Introduction

Recap the last two lessons and the artistic styles that you looked at (impressionism and pointillism) what features can you remember about each one?

Discuss that art doesn’t always have to be landscapes and portraits, or even representations of real life, sometimes it’s just an expression of someone’s feelings and doesn’t look like anything in particular.

Different things inspire people and not everyone will like the same art.

 

Modern art

Begin by having a look at some examples of more unconventional, modern art in the teacher slides, or find some of your own.

 

 

 

We love this quote from Swarez Art, the artist and gallery linked from the slides. It nicely sums up one approach for how to look at modern art:

 

“What’s it supposed to be?....Whatever you want it to be. If you see a dragon one day and a fish the next, that’s great. Then you might see a face or a distant memory of a place you visited. We all see something different, so relax and see what jumps out at you.”

 

There are also some classical examples of abstract art, such as Piet Mondian's famous line drawings with primary colours. You can find out more about Modrian and his style of work at Tate Kids here.

 

 

What do you think about it? Do you like it? Why/Why not? Does it make you think of anything?

This week we are going to explore some more experimental kinds of digital art tools, and see what we can create. Start with 2Paint a Picture and look at the Wet paint, Ink, Lines and Splash tools.

 

 

For each one, briefly demonstrate that different effects can be achieved by adjusting the size of the brush and in the case of the wet paint, changing the water levels and moving your brush slowly or quickly across the page. They should think about colours and perhaps vary the shades they use and think about which colours go well or contrast with each other.  

Here’s an example of each style:

 

 

Make sure they save each piece of work as they go with their name and a number or description of the tool e.g. ‘Neil1, Neil2’ or ‘Neil Ink, Neil splash’ etc.

Move on to have a look at these two interesting web tools and see what the children can create with them (it’s recommended you use Google Chrome or another up to date browser when accessing these tools as they are unlikely to work well in older versions of Internet Explorer).

 

Bomomo

Bomomo.com is a very simple but quite unusual art tool for creating very abstract art. Choose one of the tools at the bottom of the screen and click away as the balls bounce around the screen to create your picture.  Save your work with the little blue disk, clear your page with the white sheet.

 

 

Klowdz

Ever looked up at the clouds and seen a shape or picture jump out at you? Well Klowdz.com lets you unleash your creative cloud shape hunting skills and turn them into art!

Pick from a large number of "blank" clouds, imagine and draw, then save, simple!

Click ‘Get Started’

 

Click on ‘Pick a cloud’ and choose one you like the look of (note there’s more than one page).

 

 

Then look deep for a shape in the clouds and get sketching over or around them. Use the tools at the top to help you create:

Here’s some great examples from the site gallery:

 

‘Snail’ - By Adam3

 

‘Little Girl’ - By kiso112

  

 

‘God’ - By jplanel

 

‘Rainbow Lion’ - By Kollapse

 

 

Plenary

Finish off by discussing which were their favourite tools and why.

• What do you think of the modern styles of art we have looked at today?
• Which has been your favourite style so far? Why?
• Which has been your favourite tool to use in 2Paint a Picture? Why?