I am working on a project with KS4 Art & Design pupils with the intention of creating an abstract landscape based on childhood memories.

So far we have explored some mark-making techniques in watercolour and ink:

• Dashes (creating tone)
• Pointillism (blending colours into one another)
• Dashes and daubs (creating movement)
• Ink (using tools such as wooden blocks and straws)

Moving forward we have started looking at the use of acrylic paint, however this short task was more to get the pupils used to the idea of using new materials and tools (other than a paint brush) to create textures.

I can’t take credit for these ideas, I found some great techniques and ideas from Gill’s OCA Learning Log, which is super!

I had a slide on the board with examples from the blog above and demonstrated my own using card, spatulas, matchsticks etc. Here are the some of the pupils’ experiments:

I’m so pleased with how the pupils have made a personal response to the task, choosing their own colours experimenting with layers of colour and adding text. Some are more successful than others (in terms of clarity and visibility of textures) but the main point of the exercise was getting my pupils using new tools and materials they haven’t tried before.

The next stage of the project is getting the pupils to think about how they might use some of these techniques in a landscape and what textures they could re-create. What do you think of the outcomes and task? Let me know in the comments!

FIND THE OTHER LESSONS FOR THIS ART SCHEME OF WORK HERE:
LESSON 1
LESSON 2
LESSON 3
LESSON 4

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