Art in EYFS

Area of learning: Expressive Arts & Design

Strands: Creating materials, being imaginative and expressive

Using Materials

Children learn how to hold scissors and other small tools, e.g. paint brushes, crayons and chalks. They start to use collage at a basic level – cutting or tearing tissue paper to make pictures, e.g. leaf hedgehogs. Folding paper in different ways. Junk modelling – learning joining skills to join materials to each other - boxes, tubes using masking tape, Sellotape wool, e.g. building castles, moon buggies, rockets and making the life cycle of a caterpillar.

Continuous provision – Children have access to the creative trolley and painting easel throughout the year. The activities are switched continually throughout the year depending on the topic or area of focus. 

Drawing

In the Autumn the children create self-portraits, pencil drawings of families. In the Summer the children use chalk and charcoal to draw castles. They also look at patterns in nature – drawing the patterns from a butterfly wing.

Continuous provision – Children have access to a variety of drawing materials throughout the year with different paper and textures on which to create their drawings.

Colour, Pattern, Texture, Line, Shape and Form

In the Autumn, the children learn colour mixing by mixing different skin tones for their self-portraits. They will look at light reflective materials to create patterns and images linked to their ‘Celebrations’ topic. In the Spring, the children look at hot and cold colours. They paint using ‘frozen paint’. They use clay to create woodland animals and water colours to create different shades – linking with their ‘Explorers’ topic. In the Summer, the children paint symmetrical patterns of butterflies and use clay to make snails using spirals – linking with their science topic on ‘Minibeasts’. Later in the term, children complete a project called ‘Draw-it, Mount-it, Frame-it’ in which they use mixed media to create a character from the story ‘Lullaby Hullaballoo’ which they then frame and decorate.

Range of Artists

In the Autumn, the children learn some facts about portrait artists Van Gogh, Picasso and Lucien Freud. They also learn about Matisse when learning collage. In the Summer, children examine the work of Andy Goldsworthy when creating art from nature.