KS3 Mini Art & Photography Project

Posted on by art_teacher_mcr

This Art & Photography project is fairly simple scheme of work and quick to teach, with effective photographic final pieces for students. It doesn’t require any complex understanding of photographic techniques (yay) and it was designed as a taster of GCSE Photography for my Year 9 (KS3) classes. Students created some brilliant, woven photograph pieces as their final outcomes using their own pictures 📷

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**UPDATE**
I have added more slides to the presentation with even more examples of paper weaving and student work – enjoy!

Click here to get this project – for free!
Easy photography project - KS3 paper weaving art scheme of work for free.
Paper weaving art project - photography KS3 - free
Paper weaving art project - photography KS3 scheme of work
Woven photograph art lesson examples
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This mini art and photography project was really designed as a GCSE taster. It’s very short to teach (but could easily be extended if you wanted to) and students could make the work really personal by taking their own photographs.

Art & Photography KS3 Project

I chose CONTRAST an overall theme for the scheme of work, giving students something to consider when taking their own pictures. To introduce the project, there is a starter activity getting students to think about what contrast means and how it could be explored in photography.

Art and Photography scheme of work - free resources

Once students were clear about the idea of CONTRAST in photography, I introduced the artist / photographer David Samuel Stern as a reference for students to research – his work is brilliant!

David Samuel Stern Woven Portraits - art & photography lessons
David Samuel Stern Woven Portraits - art & photography lesson

Although Stern doesn’t necessarily focus on CONTRAST, I wanted students to understand his process for weaving photographs together and see some of the possible outcomes. Students loved his work! Pictures of his work are included in the project slides so they can be printed for students to use in their research.

Students produced some excellent research pages about David Samuel Stern:

Art & Photography KS3 Project
Art Photography Scheme of work
Woven photographs art project
Photographs woven together art project

Quick note:

I’ve actually updated this scheme of work with another photographer – Jason Chen -as a reference for students. His work is now included in the presentation so you can choose either (or both!) to use in your lessons. Chen’s work has a clear link to ideas of contrast, juxtaposition and duality, which I thought were a bit more appropriate to the scheme of work.

Collage of woven photographs by Jason Chen featuring abstract, colorful patterns and portraits.
How to organise students taking photographs during lessons

This part of the project required a bit of lesson planning:
– each student needed to take at least two photographs
– each photograph had to be printed ready to be woven
– some classes had 35 students!

While students were working on their David Samuel Stern research pages, I would select groups (up to 4) to move around the room taking pictures of things that contrasted, eg. a rough surface and a smooth surface. I would give them some tips and ideas related to camera angles / lighting etc. as they worked.

Any students not working well in their research, or not on task, didn’t get chosen and had to take the pictures as homework (hehe).

I set up an Assignment in Google Classroom and students uploaded their best two photographs. From there, I could just open the Drive folder and download all of their photographs in one go, ready to print.

Google Drive - class drive folder for printing images

Some students didn’t have a phone to take pictures with (or it had died) so I let them use our GCSE Photography cameras. We have a couple of these Canon EOS 4000d cameras and I find them great for our GCSE students – simple to get started with and various features for experimenting.

Canon EOS 4000d Camera

As soon as I got these cameras out and started to demonstrate with them for the small groups taking pictures, the rest of the class suddenly became very engaged and all wanted to have a go 🤔

Once students had finished their research pages, and had their contrasting photographs printed out, they could start weaving them together. This was the second or third lesson in the project (depending on the class I had or how far ahead / behind students were).

I used this great video on photographic weaving techniques to speed up the process:

How to weave with photographs.

To increase the challenge for some students, I used differentiated outcomes with my trusty Nando’s peri-ometer 😆 which they love. They were also already engaged with the work because they were using their own photographs rather than pictures from magazines or random print outs.

Photography weaving project - KS3 free resources
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Once students understood the paper weaving concept and had cut their pieces, the rest of the lessons were quite straight forward. To make their work as accurate as possible and to incorporate some maths into the project, I had students draw out ruled lines on the back of their photographs, ready to cut.

The smaller the gaps between the lines, the more complex the weave became. Most students opted for 1cm gaps, but a few went for 2cm or even 3cm if they really struggled with all of the cutting. Their photographs were all A4 size, so it was quite a lot to measure and cut.

Paper weaving art photography project free resources

Once students began weaving their photographs in my class, I assigned them a task to finish at home. This was primarily because of limited time, but you can also expand on this small art and photography project by trying out various weaving methods: using different shapes or sizes, or even by printing one copy of their photo in black and white to observe the contrasting colors.

Here are some examples of final photographic woven pieces by students – what do you think? I was really pleased with how well they came and, some look so nice!

Examples of students' woven photographic work, showcasing creative use of color and texture.
Three examples of woven photographs created by students, showcasing a variety of colors and patterns.

If you would like a copy of the resources for this project, just leave a comment and I will share it with you – enjoy!

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425 thoughts on “KS3 Mini Art & Photography Project”

      2. Hi, thanks! I’m not sure why it’s not working, you should just be able to download the project from the page directly. I have emailed them over to you – I hope they’re useful 🙂

  3. This is a fantastic resource. I would really appreciate it if you would please send it to me. Thanks

    Reply

  5. Hi! This seems like an awesome photographic assignment to incorporate into our new Art course for the second semester. Thanks in advance for sharing!

    Reply

  17. Hi, again, you have shared an engaging and well thought lesson. The results look great! Thank you, Brad

    Reply

  18. Good morning. A lovely project, really clearly explained. Thank you. Could you share it with me also please. Take care. Lisa.

    Reply


  19. What a fantastic project, thank you for sharing. I think it’d be great for the kids in our alternative provision. Could you kindly share the resources? Thank you.

    Reply

  23. hi great introduction to photography! Please can I have a copy of the resources? Thanks ☺️

    Reply


  28. Please send through to me when you get a moment – it looks fabulous 🙂

    Reply

  29. Can I please have a copy-this looks fab to do to get my year 8’s interested in photography!

    Reply

  32. please could you share with me, going to try this as a whole school art transition project!! Looks brilliant. Thank you!!!

    Reply

    1. I have just shared it – I love the idea of using it across the whole school! If you could send me any pictures of student’s work I’d love to see them 🙂 thanks.

      Reply

  33. This is a great project. Really well explained and nice choice of critical studies. I would love to see the resources. Really kind of you to share.

    Reply

  36. This looks so good, thank you so much for sharing. I will be sure to send you the results.

    Reply

  40. Hello,

    What a great resource. Please could you send me the resources if it is still available please?

    Lisa

    Reply

      1. I must be very silly, but I can’t find the shared presentation you sent. Can you tell me where I will find it please?

  42. I have just started teaching year 9 photography. I have been doing this very task but your lessons are better. Would love to have a copy of your resources so I can improve mine.

    Reply

    1. Haha thanks that’s very kind. I am actually in the process of updating these lessons with a different artist – I will update the presentation soon so please keep checking if you want the latest one 🙂

      Reply

    2. HI, I would love to get the copy of the resources for my class. I’m currently teaching my key stage 3 photography and i believe this project will help them be more engaged in the lessons. It’s such a fun project to do.

      Reply

      1. Thanks for your message, I have just sent the project 🙂 I hope it helps to engage your students. I have had some of the best results this year from my groups, but it can really depend on their interest too.

  43. I love this idea, I work in a SEND school, I am always looking for new ideas for photography. it is sometimes difficult to get pupils interested in the application of photography, they love using the camera, but don’t know what to do with their images. this project looks like it could be a good lesson to show direction.

    I would be grateful if you could send me you PPT. Thanks.

    Reply

  47. This is such a useful site; you are full of creative ideas! Please could you send me a copy of the resource pack. Thank you.

    Reply

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Published by art_teacher_mcr

Making and teaching art. Based in Manchester.