Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo is one of the most well-known portrait artists in the world. Kahlo was born in Mexico and painted a huge array of portraits, self portraits and artworks inspired by nature. In her portrait paintings, Kahlo loved to reference her Mexican heritage, often including objects related to popular culture at the time. She merged […]

KS3 Art Scheme of Work: Colour Theory

I love this painting project because it introduces basic colour theory and you can add a range of different challenges each lesson. By the end of the project students are able to identify and mix paints to correctly have secondary and tertiary colours, and use their knowledge to create unique and vibrant final painted outcomes. […]

Effective Starters & Plenaries for Art

If you are looking for short art entry tasks, bell ringers, mini lesson activities for the start of your art classes or different challenges to engage students at the start and end of a lesson, I have created a huge PowerPoint presentation with over 45 engaging starter or plenary activities for your art classes. The […]

GCSE Art Scheme of Work: The Blue Planet

My GCSE Art students have been working on an art project titled The Blue Planet. We designed this project to be open-ended so students could work independently and really stretch their ideas. The outcomes were fantastic and showed a great range of techniques, skills and ideas which were realised to a really high standard. We […]

GCSE Art Scheme of Work: Landscape & Mark Making

The aim of this GCSE Landscape and Mark Making art project was designed for students to explore a range of painted mark making techniques, then choose the most suitable to develop into their landscape ideas. The full scheme of work for this GCSE Art Landscape & Mark-Making Project is available on TES here OR on […]

KS4 Art & Design: Mark Making [Lesson 6]

I have previously posted a series of lessons explaining how students have studied various ways of making marks. This is part of a landscape scheme of work, where students will create a landscape based on their memories. This was a GCSE art and design scheme of work, and you can find the other lessons for […]

KS3 Art Scheme of Work: Observational Drawing

We taught this observational drawing scheme during the first term with Y7 students. The aim of the art project was to develop Year 7 students’ drawing skills at the start of the year and give them an introduction to the steps taken when creating realistic observational drawings. Looking first at the hyperrealist artist Marcello Barenghi, […]

Art Lesson Resources on Pinterest

I try to store all of my art lesson research for art resources on Pinterest. You can find loads of different artists, photographs, artwork, techniques, resources and ideas for both KS3 and KS4 Art and Photography lessons and schemes of work there: I’ve got boards for just about anything I can think of, from lists […]

KS3 Art Lessons: Pattern Design

I have been teaching pattern design inspired by MC Escher to my Year 8 groups in school. By the end of the project, students were able to understand how to abstract sections of previous drawings and develop them into patterns. They looked at 4 simple pattern repeats: basic, half drop, 90 degree rotation and reflection. […]

KS3 Art Lesson: Abstract Still Life [Interactive Lesson]

I have an interactive whiteboard in my art classroom and so far I’m a bit ashamed to say, I haven’t really stretched it’s potential! I regularly use the whiteboard in my art lessons to display slides on Powerpoint, show the odd video clip and occasionally have pupils interact with the board by moving items around […]