Activity ideas for younger students

• Discuss how colours can express feelings, like ‘feeling blue’ for sadness or ‘seeing red’ for anger. Invite children to share how different colours make them feel.
• Using gel plates and two primary colours, have children create monoprints on A4 paper to explore how secondary colours form. Once dry, cut the prints into A5 pieces. Provide shape templates for children to trace and cut features from these prints. Then, have them assemble and glue their shapes onto a primary-coloured background to create an imaginary creature. Throughout the activity, you might discuss and name the colours, highlighting how they were made.
• Provide natural materials such as ochres, lumps of clay and soft rocks for children to crush using a mortar and pestle. Mixing the resulting powders with water allows them to create their own paint. Students can also use willow charcoal to draw, exploring how many colours come directly from nature. Prompt a discussion about the qualities of these colours — are they warm or cool? How do they make you feel?
• Provide torn pieces of tissue paper in the three primary colours. Have children layer the pieces on top of each other to observe how colours mix and change. When pasted onto tracing paper and held up to the light, they can see how light affects the way we perceive colour.
• Experiment with colour-mixing using pipettes, primary-coloured water and absorbent paper. Working in small cups or palettes, students can mix the primary colours to create secondary colours, then drop the results onto paper towels or coffee filters to watch the colours spread and interact.
• Explore colour-mixing and abstract composition using rollers and primary-coloured paint. Students can roll red, yellow and blue onto large sheets of paper, layering and overlapping them to create the secondary colours green, orange and purple. Encourage experimentation with shapes and movement and use the session to reflect on what makes something an artwork, linking their creations to abstract art.

Activity Ideas for older students

• Students create a personal ‘colour map’ of their day by assigning colours to emotions and events.
• Using transparent materials like acetate sheets or tracing paper, students layer different coloured paints, inks or markers. They can photograph or scan their layered works and digitally manipulate them to create new compositions.
• Students do quick portrait sketches of a peer, then use bold, non-naturalistic colour to express that person’s character.
• Play a selection of music and have students respond by painting or drawing with colour to represent what they hear.

Describe

To give a detailed account of the features of something by identifying and communicating what can be seen, heard, felt or otherwise sensed. In relation to works of art, this includes visual elements such as colour, shape, line, texture and subject matter, as well as other perceptual qualities such as sound, movement, scale, spatial presence and materiality.

Analyse

To examine the parts and features of something in detail to understand how they work together. In relation to works of art, this involves breaking down visual and sensory elements — such as colour, composition, texture, sound and materials — and considering how they work together to create meaning or effect. It also includes identifying techniques, processes and relevant contextual influences that shape the work.

Interpret

To draw conclusions about the possible meaning of an artwork, considering the artist’s intent and the viewer’s own ideas and feelings.

Evaluate

To make a judgement about the quality, effectiveness or impact of something, based on criteria or evidence. In relation to works of art, this includes assessing how successfully the artist has used materials, techniques and elements to convey ideas or achieve an intended effect, as well as considering the work’s originality, impact or relevance.