Year 4 Art

Term 1

Last term Year 4 were learning about the Vikings. We experimented with different techniques for creating water effects such as by doing a water wash and sprinkling powder paints onto it, dragging a stick through wet paint, flicking paint and doing wax resist. Everyone enjoyed making lots of mess!

The following week we painted 3 sheets of paper each, using our favourite techniques. Then we had to research Viking ships and design our own boats. We made our own collages using the paper that we had created before, plus our Viking ships that we created using coloured paper.

Keep your eye on the display board outside Year 4 for a lovely Viking display coming soon!

Term 2

This term our topic was ‘Robots’ so we started off by researching the artist, Matt Dixon who creates lots of paintings of robots. We talked about the way that emotions are portrayed through the art and then we did our own designs trying to portray the robot’s feelings. We had to consider the use of colour and the way the robots stand or sit and their facial expressions to see if we could make them look lonely or sad. Once we had completed this, we chose our favourite design and painted it using watercolours. Once dry we added detail to our work using black pens. Can you tell how our robots are feeling by looking at our work?

Term 3

Year 4 have been doing work based around the topic of ‘Food’. They researched different types of art to do with food and discovered two artists that create art out of toast - Ida Skivenes (from Norway) and Eiko Mori (from Japan). They looked at how to create light/dark toast by covering part of the toast in tinfoil and putting it under the grill for different lengths of time. After that they created some fabulous toast art for homework which they then shared with the class and had to agree on the best way of photographing it for a competition entry, thinking about which colour plates to display them on. Finally, they evaluated their work and said what they liked about each other’s work and how they would improve their own.

Term 4

This term we have been finding out about The Tudors. In art we had to research the clothes that rich Tudors wore by looking at the Royal Museums Greenwich website. We found out about the colours that they wore and why.

We then looked at pictures of Henry VIII and had to complete the other half of the picture. We really concentrated well on including extra detail in our work.

The following week we experimented with different drawing pencils and learnt how to do cross hatching. After that we chose our own picture of Henry VIII or one of his wives and drew a portrait of them.

Finally we turned our portraits into stamps and discussed ways of marketing our art!

Term 5 and 6

Year 4 have been finding out about the work of local artists Emily Firmin and Justin Mitchell. Some of the artwork they create is produced by using paper mache and as year 4 were learning about animals they decided to make their own paper mache animals. They designed the animals in their art books and then got to work creating their work. They did such a good job creating them, and their animals looked so good, that they asked if they could write letters to the artists to ask some questions and tell them about their creations. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that they write back to us!