Teach Primary Issue 18.4

The warmer weather is here! Use the source of the heat – the sun – as the primary muse for your class in this summery art lesson. Inspired by the artwork of American artist Alma Thomas, your class will create bright, vivid solar masterpieces using her recognisable dash stroke style. Temperatures inside will soar as the warm colours of red, yellow and orange dance out of the paint palettes, off the paintbrushes and fill the classroom with the heat of a tropical holiday. You might need to pop your sunglasses on... 1 | TURN IT UP The colour palette for these paintings needs to be hot, hot, hot. Talk to your class about warm and cool colours – referring to a colour wheel can help illustrate this aspect of colour theory. The warm colours are red, orange and yellow, evoking feelings of warmth and energy. The cool colours are blue, green and purple, which make you think of ice, water and all things cold, in addition to drawing out feelings of sadness or calm. In these paintings, pupils will be using the warm colours to represent the heat and brightness of the sun. Invite pupils to mix up their own fiery colour palettes using only the primary colours of red and yellow. They will need paint palettes or mixing trays, red and yellow ready mixed paints and brushes. First, encourage them to mix equal parts of red and yellow to create the secondary colour, orange. Then encourage them to explore mixing more red than yellow to create a red orange akin to a blood orange colour, then more yellow than red to create a yellow orange, also known as amber. Give pupils time to continue exploring the different oranges they can create though the combination of different amounts of red and yellow. They may wish to create a paint swatch chart of their colour palette, naming each red, orange and yellow as they go. Maybe they’ll mix up a burnt red, banana yellow or START HERE MAIN LESSON WHAT THEY’LL LEARN l That colours can be categorised as warm or cool l How to mix up a warm colour palette l About the artwork of American artist Alma Thomas l How to represent the sun in their own paintings inspired by Alma Thomas Art Alma Thomas was an American abstract artist. Her works of art are well known around the world for their clear, characteristic brushstrokes and striking use of bright colours ( tinyurl. com/tp-AlmaT ). She applied short, thick dashes of acrylic paint to large canvases and often used stripes and circles to create her artwork. Alma’s concentric circle works such as The Eclipse (1970), Resurrection (1960) or Pansies in Washington (1969) – with their rings of bright colour emanating out from central circles, much like the rays of light and warmth shine out from a hot, blistering sun – form the inspiration for this sun painting lesson. Here comes the sun... so let’s paint it! Adele Darlington shows us how to celebrate summer with paintings inspired by the work of Alma Thomas KS1 /KS2 LESSON PLAN @mrs_darl @mrsdarlingtonsworld 74 | www.teachwire.net