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”

      1. I really like the look of this project.
        Could you please share the resources with me?
        THanks

      3. If you could send me this project that would be amazing. We are just setting up photography at my school so this could be a lovely KS3 project!!

      7. Dear MCR Art Teacher- fantastic resources!!!- I would be grateful if you could share

        Best

      11. Looks a great project. Thanks for making it available. Please could you share the scheme of work and resources with me?

      1. Hi there, what was the size of the final work? I would love the resource, thank you!

  5. Wow this project looks amazing and would love to try it out with my Art KS3 classes, could you please send me a copy of the resources? Thank you

    Reply

  6. Hi, this is a really cool lesson idea and i would love to try it out could you send me the resources? thank you 😃

    Reply

  8. This looks fantastic 😍 and I home educate my twins and we would love to try this 😁

    Reply

  12. Hello,

    I hope you are still forwarding the resources for this project; good learning objectives and great outcomes.

    Reply

  13. Hi, just want to thank you for this amazing blog that is filled with great resources and information. will you please send me the resources for this lesson

    Reply

  14. Hi, this is great. Would really like to try it with my Y8. Please could you share it with me. Thanks.!

    Reply

  15. This looks great I am currently planning for year 9 aspirations day for photography, would it be possible to send me a copy please. Thank you.

    Reply

  20. Hi I think the above resources are really good and would love if you could email them to me> I am making up a christmas present of an art studio I got from B&M for a 12 year old and looking to help get her started. Thanking you in advance for your help. Cath

    Reply

  28. I have just started a new role teaching Art within Hospital Education. I teach Art to students outr of mainstream school for health reasons (physical and mental) KS1-KS4. Just found your website and it is brilliant. I am missing the shared energy and ideas you get from working in a large, creative Department. Thanks for the inspiration. Please could you share the resources.

    Reply

  32. Hi, I have started teaching art and now textiles, which is my passion. Your resources are fantastic and I would love a copy of this please 🙂

    Reply

  34. this is brilliant and such a great technique to demonstrate to the students to hook them in a short space of time. I would love the resources for this please.

    Reply

  43. I have been wanting to do this with my photography students. I would love a copy of your resources.

    Reply

  45. I would love a copy of your resources! i am always trying new ideas to engage my students. Thank you!

    Reply

  46. Wow, would love a copy of the resources – trying to ‘sneak’ more photography and digital Art into our curriculum! Thanks so much, Sif.

    Reply

  47. Hello This is such an amazing project just like the Coil Sculpture one! Would you please be able to send me the resources? Thank you so much!

    Reply

  48. This is great! Could I please have a copy of the resources? Really think my students will love it.

    Reply

  49. Absolutely love this! The student’s research page was brilliant too! Could I please have a copy of the resources?

    Reply

  50. thank you so much for introducing me to this. What an amazing photography idea!

    please could you send me a copy of this.

    Reply

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Published by art_teacher_mcr

Making and teaching art. Based in Manchester.