7-9 years

While lower Juniors require quite a lot of opportunities to do work of their own choice, more formal work can gradually be introduced. Definite art and craft lessons with a specific aim can now be introduced. The emphasis will be largely on exploring the possibilities of the various media in a rather more systematic way than is possible with younger children. In craft work the children will already have gained an initial knowledge of most of the media and tools they are likely to meet and will be ready to start on work designed to extend their skill, knowledge and creative ability in various directions.

Young Juniors who have had good opportunities for art and craft in the Infant school will, for the most part, be at the stage of drawing "what they know", but their knowledge will be beginning to extend beyond their immediate environment. By the time they are nine many will be drawing from observation. The teacher should endeavour to cultivate in them an attitude of "that would make a good picture" in relation to real life situations, descriptions read or heard in stories, and purely imaginary ideas.

Provision of materials will be similar to that for Infants, with the possible addition, at the top of the group, of drawing in pen and ink.

The following work should be possible with this group:

A. Picture and pattern making

1. These should be carried out with all media, including collage, and some work should be specifically directed to developing skill and control of each. This can usefully be done by asking for work which poses certain problems, e.g. a picture or a pattern which demands a textural use of paint.

2. Work should be undertaken which is specifically designed to develop visual imagination, e.g. children are asked to close their eyes and picture something before they begin to draw or paint. This sort of work should include some subjects which are complete fantasy, e.g. the never-never land.

3. Work should be undertaken which is specifically directed towards finding out and remembering what things are like. Although most children in this group are drawing from remembered rather than from directly observed knowledge, this knowledge can be extended, by questioning and by going to look. Questions of this sort can help:

How many windows has your house got and how are they arranged? Whereabouts are the chimney-pots? What do the walls feel like when you touch them? Are there bricks which make a pattern? What pattern do they make? How can we put these things into our pictures?

4. Some work should be designed to make children explore colour mixing. This should include much discussion about colour and how various colours can be made. By the end of this period all children should be able to make a variety of greens, purples and oranges, should be able to forecast the result of adding black or white to any colour, and should be able to make some browns. They should also, as a result of discussion, be becoming capable of analysing the colours they see, and deciding how they might be mixed. This work should also include discussion about hot and cold colours, and the emotional value of colours generally.

The following work would be suitable for this group:

(a) Making of pictures in which nothing is the natural colour.

(b) Patterns or pictures in which all the colours are mixed with one basic colour.

(c) Patterns or pictures using hot or cold colours.

5. Tone. Most of the work on tone will be done incidentally or through discussion about colour. By the end of this period, however, children should realize the following:

(a) Each colour has a tone.

(b) If you put colours of similar tones together they will fade into each other.

(c) A black outline is not the solution to this problem.

(d) If a picture has heavy tone on one side, it will need to be balanced on the other.

(e) Close texture gives a more intense tone than widely spaced texture.

(f) A lot of evenly spaced textures in a picture are not satisfactory because there are not sufficient tone contrasts.

6. Line and shape. Some work should be directed towards exploring the idea that contrasting kinds of lines and shapes in a picture make for variety and interest. Children should also be encouraged to think that the most interesting shapes are the most personal ones—the ones that "only you can make".

7. Some work should be directed towards exploring textures and patterns, e.g. abstract patterns in which children try to find how many ways they can discover of using the brush to make patterns on paper. Work should also include pattern making in paint, pastel and crayon; repeating patterns of various kinds, carried out directly in paint; patterns in which the same shape is repeated in various media; pictures and patterns using paint and other textures with collage. From this work children should gain in ability to select and relate the qualities of the various media. It may also be useful for children to record some of their observations and discoveries about colour and texture in booklets.

8. Some work should be directed towards exploring printed patterns, using potatoes, string, blocks of felt and rubber, and various scrap materials and towards exploring patterns made by folding and cutting paper. Children should discover the following pattern grids—side by side, stripe, band, interchange (in cut paper), turn round and reverse. They should begin to use printing media in conjunction with others. Some of this work can be carried out on material, using fabric printing inks or dyes. They should discover and use overlapping.

B. Modelling and Carving

Opportunity for this should continue with similar provision to that for the younger children. Children should become more skilled in their ability to solve problems posed by the materials and more capable of co-operation with other children for group activities. The following work should be covered: