The Arts

The arts give children the opportunity to present themselves and show their journey through observation, experimentation, reflection and play.

At Winnall Primary school, pupils are encouraged to use their imagination through a wide variety of media in the visual arts, including pencil, charcoal, ink, paint 3D, wire, plaster, clay, foam, fabric and wood. Manipulative skills are developed through an awareness of the elements of art  - colour, line, shape, space as well as the principles of design - pattern, balance, rhythm and unity for example.

Children study the work and techniques of a range of diverse artists and research art forms/movements and the history of art from other cultures.

Take a look at these websites to help children further explore the visual arts.

https://www.tate.org.uk/kids

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/visit-as-a-family

https://louvrekids.louvre.fr/

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research-review-series-art-and-design/research-review-series-art-and-design

How can I support my child with art at home?

1. Get messy!

Try to get hold of as many different types of drawing and painting resources as you can to let your child get creative and explore creating art using different materials. Paints, chalk, crayons, pens, pencils, modelling clay and much more can be found in discount shops. Just don’t forget to put lots of newspaper down first!

2. Use household objects creatively

Alternatively, instead of buying materials, let them get creative using things around the house – for example, pasta and pulses to create pictures using glue.

3. Keep a sketch book

Encourage your child to keep a sketch book. Suggest that they take it with them when they go out so that they can look for things to sketch – a tree, a building, a scene. Alternatively, if they see something they would like to draw, take a photo on your phone and let them sketch from it when they are home.

4. Celebrate your child's art

Praise your child’s creations and encourage them not to get disheartened if they feel they have made ‘mistakes’. Explain that art is about being creative and trying out different things. There is no right or wrong way to do things. You could even ‘frame’ their work using coloured paper or card and create a little gallery on the kitchen wall or in their bedroom to display their work.

5. Discuss and enjoy art together

Find out about local art galleries or museums that you can visit with your child. Encourage them to talk about what they see and to share their opinions – about subject matter, colours, what materials the artist used, and so on.

Year 5 - Notan 

If you are unfamiliar with notan, it is a Japanese design concept of dark and light. Notan cut paper projects are great for teaching a lot of concepts including contrast, positive and negative space, symmetry, and geometric vs. organic shapes.

Here are some wonderful examples by some of our Year 5 artists.

Year 4 – Line art and Charles McGee

Year 4 have been exploring the formal element of LINE and PATTERN in art. They have been looking at the American artist Charles McGee who explored lines -  thick, long, short, wavy, curvy, soft………. The list goes on.

This Charles McGee-inspired art project, based on his 2008 masterpiece Rhapsody in Black and White, is the perfect mix of creativity and learning. Using just paper, card, markers, scissors, and glue, Year 4 pupils created their own 3D paper sculptures that celebrated pattern, shape, and movement—all key themes in McGee’s work.

 Halloween Day of the Dead Art project

This lively Mexican celebration helps families honour their ancestors.

Halloween and Skeletons are scary, right? Not if you're celebrating Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.

REMEMBERING RELATIVES

Day of the Dead combines the ancient Aztec custom of celebrating ancestors with All Souls' Day, a holiday that takes place around the same time as Halloween and which Spanish invaders brought to Mexico starting in the early 1500s.

The holiday, which is celebrated mostly in Mexico on November 1 and 2, is like a family reunion—except dead ancestors are the guests of honour. Day of the Dead is a joyful time that helps people remember the deceased and celebrate their memory.

During Day of the Dead, life-size papier-mâché skeletons and miniature plastic or clay skeletons are everywhere. Why? Mexicans honour their ancestors on Day of the Dead, but they're also reminding themselves that death is just a part of life. Hanging out with skeletons reminds people that one day they will be skeletons—but not for a very long time!

The skeletons are posed doing all sorts of wacky things, such as playing guitar, taking a bath, or making tortillas. Apparently people aren't the only ones who get to have fun on Day of the Dead!

Year 5 and 6 pupils designed their own decorate skulls  by cutting into foam tiles and making mulitple prints. We think they look spookily spectacular!!

This is Us -

Year 6 pupils take part in the City Space exhibition

Inspired by the arrival of Grayson Perry’s two Essex House Tapestries, The Arc in Winchester invited the community to contribute artwork to a special exhibition. Perry’s tapestries tell the story of fictional character, Julie Cope, from Essex. The tapestries depict all the major events of Julie’s life, from birth to death, love and loss, happy times and hard times, as well as including local familiar landmarks. The tapestries are full of colour and pattern, with figures and buildings hand-drawn and carefully positioned by Perry. While Perry’s work is on display inside the main Gallery, the City Space gallery decided to cover its walls with community portraits.

Over the past two years, up and down the country, collaborative campaigns have been taking place under the title ‘This is Me’/’This is Us’. Hampshire Cultural Trust, have been working with young people through the ICE Heritage programme, which focused on creative self-direction, mental wellbeing, and celebrating identity in all its diversity. City Space decided to display the original material and then expanded the project to allow artists in the community to take part.

Year 6 pupils at Winnall Primary, were invited to contribute to the exhibition. The children produced some wonderful art around the theme of identity and emotion, through pop art style self-portraits. They designed their ideas using paint 3D. The next step in class, will be to turn these designs into acrylic paint/collage portraits and ‘Banksy’ style graffiti using their own handmade stencils and will be on display later in the Summer term.

Silver Class artwork is on display at ‘City Space’ The ARC, from the 9th March – 23rd April 2024

Last week (4/3/24) started with an assembly launching our Winnall Primary Super Hero Book. Every child has designed their own Super Hero and has written about it. These pages are going to be published in class books and will be available to purchase. This will mean everyone at Winnall Primary School will be a published author! To help make our book extra special Lorenzo Bernardini, a local illustrator and comic books artist, came in to work with a group of children to design the front cover.

 This Week  –

Lorenzo returned and brought with him a ‘paste up’ of all the children’s character designs put together as one picture for the final cover. Lorenzo talked to the children about adding colour to the picture to make the characters ‘pop’ and how the lettering can be arranged to add impact to the final design. The children worked brilliantly as a team to make the cover look exciting.

Comic book Artist and author/illustrator Lorenzo Bernardini, visits Winnall school 

This first story by Lorenzo, in the Tale of Sarah series, comprises 64 pages and 28 watercolour illustrations.

Buy Online

Amazon

Waterstones

Austin Macauley Publishers

The First Tale of Sarah

Sarah is a 5-year-old girl with a passion for monsters instead of dolls. Her mother created a fantasy world with many amazing creatures only for her and collected all the drawings and paintings in a book she called "The Tales of Sarah". But after the premature death of her mother, Sarah lost her voice and hasn’t spoken a word since.

One day, three bullies steal Sarah's book and hide it in a dark, scary place. In her attempt to recover the book, Sarah meets Mr Red, one of her favourite characters, who invites her to a journey into the fantasy world to find her lost voice.

Art in the Community update

         ( Hampshire Chronicle Article 12/10/23)

Children from Winnall Primary School in front of their artwork

Local children’s artwork unveiled at construction site

Children from a local primary school have designed new artwork that’s helping to brighten up a Winchester City Council development project in Winnall.

The Wates Group, which was appointed by the council to develop 76 new homes on the Winnall Manor Road estate, asked children from Winnall Primary School to create designs to bring some cheer to hoarding around the site.

The children, from year 4 and 5, were given a site tour before creating construction-themed designs with the help of their art teacher, Mrs Sarah Miles.

The children's creations were then super-sized and printed on the hoarding by local social enterprise Nuneaton Signs.

The children’s involvement in the art project is one of the additional social benefits that the development is bringing for the local community. It is part of a wider effort by Wates to encourage children to explore the built environment and construction industry from a young age.

Construction-themed school books and playing cards, assemblies and new playground fencing for Winnall Primary School are just some of the other ways that Wates has supported the local community as part of the development.

The development itself is a mix of private and social housing comprised of 73 new apartments and three two-bed houses.

The homes, which are set to be handed over to the council shortly, are all being built to Passivhaus standards, meaning they’ll be energy efficient and economical to run.

Leader of Winchester City Council Cllr Martin Tod said: 

“It was an absolute pleasure to help the children of Winnall Primary School to unveil their artwork at the site.

The new energy efficient homes are being developed for local people and future generations of Winchester residents, so having local children involved in its development is the perfect start to this ambition.

The artwork itself has certainly brightened the surroundings and we’re thankful to Wates and the staff at Winnall primary school, but most importantly, the children for their wonderful effort.’

Business Development Director at Wates Residential, David Notley said:

“This has been a great project to be part of and we’ve loved seeing the art produced by the students at Winnall Primary School. They bring life and colour to the site and will brighten the day of those that walk past.

“Wates are committed to working with communities beyond building new housing stock.We want to inspire young people to consider a career in our industry in fun and creative ways, and ensure we’re teaching the next generation about innovations that will bring down the environmental footprint of construction.

“We’re utilising Passivhaus in a number of our new developments, including here in Winnall, to create energy efficient homes that are both comfortable and bring down costs for residents, which is so vital in today’s economic climate.”

A spokesperson for Winnall Primary School said:

“Winnall Primary school has loved collaborating with Wates. This project, and the wonderful artwork produced by the children, has brought people together and begun a shared story about the community in which we live and work.

“As the art was unveiled the children spoke about feeling ‘famous’, ‘excited’ and ‘amazed’ as they would never have imagined being able to see their own art, on this scale, on display, outside of school. It promoted in the children a sense of value and raised self-esteem as they spoke about how proud they were of the results.

“A huge thank you to Wates from the pupils at Winnall Primary school.”

Winnall Art on Display

Back in November 2022, Wates construction asked the school if we had some bright and colourful artwork that they could use to enhance the fencing around the building site on Winnall Manor Road. Our year 1 pupils were happy to help out and Mrs Miles sent Wates some images of their beautiful Spiral pictures. These are now on display for all to see. Take a look next time you are passing on your way to Tesco!

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We've looked at some great artists this term whilst exploring natural form sculpture.

Here are some links to find out more about them and, see more of their fantastic art.

https://kids.kiddle.co/Niki_de_Saint_Phalle

https://kids.kiddle.co/Jean_Arp

https://kids.kiddle.co/Henry_Moore

Sculpture Club

Children from Year 6, have been joining Mrs Miles after school to create  collaborative pieces of 3 dimensional art.

Using foam board, they have designed, decorated and constructed a beautiful slot sculpture that can be taken apart and reassembled again and again that plays with the idea of colour, space, shape, line and form - the principles of art and design.

The idea is to keep adding pieces to see how big it will grow!

Spring 2022

At Winnall Primary school we ensure that children in all year groups have the opportunity to develop their skills in drawing, painting, print and sculpture each year whilst learning about the techniques of other artists and designers to inspire their own work.

During the Spring term 2022, this included the work of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Bridget Riley, Alexander Calder and Karl Blossfeldt.

The children are encouraged to explore and share ideas while creating their artwork and evaluating through review, discussion and feedback, as a group and individually, against a given success critieria.

A gallery of the children's work from the Spring term.

Year 6  - wire animals in the style of Picasso's continuous line drawings.

                              What is Drawing?

During art lessons in Year 6, we have been asking the question - What is Drawing?

The answer?

Drawing skills go far beyond formal skills like - line, shape, form,tone and perspective. These skills form just one small part of what 'drawing' might be.

We have been looking at how drawing develops hand and eye coordination, how drawing enables us to make exciting art and how it encourages us to feel confident to make creative marks in response to thoughts and feeling as well as more traditional stimulus. Drawing helps us to understand how to take creative risks. We have practised skills to enable us to experiment with different mediums. Through looking at our own drawings and mark making and those of other artists, we are learning how to become more visually literate and to share our thoughts and views and listen to others. These are important skills which we make time for in our art lessons.  They also translate into the rest of our school life in how we communicate with others socially and how it can benefit us emotionally as well. Drawing incorporates so may different skills. One child might favour neat controlled techniques, another child may prefer more imaginative or expressive work.

As teachers we strive to provide opportunities for children to practise the full variety of skills, so that each child finds their way into drawing that suits them. This makes drawing as inclusive and accessible as possible.

Below are some examples of Year 6 experimentation with mark making, in a range of different mediums, from pencil, charcoal and ink to mono printing and watercolours.

Year 6 - Reverse Tone charcoal drawings in the style of Karl Blossfeldt.

Using the beautiful photography of Karl Blossfeldt as inspiration, the Year 6's created their own versions in charcoal. They worked in reverse by covering the paper in charcoal first then using putty rubbers they took away the light areas to leave the darker areas. Next they used the charcoal once more and white chalk to add fine details and achieve a wide range of tone.

This technique is really fun, messy and if the children make a mistake they just rub some more charcoal over the top!

Red Class meets Picasso

This project focussed on Picasso’s cubist portraits.

We discussed how Picasso liked to experiment and play in his paintings. He enjoyed changing how the face could look from lots of different angles at the same time – this is called cubism.

 He was a very important artist because he tried lots of new ideas and didn’t give up even when people made fun of his work. He is now considered one of the most important artists ever because he invented so many new ways of making art!

 The children were so excited that they were going to design and make their own portraits in the style of Picasso.

We think they look great!

Blue class creating their own work in the style of Henri Matisse

Year 4 -Green Class and Keith Haring

Green Class have been studying the artist Keith Haring and have been inspired by his use of the human body and figures to recreate some of his art work. We were also keen to use our mark making skills we have learnt to decorate these.

Orange Class’ Joan Miro inspired work. 
In Orange we have been looking at the Spainish artist Joan Miro. We have looked at the lines and the shapes he uses and tried to use them in our art work. We used paint, pencil, oil pastel and chalks. 

We then tried different backgrounds, collage, Paint on the computers and marbling. 

Summer 2022

Pimlico Opera

Pimlico launched Primary Robins in 2013, which sees our KS2 classes at Winnall gather around the piano every week, learning songs from a specially-prepared songbook. The project enriches the lives and expands the outlook of our pupils especially those who have little exposure to music.

https://grangeparkopera.co.uk/primaryrobins/

Integr8 Dance

Integr8 have many years of experience working in schools.

They are qualified, experienced, first aid trained and provide fun after school clubs, and dance sessions for Winnall pupils. They tailor their programmes to each individual school and often tie in with other projects and topics that are taking place within the school and support the National Curriculum. Integr8 teach a wide range of styles and are specialists in Street dance, cheerleading and contemporary. Winnall pupils regularly attend sessions in and out of school and participate in local and national competitions.

http://www.integr8dance.com/

Dance - with Integr8

Well done Winnall Squad!
Our after-school dance squad competed against
other dance squads in the Integr8 dance-off last
Friday evening at the Theatre Royal. They
rehearsed and practiced so hard, and I am
delighted to announce that they won the best
concept award!
A special mention also needs to go to Niall Rolfe in
Year 4 who won Best performer!