By Paula Briggs
From Where to Where? What Might Aspirational Starting and End Points Look Like For Primary-Aged Children?
The aim of the AccessArt Drawing Journey for primary-aged children is to enable school teachers and home-educators to plan a dynamic and rewarding creative education in drawing for ALL children.
AccessArt’s ethos is to aim high: we want to make sure we do our children justice in terms of feeding their creative development. But we also need to make sure non-specialist or inexperienced educators feel encouraged and enabled to be ambitious in what they teach. To meet both those aims we have created the Drawing Journey.
The Drawing Journey splits Key Stage 1 and 2 (England) into 3 groups – ages 5 to 7, 7 to 9 and 9 to 11.
At age 5, many children have a very healthy relationship with drawing, needing only to be provided with materials to demonstrate their natural capacity to draw without inhibition. Fear and uncertainty are traits which arrive later and often follow us into adulthood. This happens because of a combination of a development stage when a child becomes more critical of their own drawing, comparing it to that of others, and an idea in their head of what they think it “should” look like, and, at the same time, pressure from schools to “learn” set knowledge which is usually quite formal and traditional in scope (which by definition is a narrow view of what drawing is). The end result, is that by ages 7, 8 and 9 many children decide that they “can’t draw” – and they rarely recover their original innate interest in drawing as they travel through their remaining school years.
What the Drawing Journey aims to do is to encourage schools to better understand what drawing is, or can be, in all its diversity in terms of outcome and intention. Once we have opened out what drawing might be, we can then present many opportunities to pupils, all of which, taken as a whole, provide pupils with a rich experience, and with the added benefit that ALL pupils can find an aspect of drawing which resonates with them – and at which they can succeed.
If the starting point for a five year old child is an interest in drawing as an activity which they feel entitled to undertake, then the end point we aspire to for pupils leaving primary school (aged 11) might be summed up by these resonating statements. If these statements do not resonate, then we need to check that we, as educators, have provided the best possible experiences for that child throughout their primary education.
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I have enjoyed exploring different ways of drawing and different types of drawing, and I have found ideas, techniques or materials which I personally can relate to.
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I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of scales. Not all the drawing I have done has taken place at a desk.
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I understand key vocabulary relating to drawing, and understand the vocab through practical experience.
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I have used a wide variety of drawing media and been given the opportunity to practice my skills. I have also drawn on a variety of drawing surfaces.
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I have made drawings from observation, and imagination, and I have experimented with my approach.
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I have drawn alone and I have also created drawings as part of a group.
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I have explored the many different reasons I might draw (i.e. drawing from its own sake, drawing to build my understanding, drawing for development and sharing of ideas, drawing to communicate emotions or beliefs).
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I have drawn from a variety of subject matter, including drawing from life (including people and places), as well as drawing from photographs and film.
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I have been inspired by the drawings of other artists, craftspeople, designers and architects, and I understand the role of drawing to my world.
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I feel I have been able to develop my creativity through drawing.
This is a sample of a resource created by UK Charity AccessArt. We have over 1500 resources to help develop and inspire your creative thinking, practice and teaching.
AccessArt welcomes artists, educators, teachers and parents both in the UK and overseas.
We believe everyone has the right to be creative and by working together and sharing ideas we can enable everyone to reach their creative potential.
What We Like About This Resource….
“This activity walks through a number of different processes and taps into multiple skills.This provides a rich exploratory project for children to fully immerse themselves in. Cezanne was the focus artist for this project, but other contemporary still life painters could be used as starter inspiration. We actually advocate showing the work of more than one artist as this builds knowledge of how approaches to painting, drawing etc differ. This also helps children move towards a personal response rather than creating a ‘copy’ of one particular artist’s work” – Rachel, AccessArt
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Pathway: Exploring Still Life
Talking Points: Paul Cezanne
talking points: Contemporary still life
talking points: Flemish and Dutch Still Life Painters
What We Like About This Resource….
“This project links poignant subject matter with meaningful art processes and local history. What we learn about the re purposing of materials, (in this case spent ammunition) re affirms how we can use what is around us as a starting point to making and creating. You could extend or adapt this project by looking at broken pottery, re purposing that into new sculptures that link with Roman or other local historical cultures” – Rachel, AccessArt
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What We Like About This Resource….
“We really enjoyed reading about the process of creating art work according to a design brief and how the experience of this differs to when an artist begins with their own idea or concept. That’s not to say an artist can’t approach a brief with their own individual style and ideas, but what this post shows us is that there can be a balance between the two. This would be a great resource to show older KS pupils who may be beginning to consider their options beyond Primary School”. – Rachel, AccessArt
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Pathway: 2D Drawing to 3D Making
Talking Points: Packaging Design
What is Typography
Which Artist: Rachel Parker
Repeating Patterns
Block Printing Repeat Patterns
What We Like About This Resource….
“It’s always so inspiring to hear how different artists work and we particularly like the detailed references Jake makes to his process – marking out the composition using neutral tones; adding and taking away compositional elements and gradually building in more colour and detail. Delivering a still life session in a classroom could begin with this process and encourage the practice of looking at positive and negative space. Some suggested resources below also touch on this”. – Rachel, AccessArt
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What We Like About This Resource….
“There’s a really fun element to this activity which is you can imagine all children really enjoying! The idea of food on large scale is a great starter for a sculpture project and an early exploration of working in 3D. What’s really positive to see in this project is how the children used their sketchbooks to design their ice creams prior to working in 3D. They then had the opportunity to re visit and refine their ideas as they worked. This provides a sold foundation for the concept of design development and design through making- both of which underpin any visual arts or design project or profession. For more support on how to develop sketchbook practice in your setting please see our Sketchbook Journey” – Rachel, AccessArt
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What We Like About This Resource…
“We’re really grateful to Jake from Draw Brighton for sharing this activity which became so well received during lockdown 2020.
This is the perfect reminder that wherever we are in the digital or physical world, we have our eyes, hands and faces, and drawing provides a wonderful opportunity to come together in small groups to make sketches of each other. Use this activity as an ice breaker before a workshop, or as a transition activity between classes or events. Thank you Jake!” Paula, AccessArt
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Pathway: Exploring Identity
Talking Points: Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Making Physical or Digital Layered Portraits
Introduction to Portraits
Exploring Portraits in Graphite, Collage and Clay
See This Resource Used In Schools
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Pathway: Typography and Maps
Pathway: Cloth, thread, paint
Session Recording: Finding Marks Made by Artists
See How This Resource Is Used in Schools…
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Pathway: Spirals
the drawing journey
Layered Colour Gestural Drawing
