What does an artist DO?
An artist makes something to SHOW an idea, a feeling, or how the world looks to them.
Artists don't all make the same things. Some draw with a pencil. Some paint with brushes. Some make sculptures you can walk around. Some use scissors and glue. There's no one right way.
Today we'll meet three real artists — and you can try their ideas yourself.
Drawing — the simplest tool
You can make art with just a pencil and paper. Drawing uses lines — thick, thin, curly, zigzag, dotted.
The trick: don't worry about drawing things "right". Worry about HOW the line looks. A wavy line feels gentle. A spiky line feels angry. Try it!
Try it now: draw a happy face using only curly, wavy lines. Then draw a grumpy face using zigzag lines. What's different?
Vincent van Gogh — swirly paintings
Vincent van Gogh (say it: van-GOFF) was a Dutch painter who lived a long time ago — from 1853 to 1890. He painted in BIG bold strokes that swirl across the picture like the wind.
His most famous paintings include:
🌌 The Starry Night — a night sky with swirly stars
🪑 The Yellow Chair — a simple wooden chair
Have a grown-up search for "Van Gogh Sunflowers" in a book or on a museum website. Then try painting your own sunflower using BIG swirly strokes!
Painting — colour brings it to life
There are only 3 primary colours:
🔴 red · 🟡 yellow · 🔵 blue
But when you mix two of them, you make a secondary colour:
🟡 + 🔵 = 🟢 green
🔵 + 🔴 = 🟣 purple
That's the foundation of all painting. Just six colours can mix together to make hundreds more.
Sonia Boyce — collage & ideas
Sonia Boyce is a British artist (she was born in London in 1962). She is one of the most important living British artists — she became the first Black female artist to be elected to the Royal Academy.
Sonia Boyce makes art using lots of techniques mixed together — she cuts out shapes from magazines, layers them with painting, photography and sometimes even music and video. This is called mixed media.
Try it: find a magazine or newspaper a grown-up doesn't mind you cutting up. Cut out interesting pictures, shapes, or letters. Glue them onto paper in a way that tells a story or shows a feeling.
Sculpture — making it 3D
A sculpture is art you can walk around. It has front, back, top and bottom. You can make sculptures from clay, but also from:
🍝 dry pasta + glue
📄 folded paper (origami)
📦 old cardboard boxes & sticky tape
🪨 stones from the garden
The hard bit: making it STAND UP. That's the engineer part of being a sculptor.
Wassily Kandinsky — colourful shapes
Wassily Kandinsky (say it: vass-ill-ee kan-DIN-skee) was a Russian painter who lived from 1866 to 1944. He believed colours and shapes could make music in your eyes.
His most copied painting is called "Squares with Concentric Circles" — twelve squares, each with circles of different colours inside (a bit like a target board).
Kandinsky's rule: any shape can be any colour. A blue square. A purple triangle. A pink circle. There are no wrong choices.
Final challenge: draw twelve squares on a page. Fill each with circles of different colours. NO two squares the same. That's a Kandinsky.
Well done!
You finished this lesson. You worked hard and learned something new today. 🎉
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