top of page
Artist Inspired Art
Using the work of amazing artists is the perfect way to inspire creativity in primary school children. There is a whole world of fantastic and innovative artists, crafts people and makers to choose from that have existed throughout history and within all walks of life. Have a look below for some ideas inspired by artists you may have heard of... and hopefully a few new ones too!
Banksy
The beauty of Banksy's work is that is created with stencils. My class created these by enlarging Banksy's art on the Interactive Whiteboard and drawing around the black areas and white areas to create a stencil. We then blue tacked the stencils to the wall and spray painted over them. These were created over 10 years ago and they are still there!
Clare Youngs
Collect marks on different pieces of coloured paper, then cut and reassemble your patterns to create these awesome funky animals!
Victoria Villasana
Victoria is an amazing artist to inspire a fusion of photography and textiles. We embellished photos of Harry Kane with a needle and thread in the run up to the World Cup!
Hokusai
This infamous painting has a whole world of possibilities to inspire primary art. We used this as inspiration for styrofoam prints and for learning how to create tints, tones and shades of blue.
Louise Bourgeois
We used Louise's work to inspire a sculptural project with a little bit of creative photography thrown in to create these replicas of the famous 'Maman' sculptures.
Damian Hirst
If you can lay your hands on a cheap salad spinner (£4 well spent in home bargains!) your children will absolutely love making these amazing paint spin creations in the style of Damian Hirst
Gerald Lovell
Gerald Lovell is a master at using texture in the way that he applies paint. It doesn't need to be a self portrait - just use his work to encourage children to apply paint using tools beyond the paint brush to get different layers and marks. I used a glue spatula for the majority of this piece.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
My children created these images inspired by incredible artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by painting colourful backgrounds, then drawing simplistic images over the top in oil pastels.
Barbara Hepworth
The strings that exist within Barbara Hepworth's work inspired these colourful parabolas. You could also use string, ribbon and elastic bands to thread across different spaces such as the hole in a cereal box.
Henry Moore
Henry Moore's beautiful curved forms are the perfect inspiration for some soap carving!
Frida Kahlo
We cut out photos of ourselves and then decorated our portraits with tissue paper flowers to emulate the bright colours of some of Frida's work. You could also create your own self-portraits in any medium you like for a longer project.
Chuck Close
Give every child a square of an image to decorate that reveals a hidden image when reassembled. You can download the patterns for these online which make putting your image together a doddle!
Piet Mondrian
We used electrical tape to create these works of art and used this project as a way of introducing the concept of primary colours as well as discussions around the importance of balance and space.
Jackson Pollock
Be brave! Go outside with a big piece of paper and let children play with different tools and different coloured paints to open their minds to all that painting can be!
Andy Warhol
These colourised images are easy to produce on a digital art app such as procreate. There is a tutorial here to show how we did these.
Rob Ozborne
We collected different textures by using wax crayons and then cut them up to make these collages. The signature pop art spots is actually a rubbing taken from counters on the table!
Dora Maar
Photography has never been as accessible to primary children as it is now with most classes having access to tablets that often come with a wide range of photo editing tools as standard. If you are learning about surrealism, use Dora Maar as inspiration for your children to take photos of everyday objects from different angles or perspectives that change the way we see what we are looking at. By exploring strange combinations, or taking items out of context, children can create unusual, surrealist images that, when put into black and white, can turn something everyday into something more interesting or even slightly eerie!
Wasilly Kandinsky
Kandinsky's circles are a popular choice in primary art. You could paint the concentric rings with children, but you could also try making this a print to collage activity by getting children to produce lots of colourful prints using styrofoam or gelliprinting, then cutting and assembling different sized circles considering the colours and patterns that compliment each other.
Sonia Delaunay
Take your Kandinsky's circles to the next level by looking at the work of Sonia Delaunay who ofsets her concentric circular patterns by slicing and rearranging them to create new shapes and forms.
Susan Aldworth
Susan Aldworth uses different resist techniques to produce these striking blue and white images. You could paint a surface and encourage children to paint with bleach if you are brave - I was not brave however! These images were created by painting swirling lines in masking fluid, then painting over the top with blue ink. When you rub the fluid away, you get these beautiful crisp lines.
Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama is the queen of polka dots! These clay pumpkins were made by moulding a sphere, then slicing the splits down the sides with a clay tool. We then painted them white ad added the signature black polka dots. You can do this with actual pumpkins too - perfect autumn or halloween activity!
Keith Haring
On World Kindness day, we did an 'art bomb' where children drew their own images of Keith Haring's 'Holding a Heart' on post-it notes and stuck them secretly all around the school. This would work brilliantly on Valentines day to share a little love!
Singh Twins
The Singh Twins work makes nods to their heritage and their interactive app online allows children to play with their own image, adding stickers, imagery and applying the all important blue tint to their portraits. The app is free to download and extremely easy to use!
Frank Bowling
Frank Bowling has a unique technique that allows children to focus on the properties of the paint itself. Instead of using brushes, encourage the children to pour, spread, use unusual tools and tilt the paper to allow the paint to do the work for them. It's brilliant, messy, colourful fun!
Alma Thomas
Alma Thomas uses these signature marks to produce beautiful, brightly coloured landscapes. Encourage children to use glue spreaders instead of brushes to see if they can recreate this style to produce representations of their own environment.
bottom of page