For Teachers

Introduction

Creative Ardagh’s Elements of Art course is designed to highlight the visual elements which are all around us, while developing art skills in a range of media. The scheme for primary teachers, based on the Visual Arts curriculum, can be used along with the course blog (creativeardaghartelements.blogspot.ie) as a visual arts programme for the school year. Lessons will be added to the blog regularly and over the course of the year all strands of the visual arts will be covered including the making art and looking and responding strand units. A more detailed scheme will be added shortly, but briefly there will be four lessons for each of the elements of art: line, shape, tone, colour, texture, pattern, space and form. The course will fit in with the aims and broad objectives of the curriculum below. 

You may also be interested in seeing the other programmes we offer schools which include integrated arts courses based on the history and heritage of Ardagh, Discover Primary Science and Maths workshops, stop-motion animation days and workshops based on books/novels such as Harry Potter, The Gruffalo, The Far Away Tree and We're Going on a Bear Hunt. For full details see our main website: creativeardagh.blogspot.ie

Aims

The aims of the visual arts curriculum are

• to help the child develop sensitivity to the visual, spatial and tactile world, and to provide for aesthetic experience
• to help the child express ideas, feelings and experiences in visual and tactile forms
• to enable the child to have enjoyable and purposeful experiences of different art media and to have opportunities to explore, experiment, imagine, design, invent and communicate with different art materials
• to promote the child’s understanding of and personal response to the creative processes involved in making two and three-dimensional art
• to enable the child to develop the skills and techniques necessary for expression, inventiveness and individuality
• to enable the child to experience the excitement and fulfilment of creativity and the achievement of potential through art activities
• to foster sensitivity towards and enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts
• to provide opportunities for the child to explore how the work of artists and craftspeople might relate to his/her own work.

Broad objectives

When due account is taken of intrinsic abilities and varying circumstances, the visual arts curriculum should enable the child to

• look at, enjoy and make a personal response to a range of familiar and unfamiliar objects and images in the environment, focusing on their visual attributes
• explore and begin to develop sensitivity to qualities of line, shape, colour and tone, texture, pattern and rhythm, spatial organisation and the three-dimensional quality of form
• express ideas, feelings and experiences in visual form and with imagination, enjoyment and a sense of fulfilment
• experiment in spontaneous, imaginative and increasingly structured ways with a range of art materials, including pencils, paints, crayons, chalks, markers, inks, clay, papier mache, fabric and fibre, and construction materials
• explore the expressive and design possibilities of the materials within a range of two and three-dimensional media, including drawing, paint and colour, print, clay, construction, fabric and fibre
• apply skills and techniques, demonstrating increasing sensitivity to the visual elements in his/her art work
• look with curiosity and openness at the work of a wide range of artists and craftspeople