CRAFT & DESIGN

Craft & Design Knowledge Organisers

Year 1

Wool wrapping

We looked at an abstract sculpture by artist Judith Scott and discussed how we thought she made it, how she used bright, contrasting colours and how it reminds us of a bird. We discovered she made lots of sculptures by wrapping and combining found objects in wool, fabric strips and other fibres. We had a go at wool wrapping ourselves using natural objects we found outside and also some organic shapes we cut out of cardboard. We tried different ways of joining different pieces of wool, such as tying knots and overlapping.

Exploring thread

We learnt about the work of artist Cecilia Vicuna and noticed that she uses lots of threading, plaiting and knot tying within her work. We had a go at using different materials (such as wool, ribbon, elastic, rope and fabric) to create these different techniques. We found some materials easier to work with than others and also tried threading on some materials, just like Vicuna does in her work.

Warp and weft

We looked at some more of Cecilia Vicuna's artwork and noticed that she also uses a technique called weaving, which we discovered can be created by overlapping two sets of threads at right angles to make fabric. We thought about things we use everyday that have been weaved, such as our school polo shirts! We had a go at the weaving technique ourselves, using contrasting colours for our warp and our weft, making sure to repeat and alternate the over and under method.

Handmade looms

We made our own looms using cardboard and string. We will use this to display all of the fiber art we have been making over the last few weeks!

Woven wonders

Year 2

Year 3

Ancient Egyptian art

We looked at some pictures of Ancient Egyptian art, thinking about the style, pattern and characteristics. We first created some interesting surfaces using teabags to stain the paper to give it an old look. Once this was dry, we picked out our favourite patterns and shapes that we could see on the Egyptians clothing, in the background and on objects in some Egyptian paintings, then we had a go at drawing these onto our old looking paper.

We designed our own Egyptian scrolls using the patterns and shapes that we found in the ancient Egyptian art we looked at previously. We thought carefully about the earthy and bright tones used and drew up a few different thumbnails to try out different compositions before drawing up our final design.

Making paper

We made our own version of papyrus paper using strips of brown parcel paper and watered down glue, and layered these on top of one another in the same way the Ancient Egyptians would have. Once they are dry, we will draw our final scroll designs onto them!

Scroll making

We copied our final scroll designs onto our handmade papyrus style paper. We added colour using a range of mixed media and adapted our design and choices as we went along if necessary. When they were dry, we rolled these up and secured them with some string to make them look like proper scrolls!