Combined Learning Artefact

Planning
Claire Maria Johnston
Artist Researcher Teacher

Scheme
Domain - Painting
Scheme - an A3 painting investigating surface qualities and
complementary colours in a still life comprising of kitchen
objects with reflective surfaces, fruit, strong colour
background.
Group: 5th years
No. of Pupils: 18
Planned duration

Actual duration

No. of Lessons: 4 weeks

4 doubles and 8 singles

No. of Lessons: 3 weeks

3 doubles and 5 singles

Total Time: 640 mins

10hrs 40mins

Total Time: 440 mins

6hrs 40 mins

Aims and objectives

Aims
To help students to
-Develop new skills, concepts, the techniques, and principles of painting a still life.
Exploring setting up a still life in consideration of composition, colour and surface
qualities.

-Develop a good working practice. Understanding the importance of paint

management and keeping colours clean and not murky. Blocking down colours
from the background to the foreground.
-Develop an understanding of colour theory, in particular complementary colours.

-Explore the importance of colour and surface qualities in painting, focusing on

artists Van Gogh, Cezanne and Matisse.

Overall Learning Outcomes for the Scheme

On completion pupils should be able to:
Set up a still life that explores composition, colour and surface qualities
by experimentation. Photos thumbnail

creating a painting that demonstrates an understanding of how to use a

palette, mix colours cleanly.
Students will develop a painting in which they will approach the painting
as a whole, students will block down colours from the background to the
foreground.
Develop a strong knowledge of how colours relate and interact with each other the
process of
Examine the work of the post-impressionist and fauvist artists, in
particular Van Gogh, Cezanne and Matisse in terms of the colour and surface
qualities use.

Aims and objectives of lesson plans

Lesson one
Lesson Objectives:
Develop an understanding of
colour theory, Primary, Secondary,
Complementary colours.
Develop a good working
practice. Understanding the importance
of paint management and keeping
colours clean and not murky, mixing
paint with Palette knifes.
Explore lighting/darkening
colours without white and black. Eg
make red lighter with yellow/darken
with blue.

Apply knowledge of tone

and shade to an observational painting
of fabric.

Lesson Three
Lesson Objectives:
Students will learn about different
forms of composition, open/closed
composition.

Students will explore composition in

the set-up of their still lifes;
Experimenting with the placement
and different arrangements of the
objects on the material.
Students will examine their
composition through photographing
different set ups and drawing
thumbnails.

Aims and objectives of lesson plans

Lesson Five
Lesson Objectives:

Lesson Six
Lesson Objectives:

- Students will explore surface quality

through observational painting of
familiar objects

-Develop a good working practice.

Understanding the importance of paint
management and keeping colours clean and not
murky, mixing paint with a palette knife.

Focus on painting reflective

objectis and the colours that are
reflected.

Understanding the
importance of paint management and
keeping colours clean and not murky.

-Understand colour theory to mix colours to a

close match in their observational painting.
Students will do observational drawing using
paint to map down the proportions and
composition.

-Students will block down colours from the

background to the foreground.
thumbnails.

Reflection on Aims and Objectives

Scheme
The aims of the scheme , reflect quite
accurately the scheme overall. I would include
an aim to encourage students to rework in to
paints adding more tone and detail to objects.
Lesson plans
The learning objectives for the first couple of
lesson are detailed and varied. However once
students started on there still life painting the
learning outcomes do not vary much. While I
did some demonstrations on painting glass and
reflective objects, there was no other dynamic
change. I should have included group critics as a
learning outcome.

Review of Scheme
Overall the scheme ran quite
smoothly . There was no major
changes throughout the duration
of the scheme. There were of
course minor changes here and
there. I do feel students
accomplished most of the learning
outcomes I outlined for them.
However I feel that a deeper level
of engagement could have been
had by the class as a whole
Extract from reflective Journal
I am finding it difficult to get students to work back into paintng and build up
detail. They just seem to want the project to be over and move on to the next
one. The attention span of the class as a whole is quite short

Timescale
Planned timeline

Actual timeline

Introduction to scheme colour theory

Critical and contextual
Composition
Begin painting

Group discussion
Finish painting
Exhibition in hallway.

Timing and pacing of classes

Overall the pacing of individual classes went well.
I was able to predict quite accurately what would
be accomplished in each class.
However the pacing of the scheme went a lot
quicker that I had anticipated, originally I taught I
would use my extension of doing palette knife
painting. However I could sense a lack of spirt and
motivation at this idea , so I substituted it with a
mono scheme . Which eased the transsion from
painting

Example of a change

After the first lesson when evaluating

the work, I noticed student were
largely not able to identify areas of
tone in fabric in paintings. In the
following class , I did exercises with
oil pastel. Students took to working
with the oil pastels well. I think it
helped their understanding and
translated to their paintings.

Top row
Students enjoyed working with
oil pastel the results were a lot
stronger than Mondays class of
working with paint. students
identified the areas of light and
dark now to translate this to
paint
Bottom row
Students that found the task
difficult still showed areas of
movement in the fabric.

Resources

In the first class I gave students

handouts, the handout contained a
sheet of paper with six squares of
coloured fabric on it. Students were
to mix the colour , and get three tone
of that colour.
The response to this handout was
positive students were eager to
engage in the activity, Asking lots of
questions about colour mixing

Colour Wheel

Displaying this on the board

through the duration of
scheme helped, students
learning. It also aided my
teaching, by reminding me
to do questioning in
relation to colour theory.
Next time I would have a
poster explaining how to
make the colour brown.
This would reduce my time
spent answering the same
questions.

This sign proved a useful resource; it was a

constant reminder of what was needed at
the start of each painting class.
It reduced the level of questions asked in
the set up of the classroom.

Class room management

This sign greatly reduced the amount of
time spent setting up for painting. Students
worked in a buddy system, gathering
material between the two of them. The
length of time It took to set up was reduced
each class as students got in a routine. This
meant that less time was taken from class,
this is especially important in single classes.
The length of time it took to clean down
reduced each class as well. Students quickly
grasped that all materials and work areas
must be left spotless.

Painting
- Still Life
- Paper
- Palette
- Jar and water
- Brushes
- Paint

Critical contextual studies

An area of weakness, was Critical
Contextual Studies. A PowerPoint
presentation was given at the
beginning of the scheme.
If I was to do this again I would
print off the pictures on a large
scale around the classroom so I
could refer back to them more
regularly. This would aid group
discussion by having a visual aids. It
would be a vital resource for both
me and the students.

Adjustments

In future I would have the scheme

mentioned in the final slide on
Reflection.pptx, ready to go instead of
asking students with lower attention
spans to do a still life using a palette
knife. While some students created
beautiful still life's for with palette
knives, for the weaker students , the task
was too similar to their paintings and did
not retain their attention. This therefore
lead to behaviour issues.
Student Xs Palette Knfe Painting