Introduction

Ask the students what kinds of art have you done before? Collect some of their ideas, perhaps painting, drawing, modelling, collaging.

Computers are another way to create art, has anybody used a computer or any other kind of device to create art?

Over the next few weeks we’re going to look at creating different styles of art, using different tools and skills, with different bits of software and websites.

 

Simple digital art tools

To begin with we’re going to look at some common tools that you’ll find in most drawing programs.

Open Purple Mash (or the old 2Simple Collection) and go to the Tools section. 

 

 

Then find 2Paint Art and Design section.

If you are using the older version of 2Simple, open 2Paint a Picture and choose All Tools for similar options that we'll need for this lesson. 

 

 

When the screen loads, ask them to talk to the person next to them for thirty seconds about what they can see on the screen, what features and tools do they recognise already?

 

 

Briefly discuss as a class what they know, then focus on a few key features. 

Start off with difference between the simple colours and the tools that are available. It is these tools that we'll be trying to make use of in this lesson.

 

 

The tools available are as follows:

 

Ask the children - Do you recognise any of these icons? Can you describe what they do?

Go through each tool to demonstrate what it does.

Emphasise how useful and time saving these tools can be, perhaps drawing a quick picture of something like a house to illustrate use of the shape, line and fill tools for speed and neatness:

 

Begin with the background; draw a line              

 

Fill in the sky and ground

 

 

Use shapes and the line tool to draw the house and roof.

 

Fill it in and add features with shapes

 

 

Add some detail!

 

 

 

Point out that those tools are not always the best thing to use and that you might want to go freehand afterwards to add even more detail and to stop it looking quite so blocky.

This is a good way to look at some of the different pen/brush tool options.

 

Ask the students to create a picture of their own (you may want to point them towards a particular theme or subject matter if you have a topic that has suitable links). Encourage them to always begin their picture with the background and the line and fill tools. Then add the basics, if appropriate with the shape or line tools to help them be neat, then add detail with the other brushes. Make sure they are aware of the Undo and Redo buttons if things go wrong.

 

 

Encourage them to save their work as they are going and explain why this is important, then save again at the end.

 

Plenary

Summarise the lesson and evaluate the students' learning by asking Which tools have you used today? Which were new to you today? Which was the most useful? Why? Were any difficult to use? Which tools would not be possible if you were working on real paper?