2024-25 Autumn Term
Year 3 & 4
Light
This unit introduces the children to how artists use light. It starts by connecting the concept of light to the concept of form, previously studied in Autumn B of year 3, exploring how form is shown by how light falls on an object. Children revise terms they learnt in year 3 to describe the different tones artists can use to show light as well as learning, through the work of Caravaggio how artists can use extremes of light to create drama. They practise the skills learnt in year 3 to create still life drawings using graphite, chalk and charcoal to show tone. The children then look at the work of Vermeer, another master of light, considering how he used extremes of light to create a calm realism. They compare this with the drama of the works of Caravaggio. Over the course of four lessons, the children then develop their skills using acrylics to paint a still life using tone to create form. They learn how painters traditionally used a ‘ground’ and ‘underpainting’ as a basis for their paintings and use the same techniques. They revise how, with opaque materials, artists work from dark to light, referring back to their work with oil pastels in year 3 where they used the same principle.
The unit concludes by exploring how 20th and 21st century artists have used light. Goncharova makes light the subject of her work and Rana Begum uses light as one of the materials from which she makes her work.
In lesson 1 and 2, children investigate the painting ‘Supper at Emmaus’ by Caravaggio to explore how he used extremes of light (‘chiaroscuro’) to create drama as well as form. They experiment with different ways they can create forms using drawing techniques in pencil, chalk and charcoal. In lesson 3, the children compare the work of Caravaggio with Vermeer and explore the similarities and differences between the ways the two painters used light. In lesson 4 they explore how artists in the past layered paints to create depth in their paintings using ‘ground’ and ‘underpainting’. They start painting a still life, which they complete by adding layers of tints and shades in lessons 5 and 6. In lesson 6 they go on to study how Goncharova and Begum have used light in their work.
Year 5 & 6
Art in the Italian Renaissance
Children are introduced to the art of the Italian renaissance by looking at The School of Athens by Raphael and Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci. Through these works they learn that Renaissance is a French word meaning ‘rebirth’, which is used to describe the revival of art that took place in Italy from about 1400 influenced by the rediscovery of classical art and culture. They then investigate work created by Leonardo, looking in particular at his anatomical drawings and his painting technique used in the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. They contrast the work of Leonardo with the paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. They finish the unit by linking realism to the practise of using linear perspective, exemplified in Leonardo’s The Last Supper.
Children practise their drawing skills in the first, second and last lesson of this unit, producing detailed observational drawings of their own hands, ears and landscapes using linear perspective. They use the opportunity of studying the murals of Leonardo and Michelangelo to explore painting on plaster, making their own plaster discs and creating their own painted designs.
In lesson 1 the children are introduced to the idea of the renaissance, and the rebirth of classical ideas by learning about Raphael’s The School of Athens and Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. In lesson 2 they learn more about the personality of Leonardo and his anatomical drawings. In lesson 3 they continue to learn about Leonardo, looking at the practice of ‘sfumato’, a painting technique which he developed and utilised in the Mona Lisa. In lesson 4 they continue their study of Leonardo learning about The Last Supper and the practice of painting murals. They continue this line of study in lesson 5, looking at Michelangelo’s frescoes which decorate the Sistine Chapel. The unit concludes with the children learning about the development of the use of linear perspective to explore realistic depiction in lesson 6.