Art

Hi, I am Mrs Woodcock, the Art and Design leader at Riddlesden St Mary’s.

I myself have a love for art, finding it relaxing and therapeutic. In particular, I enjoy taking inspiration from nature and painting watercolour landscapes and local wildlife. With a deep appreciation for the individuality of art, I believe in its power to help children express their emotions and showcase their creativity. At Riddlesden St Mary’s, we encourage students to explore their artistic talents, fostering an environment where self-expression is celebrated and creativity flourishes.

Art is a vital part of primary education because it nurtures creativity, critical thinking, and self-expression. It allows children to experiment, innovate, and develop practical skills that foster confidence and problem-solving. Through art, students gain an understanding of history and culture, as they explore how art reflects and shapes our world. Art allows us to connect with their own feelings and experiences, while also providing a way to explore different perspectives and cultures. By engaging with diverse forms of art, our pupils also learn to appreciate the value of creativity in shaping both individual identity and the broader society.

What does Art and Design look like at Riddlesden St Mary’s ?

Each half term is dedicated to either Art and Design or DT, allowing pupils to become fully immersed in a project (3 Art and 3 DT a year).
Art skills, techniques and materials are planned progressively allowing children to build upon these each year.
Key artist are studied throughout the year, digging deeper into their history, style and techniques.
Sketchbooks are used to explore, plan and record ideas building up to a ‘final piece’.
Sketchbooks reflect a creative journey of experimentation and the skills developed along the way.
We make use of our wonderful grounds to teach art outside.
Children exhibit their artwork with pride and parents are invited into school to share in their success.

Sketch Books

Images from a sample of our sketchbooks. These demonstrate experimentation, artistic vocabulary and the development of skills and perspective.

Pledges to the Landscape Project

Over the summer term, the Year 5 children took part in the exciting 'Pledges to the Landscape' project. This was delivered by Keighley Creative, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, and local artist Naseem Darbey. We learnt all about the importance of the Moors surrounding our local area and how vital bog are to wildlife and the environment.

Through a series of three workshops, the project raised awareness of the benefits of protecting nature and the green spaces that we live, learn, and play in.

Naseem taught us how to draw what we feel by closing our eyes and allowing our pencils to create the bumps and lines of the plants that we were touching.

She then showed us how to create a continuous line drawing which created abstract, flowing designs.

Finally, she demonstrated how to really closely examine the bog plants we were studying and capture them with vibrant colours.

The Year 5 children then applied all of the art skills that they had learnt and designed their own bog plant inspired artwork. This was taken by Naseem, who used pyrography to burn some of our designs onto a timber dam.

Pledges to the Landscape

Denton Moor

On Wednesday 6^th November, our two selected ambassadors: Josie and Aamil travelled to Denton Moor to see the timber dam being installed. We gained new skills and knowledge about the process of designing an art installation from the inception of the idea to the perfect placement of artwork to create impact. Furthermore, we felt more connected to nature and realised the importance of looking after our environment.

Denton Moor

We made the Keighley News!

Follow the link below to read more about this wonderful Art inspired peat project:

Keighley schoolchildren learn more about peat bogs | Keighley News

My favourite quote from Naseem is: "We were delighted to be part of this creative community project and to see the children embrace it so wholeheartedly. The artwork on the timber dam is remarkable and we’re thrilled to know it will be submerging itself in the peat here over generations to come."

The finished video: Keighley Creative's Pledges to the Landscape

//www.youtube.com/embed/DhFF045uA3A#t=0.5

Can you spot Josie squeezing the water out from the sphagnum moss?

Why not have a try at the three types of drawing: no peeking, continuous line and drawing what you feel?

You can go on your own nature hunt and collect interesting leaves, rocks, twigs or anything else that you find interesting to look at. Next you need to select your drawing medium. This could be a pencil, pen, charcoal, wax crayon or colouring pencil. You are the artist, use whatever inspires you! Final decide how you are going to draw your natural resources:

1. No peeking - You are only allowed to look at what you are drawing, not at the paper. This creates some really interesting (and abstract) artwork. We enjoyed testing this out in Year 5. Here, we all created pieces of artwork that were unique and really good fun to compare.

2. Continuous line - Draw what you see, but you are not allowed to take your pencil (or other medium) off the page. We found it relaxing to keep our pencils moving in one smooth line. We also embraced the challenge of adding details without removing our pencils from the page.

3. Draw what you feel - Close your eyes and let your fingertips wander over your natural material. As you feel the lumps, bumps, curves and dips, draw these. The end results are always interesting!

Art Enrichment Week

The whole school took part in Art enrichment week. Here each year group undertook a project inspired by a famous artist. At the end of the week, we displayed our final masterpieces in frames, ready for our parents to view them. The whole school and wider community were invited to view our pop-up art galleries within our classrooms. We were so proud to display and discuss our artwork with our friends and families.

Art Enrichment Week 2024 - 2025

The Flowerpot Festival

The pupils, staff and parents at Riddlesden St Mary's School embraced the opportunity to be creative and design and make flower pot sculptures. These were placed along a trail for everyone to enjoy, leading to our grand finale show-stopping scene: The Gruffalo. Here we all enjoyed the retelling of the classic story while admiring the flowerpot figures.

Flowerpot Festival

Christmas Crafts

We thoroughly enjoyed creating beautiful artwork to decorate our Riddlesden Christmas tree, which takes pride of place in the school hall each December. Each class was given the task of designing and creating a decoration with the theme: 'red, gold and black'. The imagination and creativity seen was incredible, with no two year groups producing the same decorations. The Christmas tree proudly displayed our wonderful creations for everyone visiting our school to see.