketchbooks.

YEAR 7

Christmas Card Design

An in-depth look at illustration with particular emphasis on Christmas card designs. We looked at changing trends within art and how styles, colours and techniques move in and out of fashion. We discussed how simplification of form, dividing cards into boxes within boxes, heavily textured techniques and how purples and turquoises were in fashion this year. Using this knowledge the class experimented with techniques and styles and then used these to create their own Christmas card designs.

Good sketchbook technique

How to investigate and explore a subject in their sketchbooks. Developing reference pages and recording information.

Perspective project

1 and 2 point-perspective and accurate technical drawing techniques.

An architect's dream project

Using 1 or 2 point-perspective the students researched architectural features and building designs to create their own dream buildings, cityscapes or street scenes.

Arcimboldo

The class has studied Arcimbodo’s paintings and have designed self-portraits in their sketchbooks. Next term, ‘layers’ in Adobe Photoshop will be used to generate advanced photomontages of themselves from fruit, vegetables or other themes.

YEAR 8

Christmas Card Design

An in-depth look at illustration with particular emphasis on Christmas card designs. We looked at changing trends within art and how styles, colours and techniques move in and out of fashion. We discussed how simplification of form, dividing cards into boxes within boxes, heavily textured techniques and how purples and turquoises were in fashion this year. Using this knowledge the class experimented with techniques and styles and then used these to create their own Christmas card designs.

Poster design

An exploration of the power of art to influence public opinion and the way people perceive things. The students were asked to design a poster protesting against any sensible subject that was close to their hearts. The starting point included a wide variety of sketchbook experiments aimed at generating several ideas that were then whittled down to a single final solution. The emphasis being that the first idea an artist has is often the most obvious and that a design can be a long journey. The class then developed a number of different styles of lettering and techniques that could then be incorporated into the final poster.

Mural project

Designing and producing a large-scale mural for the outside of the Art Centre. An exercise in group discussion, evaluation and decision making. The brief required that their imagery should be visually interesting, suitable for the location and should include all pupils equally in its production regardless of ability level.

2009/2010 update

• The entire school will have a pottery day – Ceramica’s professional ceramicists will be running a range of sculptural and decorative projects.
• Instead of designing a Christmas card the entire school will be designing mugs.
• A photography competition will be run throughout the senior school.
• Year 7 will be designing and making either decorative ceramic African masks or puppets.
• Year 8 will be learning more digital art and photography.