top of page
Artist Fact Files
Artist Biographies
Dame Rachel Whiteread
Rachel's large-scale plaster cast sculptures would be a great inspiration for a project using everyday moulds to create interesting plaster models.
Shinichi Sawada
Shinichi's clay monsters would be an amazing starting point for any project on mythical creatures of traditional folklore.
Louis Masai
Louis Masai's environmental murals are a great way of learning about endangered species
Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia's powerful paintings depict rich stories of strong women
Nathan Bowen
Nathan Bowen is a street artist who uses his signature motif of the 'demon' in different ways throughout his art. His powerful use of line to give his characters personality is the perfect inspiration for some figurative drawing.
Tavares Strachan
Tavares Strachan is an artist who is fascinated with invisible figures from history and shining a light on people throughout time whose stories deserve to be told.
Maggi Hambling
Maggi is the perfect artist to demonstrate how artists use texture within their paintings.
Frank Bowling
Frank Bowling is an interesting artist to use as inspiration as he plays with paint by pouring and tilting the canvas.
Sketchbook Prompts
Texture and Tone
Look around your environment for patterns and play them to create tonal gradients. Perhaps you could use these textures in your next drawing?
Understanding Tone
Experiment by adding grey to each of the primary colours to see what tones can be made.
Understanding Tints
Experiment with adding white to the primary colours to create different tints.
Understanding Shades
Experiment with adding black to different primary colours to see what shades can be made.
Focussed Looking
Use this as a prompt to encourage children to really look at a piece of art work. Encourage them to step into the art and infer their own meaning.
Pattern Collecting
Go on a pattern hunt - encourage children to name the patterns they find and use them in their next piece of work!
Colour Mixing
Laminate this sheet so children can paint directly onto the surface. See if they can use their colour mixing skills to get as close as they can to the target colour.
Negative Space
Look at a piece of art and get children to draw the shapes created by the negative space
Line
See if the children can take their pens for a walk from each target dot, using different kinds of imaginative line.
Shading
Create different shading gradients using different media.
Art Scavenger Hunt
Use these prompts to encourage children to really look at a piece of art. Collect visual clues in each box that will enhance children's understanding of what they are looking at.
The elements of art
Look closely at a piece of art and draw the ways that the artist has captured the elements of art in their work.
Grid Art Frames
Use these frames to support drawing. Print one onto acetate to put over an image and copy the shapes you see onto the same grid printed onto paper.
Knowledge Posters
Elements of Art (pics) Poster
Print this off big for your classroom wall or stick it in the front of sketchbooks... or even better, use it as inspiration for children to design their own!
Elements of Art (words) Poster
This poster also include a simple definition for each element that might help children spot them in their own work. You could see if the children can create their own definitions and use this as inspiration for a poster of their own.
Big Questions of Art
These are prompts to get your children developing their disciplinary understanding of art. Use them as starters for group or peer conversation - remember to get the children to justify their answers!
Colour Theory
Use this as a prompt to support children's understanding of primary, secondary, analogous and complimentary colours.
Art Movement Posters
These posters suggest inspirational artists that exemplify each art movement, ensuring a representational range of people who have contributed to the development of each art style.
Impressionism
Use this poster as a prompt to give children a broad and diverse understanding of the art movement impressionism focussing on the great masters as well as other significant figures who have contributed to this art genre.
Cubism
Use this poster as a prompt to give children a broad and diverse understanding of the art movement cubism focussing on the great masters as well as other significant figures who have contributed to this art genre.
bottom of page