We are delighted to have achieved the Gold ArtsMark.

Here is some of the feedback from the ArtsMark assessors:

‘It is positive to read how, over the course of your Artsmark journey, you have successfully forged partnerships with approximately fifteen other providers, companies and artists who have either visited school or provided external workshops in art, drama, poetry, and music.’

‘ You have also worked hard to ensure that you represent the rich diversity of the community, seeking out opportunities such as inviting Yemeni poet and artist Amina Atiq to work with 60 children in year 4 to celebrate journeys from different countries.’

‘Pupils have had a range of authentic arts and cultural experiences, including animation workshops, gallery trips, author meet and greets and visits from artists to enhance their cultural opportunities’

‘Pupils created an art gallery at whole school events for families, had artwork on show in the Royal Liver Building and you have successfully built relationships with local establishments to showcase pupil’s artwork.’

At Smithdown Primary School, we believe art education stimulates creativity and imagination whilst giving the child unique opportunities to develop intellectually, emotionally, physically and socially.  Here at Smithdown, we teach art as both an individual subject as well as incorporating it into other curriculum lessons. Below you will find an overview of what your child will be expected to learn in each of the Key Stages.

 

In Key Stage 1 the children will learn to use a range of different materials creatively to design and make products. They will draw, paint and sculpt materials such as clay to develop techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space. Children will use technology to produce images. They will also learn about the work of a range of artists, craft makers and designers. All children will use a sketchbook to record ideas and observations.

In Key Stage 2 the children will learn to improve their mastery of art and design techniques by learning specific drawing, painting and sculpture techniques. They will experience using a wider range of materials. Children will use technology to produce images, patterns and decorative pieces of work. They will record their observations and ideas and use them to review and evaluate improvements.  They will also learn about great artists, architects and designers in history.

Progression in art will be assessed through the pupils’ sketch books, which pass with the child to the next year group, displays and photographic evidence.

National Curriculum for Art and Design 

Whole School Overview for Art 2023-2024

 

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Art Chatter

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Parent assembly and activities Year 3

10-12-2024

We had a lovely morning with our Hands assembly and our DT craft activities. Thank you to all our adults who turned up to support us.

 

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Calligraphy with the Arabic alphabet

06-12-2024

Today in our art lesson we looked at different examples of Arabic calligraphy and have had a go at our own.

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Christmas Twinkly Nativity

05-12-2024

Reception and Nursery B have really worked hard to deliver a magnificent performance, full of wonder and magical singing in front of all our wonderful families this week. I would like to thank all of you for your support in taking the time to come and watch the children, as it really makes the difference to your child’s growth, as it builds their confidence. We loved learning all about the twinkly story, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed performing it to you.

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A visit from B-Tales!

02-12-2024

B-tales shared the story of Jonah and the Christmas twist.

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Some completed mosque sketches

28-11-2024

We think some of these mosque pictures are incredible!We drew them as part of our RE unit which includes learning about ‘Ummah’ as part of the Islam religion.

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Mosque sketching

27-11-2024
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We learnt all about Remembrance Day and made some poppies to help us remember❤️

15-11-2024

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RE: The importance of the mosque in Islam.

14-11-2024

We’re now in the Islam section of our RE unit and we are learning all about the sense of community and how the mosque plays an important part in bringing the community together. We took the opportunity to utilise our artistic skills too.

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Some completed pencil poppy sketches

11-11-2024

Some of this work is stunning!

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Remembrance Day 2024

11-11-2024

11:00 11.11.2024

Huge respect in our class to recognise the soldiers that have fallen in the past. We did a minute silence in the morning and then created amazing poppy art work based on our art topic ‘painting with scissors’ in the afternoon.

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Our leaf drawings using wax crayons and Brusho

11-11-2024

We are really proud of our drawings. Our sketching skills have improved so much.

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Remembrance Day Poppy Art

11-11-2024

After learning about Remembrance Day and importance of the symbol of the poppy, we had time to sketch our own poppies using pencil and oil crayons.

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We have been busy making poppy art and poppy biscuits today to mark Remembrance Day.

08-11-2024
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Painting with scissors

08-11-2024

We used our skills and techniques we have been practising by replicating how Henri Matisse created his art. We applied this method to our Ancient Egyptian topic in History.

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Year 2 Artists

07-11-2024

Come and look at our incredible leaves!

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Marking Remembrance Day with poppy biscuits and poppy art.

07-11-2024
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We have been creating our faces using Autumn nature…

25-10-2024
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Some superb still life drawings 🎨👩‍🎨👨🏻‍🎨

25-10-2024

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To celebrate Diwali, we made some Rangoli patterns!

24-10-2024

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Diwali celebrations!!

24-10-2024

Year 3 had a wonderful time learning all about the celebration of Diwali and how it is celebrated within the Hindu community. We had lots of fun using a variety of different coloured paints to make Diya lanterns. We looked at and talked about different rangoli patterns and made our own ones. We have lots of amazing artists in our class!

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Diwali lanterns

22-10-2024


We are having so much fun making our Diwali lanterns with rangoli patterns.

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Diwali Celebrations

21-10-2024

Today,  year 3 had a workshop based around Diwali. The children enjoyed learning about this celebration. They learned how it called ‘the festival of lights’ and created their own pieces of art that candle lights are placed in. We got to dress up and took part in a traditional Diwali dance.

 

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Diwali celebrations

21-10-2024

Today Year 3 looked at the celebration of Diwali and enjoyed watching how it is celebrated. We enjoyed looking at the different activities and looking at how the Rangoli designs are made!

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Diwali lanterns

21-10-2024

Today we are designing our Diwali lanterns for next week. We have learnt the story of Rama and Sita and thought about why Diwali is celebrated in Hindu religion. We are trying to focus on using Rangoli patterns.

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In Maths,we reinforced our counting skills through finger painting!

18-10-2024

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Oil pastel artists!

16-10-2024

Today we having been using different oil pastel techniques (sgraffito, dry blending, cross-hatching and tinting) to figure out which ones we want to use for our landscapes.

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What is a colour wheel? 🎨

14-10-2024


We had so much fun painting our colour wheels and understanding how different colours are made. We discussed primary and secondary colours.

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Sunrise Sunset

13-10-2024

We are loving how are paintings are starting to look and how each piece has its own artist’s interpretation.Thank you Claude Monet for the inspiration through our ‘Impressionism’ unit.

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Observational Drawing

11-10-2024

2GH have created some wonderful observational drawings of our leaves today! Check out the details in these images! Good job Year 2!

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Art and Nature!

09-10-2024

Year 2 have made their own pictures out of natural materials that we have collected.

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Applying Painting with Scissors

07-10-2024

Year 3 had a great afternoon applying their painting with scissors skills to some Ancient Egyptian paintings. We discussed the pictures and what we could see, using our art vocabulary. We then had the challenge of focusing on a small part of these images and then had to recreate this.

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Year 5 Art Adventure: Exploring Perspectives! 🎨✨

04-10-2024

Today in Year 5, our budding artists dived into the fascinating world of one-point perspective and atmospheric perspective! 🖌️🌌 They transformed ordinary views into extraordinary landscapes, learning how to create depth and dimension in their artwork.

With guidance our students experimented with lines and shading, making their drawings come alive. The focus on perspective not only enhances their artistic skills but also encourages critical thinking and creativity.

Join us in celebrating their hard work and skill!

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Comparing Giorgio Morandi with modern day life artists 👨🏻‍🎨 🎨

04-10-2024

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Impressionist Sunrises Part 2

03-10-2024

We are painting the next painting in our series of impressionist sunrises / sunsets. Using Claude Monet’s work as our inspiration, we will soon have our own two set collection of sunrise themed paintings.

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Year 4 Still Life

27-09-2024

Year 4 had a wonderful afternoon exploring traditional and contemporary still life artwork. They produced gestural drawings for a piece of artwork by Giorgi Morandi.

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Impression: researching a painting

19-09-2024

We have started our journey into Impressionism and after noting our observations, we are now researching one particular painting.

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Black History Month ‘24

12-09-2024

Some AMAZING entries for the Merseyside Police competition! Children have worked hard creating lovely pieces of work with great messages as well. Well done to everyone who has submitted already. Last day tomorrow (Friday 13th September).

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Painting with scissors

01-09-2024

We used Henri Matisse as our inspiration for our art topic. We used his method of painting with scissors to make our collages.

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Our final musical instrument designs

17-07-2024

Take a look at some of the fantastic musical instruments we have made in our Art lessons this term.

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Greek Pottery

09-07-2024

We are starting to learn about all the different styles, colours, shapes and uses of Ancient Greek pottery here in Y6.

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Year 3 Volcano eruptions!

27-06-2024
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Volcanoes Eruptions!

27-06-2024

We had an amazing afternoon erupting our volcanoes! We even had a very dangerous and violent composite volcano with thick magma which increased the pressure when erupting.

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Eid Mubarak!

25-06-2024

Happy Eid to all our families celebrating! We had a lovely day and week celebrating with all our children and adults.

 

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Trip to the beach!

24-06-2024

Year 3 had a lovely day at New Brighton! We collected a range of natural materials from the woods and the beach, and used these to create a painting of the seaside. I think everyone’s favourite part was playing in the sand!!!!

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Year 3 natural resources!

21-06-2024

What a week we have had! Year 3 had a lovely trip to New Brighton to find natural resources so that we could create landscapes in the theme of Frances Hatch. We glued on things we found and used water to extract the pigment out of them to colour paper.

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Our Mythical Creature Clay Sculptures…

05-06-2024

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4KM had a great afternoon exploring and creating sculptures using different media🎨

05-06-2024

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Liverpool Skyline

22-05-2024

Here is a FABULOUS finished skyline picture to accompany our Geography work on our ‘Walking Tours Around Liverpool.’ Amazing work from this young artist.

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Check out our sketches ✍️

22-05-2024

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Celebrating one of our Y6 artists

17-05-2024

Look at the incredible sketch one extremely talented member of Year 6 has drawn!

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Watercolour Skylines

17-05-2024

We have started our watercolour skylines to link with our Walking Tour of Liverpool which we wrote in Geography.
not finished yet, but they’re looking good already.

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Primal Painting

13-05-2024

Year 3 used the pigment from different foods and natural resources to paint and mark make.

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What is a sculpture?

07-05-2024
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Bell Beaker Pottery

07-05-2024

Super work creating our Bronze Age Bell Beaker pots. We created a similar shape and added patterns to them.

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Cyanotype Art

30-04-2024

Year 3 used a very old way of producing photographs without a camera. We used light sensitive paper to create a cyanotype capture. The children created their designs using natural resources found around schools – similar to Anna Atkins.

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Cyanotype!

29-04-2024

Year 3 had a wonderful afternoon creating cyanotype art pieces, influenced by the Artist we are currently exploring, Anna Atkins. The children collected a range of natural materials, placed them on Cyanotype paper, let it sit in the sun for 10 minutes, removed the design and rinsed the paper.
Don’t they look amazing!!!

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Designing our own maps to add OS symbols.

25-04-2024

In Geography, we have been designing our very own islands. When completed, they will show OS symbols and we will locate places using 6 figure grid references.

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We looked at another artist who focused on natural materials. Anna Atkins used cyanotype to create one of the first books entirely of photographs. This was done with seaweed and without a camera! We used water colours to replicate the colours gain from the process.

22-04-2024

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We started our new Art topic, which focuses on natural materials. We used sand and soil to mark make just as Frances Hatch does.

18-04-2024

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We had an amazing day on world book day! We focused on #Goldilocks and created our own poems and naughty hashtags.

13-03-2024

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Year 4 have been working hard as illustrators this world book day??!!!

07-03-2024

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Our Lowry Gallery

07-03-2024

We are so proud of the work our Year 6 have produced within our Lowry unit. Displays everywhere! 

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5EHD final pottery pieces

06-03-2024

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Y6 Lowry Museum Trip

04-03-2024

Since we have been studying L.S. Lowry, we took a trip to The Lowry Museum in Salford and took part in a portrait workshop after viewing some of Lowry’s famous paintings. We had such a fabulous day!

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Year 5 pottery painting

27-02-2024

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Chinese New Year celebrations

21-02-2024

To celebrate the new lunar year, we have been getting crafty in class making representations of dragons using a variety of resources. Look at our fabulous dragons! We also made our own lanterns after learning about the significance of the colour red.

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Expressive Collages! Titanic Art

19-02-2024

We worked hard in art today to make expressive collages of the Titanic.

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Painting – Impasto!

09-02-2024

2GH have been painting using primary colours. We made sure that the paint was thick so that we could move it around the page and created our own ‘impasto’ techniques.

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Which colours compliment each other?

06-02-2024
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Hansel and Gretel mural display completed.

06-02-2024

How fabulous is this wall? !

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Lowry perspective paintings

31-01-2024

Following on from our characters, we had a go at one point perspective street scenes in the style of L.S. Lowry.

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Matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs …

31-01-2024

We have been sketching figures in the style of L.S. Lowry.

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RE: Geometric Patterns

29-01-2024

After learning about Mosques, we followed step by step instructions to create our own geometric Islamic patterns. Now they are designed, we are going to colour. How symmetrical can we make them? ?

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We have combined our knowledge of Palaeolithic cave art with skills and techniques acquired from Laura McKendry.

24-01-2024

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Mural update

24-01-2024

A little bit more to see …..

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Hansel and Gretel Mural

23-01-2024

A group of our artists are currently working on a mural displaying scenes from Hansel and Gretel, a story we read and worked with last term. Everything has been lightly sketched on and now the girls are applying the colour. We can’t wait to see the finished piece!

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The Wizard of Oz – our ticket designs.

18-01-2024

We thought some of our ticket designs were just far too lovely not to share!

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WWII Liverpool Skyline ‘The Blitz’ Scenes

18-01-2024

We created our own versions of the Liverpool skyline one night during The Blitz in World War Two.

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Hot air balloons

22-11-2023

We are learning all about different types of transport. We have been making our own hot air balloons using different materials and decorating them.

 

 

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Today we have read I Like Trains!

20-11-2023

We have printed trains with blocks and made marks to represent train track, trains and signals.

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Year 1 enjoyed making diva lamps to celebrate Diwali.

14-11-2023

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Impressionism

13-11-2023

We were so blown away by this painting that we simply had to frame it! What a wonderful interpretation of Claude Monet’s ‘The Poppy Field’ by a very talented Year 6 artist ?‍?

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Diwali candles in 2GH

13-11-2023

We have enjoyed creating our own Diwali candles today

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Year 1 celebrated Diwali and made some beautiful diva lamps.

13-11-2023

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Diwali Lanterns

13-11-2023

As part of our Diwali celebrations, Year 6 made lanterns displaying the symbols of, not only Hinduism, but other religions of the world too.

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Remembrance Day – ‘We will remember them’

13-11-2023
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Year 2 have made remembrance poppies today

10-11-2023

2GH made some beautiful poppies to help us remember today.

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Remembrance Day

10-11-2023

For Remembrance Day, we read the poem ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and after discussing the content, we embellished the poem with images of poppies.

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Remembrance Day

10-11-2023

We have created some beautiful poems after reading Flanders Fields and used watercolours/charcoal/pencils to create some poppy artwork to mark Remembrance Day.

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Using Henri Matisse’s style, painting with scissors, Year 3 created poppies to show their respect for all the people who have lost their lives and our thoughts for their families.

10-11-2023

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Replication process of ‘Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge’ by Claude Monet

19-10-2023

Stage 1 in our replication process of ‘Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge’ by Claude Monet – colour mixing. Impressionism for #smithdownart

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Today we experimented with different oil pastel techniques

19-10-2023
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This afternoon 5EHD have been looking at different watercolour techniques…

19-10-2023

This afternoon 5EHD have been looking at different watercolour techniques ahead of using them as part of a mixed media piece. #smithdownart ?

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We’ve made such a lovely start to our new mixed media landscapes art topic!

19-10-2023

We’ve made such a lovely start to our new mixed media landscapes art topic! #smithdownart

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4KM had an amazing art lesson creating their own mood boards…

19-10-2023

4KM had an amazing art lesson creating their own mood boards using different colours for positive and negative emotions. The children also discovered how they can portray a mood in still life drawings? #smithdownart

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4KM had a great art lesson this afternoon?

19-10-2023

4KM had a great art lesson this afternoon? the children started off by exploring the texture of their shoes and then explored textures in still life art work? #smithdownart

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4KM had a great afternoon creating their own still life artwork!!

19-10-2023

4KM had a great afternoon creating their own still life artwork!! The children used a lot of different techniques to create their artwork???? #smithdownart

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The children explored his life and paintings ?

19-10-2023

4KM had a great afternoon completing their artist study about Paul Cezanne. The children explored his life and paintings ? #Smithdownart

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Super start to our “Painting with Scissors” topic with a focus on Henri Matisse

19-10-2023

Super start to our “Painting with Scissors” topic with a focus on Henri Matisse. Amazing inspiration applied to their own work✂️? great work Year 3! #smithdownart #theartsatsmithdown

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Artwork inspired by Yinka Shonibare

19-10-2023

Look at this amazing artwork inspired by Yinka Shonibare #smithdownart

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Making some spirals out of play dough!?

19-10-2023

After looking at spirals in art, these superstars decided to make some spirals out of play dough!?

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We have been learning to draw spirals

19-10-2023

We have been learning to draw spirals. This superstar made a spiral using the Lego #smithdownart

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Before starting our new Art topic ‘Spirals’…

19-10-2023

Before starting our new Art topic ‘Spirals’ – we had a quick practise drawing them on the playground with chalk. What do you think? Are we ready to start creating them in lots of different ways? #smithdownart

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Year 2 have been reading ’The Beautiful Oops’…

19-10-2023

Year 2 have been reading ’The Beautiful Oops’ and thinking about how we can celebrate our mistakes and turn them into something special. #smithdownart @SmithdownPrimY2

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