Art & Design at Cotsford
At Cotsford Primary all children will have the opportunity to enhance and expand their skills and techniques using a range of media and materials. Using the Cornerstones curriculum, alongside the Kapow scheme of work, children learn the skills of drawing, painting, printing, collage, textiles, sculpture, 3D work and digital art. They will creatively design and make products using a range of media and materials and are given opportunities to explore and evaluate different creative ideas and works of art. Children will be introduced to a range of artists and their artwork and will be able to develop their knowledge of the styles used.
Summer 2
Although Art wasn’t the main teaching focus this half term our children in Reception produced some fantastic self portraits!
Summer 1
Reception have loved painting their own African animal this term, making sure they used the right colours, some of the children even completed some great mixing to get the colour just right! They have also created African animals using recycled materials and painted those too. These pictures look amazing in their jungle area in class!
The children have enjoyed making sketches of their favourite superheroes in Year 1. They have also all worked together on a collaborative pop art style poster.
Year 2 and 3 have loved learning about portraits. They know what a portrait is and have recreated their favourite monarch portrait. They have also used paint programs on the iPads, charcoal and pencils to produce self-portraits and portraits of their friends. Their art work has been amazing!
We are so proud of year 5 and how much they have developed their sketching skills. They created some fantastic artwork inspired by the Ashington Group, the Pitmen Painters of Northumberland. They looked at ways of developing their shading using charcoal to develop depth in their sketches.
As everyone is an amazing artist in Year 6, the children began to extend our drawing skills through colour, shading and tone.
This term they have used first hand observations to develop abstract representations, experimented with colour and used shading techniques such as cross hatching, blending, contour hatching and stippling.
Easter Competition
Look at our fantastic Easter competition entries for 2021 from pupils and parents. I am sure will agree, we had some incredibly creative entries. Well done.
Spring 2 – Remote Learning and return to school
EYFS have completed lots of pictures during Lockdown 3.0! They have drawn pictures of the Owl Babies and also a Missing Poster for Owl Mother. They have drawn different fruits in detail and talked about what they can see when they look very closely at objects.
Year 2 and 3 looked at still life. The children explored some examples of still life by famous artists, such as Van Gogh, to inspire their own works of art. The children created their own still life pictures of plants and flowers using pastels.
Year 4 children began to explore the Ammonite topic during home learning. They looked at the intricate patterns on fossils and had a go at replicating them. When they returned to school, the children created their own full-size drawing of a fossil photograph which they chose.
Spring 1 – Remote Learning
The children in Early Years have completed ‘splatter’ artwork in the style of Jackson Pollock.
In Year 1 the children have been looking at portraits and creating ‘funny faces’. They first looked at various portraits and identified their facial features – some were difficult to find! They then used mirrors to explore their own reflections and facial features, before sketching their own self-portrait. The children then had a go at making their own funny face collage, using facial features from lots of different pictures.
The children in our Year 2/3 class have been looking at still life. They started by exploring some examples of still life by famous artists, such as Van Gogh, and then they compared two works of art. The children practised making different shades of the same colour before creating their own versions at home.
Year 3 have used art to explore ancient Egyptian artefacts and attempted hieroglyphic warnings. They looked closely at the shapes and size of the different features. The children carefully copied patterns and colours from original artefacts.
They made papyrus that was used in ancient times and decorated it with hieroglyphics.
The children looked at a variety of Ancient Egypitan silhouette pictures. They were encouraged to use any media needed to recreate the strong and vibrant colours for their background. Using black paper they drew and cut outlines of Egyptian landmarks, trees, gods and pharoahs.
Year 5 investigated Frida Kahlo as a prominent Mexican artist. They have researched her life, recreated some of her art work and created a portrait in the same style.
The children enjoyed investigating the different Mexican headresses and masks they wore. They then created their own death and event masks.
Year 6 have been learning about the artist Keith Haring and his graffiti/ pop art style of art work. They have used his style of thick outlines, bold colours and a cartoon like style to create their own murals and drawings. They have also spent some time working on drawing figures, learning how to start with a stickman and develop this to demonstrate a moving character using shading and tones.
Autumn 2
In early years this term the children have completed a range of pictures including Diwali patterns using Numicon, paintings of Christmas trees, firework displays and Santa Claus!
Year 4 have been looking at landscape art this term. The children explored different types of landscape art. They also created their own viewfinder to look at the landscape with and choose a setting to recreate.
Children in Year 5 have investigated Inuit art work. This has involved creating mood boards of Inuit images, thumbnail sketches of Inuit animals and using these to create stencils. Children then used their stencils to create painted animals using different shades and tones.
Year 6 have made dream catchers as part of their Road Trip topic. They used paper plates, beads, feathers and wool to create a unique design. They used pictures to model their dream catchers on, and improved their painting, cutting and threading techniques. Alongside this they used felt to create a Christmas decoration that required stuffing and sewing.
Autumn 1
In early years this term we have explored mixing colours and what happens when we do. We have painted lots of pictures for our family.
Year 1 has been looking at street art. We focused on the work of James Rizzi and created our own versions of some of his artwork. We developed techniques in using colour, pattern, line, shape, form and space.
Year 2 and 3 have focused on the formal elements of art this half term, including creating repeated patterns, rubbings and 3D drawings. The children particularly enjoyed exploring the work of the artist, Max Ernst and then using his work to inspire their own frottage pictures.
Year 3 children have developed their sketching and shading techniques. Children looked at shapes within objects using the understanding that simple geometric 2D shapes, lines and spaces make up objects in the world around us, using this to help sketch a drinks can. They learnt about the four rules of shading, using this knowledge to support their work shading an animal from light to dark and blending with their finger. Children worked with wire bending, looping, twisting and joining it to create a fish sculpture. They also looked at the work of M.C. Escher, using his geometric techniques to create their own piece of artwork.
Year 4 have been working on formal elements in Art this half term. Firstly, we explored the use of charcoal. Then, we progressed to each making a printing block from clay and using clay tools to manipulate it into our own design. The following week, we used it to create a repeating pattern on paper. We have also used 2-D shapes to create a second printing block on foam.
Please click the link for Art National Curriculum Information.
Archived Curriculum Content
View previous Art & Design Curriculum Content on our website.
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