🎨 Year 1 Art — Exploring Pastel Techniques to Help Our Earth!

This week in Year 1, the children became real artists as they explored a range of exciting pastel techniques. We began by looking closely at how artists use colour and texture to bring pictures to life. The children experimented with:

• Blending – gently smudging colours together to make soft skies and smooth backgrounds

• Pointillism – using tiny dots to build up colour and texture

• Small strokes – perfect for fur, feathers and grassy areas

• Long strokes – great for waves, trees and bold shapes

• Layering – adding colours on top of each other to make richer tones

• Drawing and outlining – keeping shapes clear and confident

The classroom was full of colour as the children practised each technique on scrap paper, discovering how different marks can change the mood and feeling of a picture.

After exploring these skills, the children applied them to their own “Save Our Earth” and “Protect Our Wildlife” artwork. Using the outline templates they had chosen — sea turtles, foxes, elephants or penguins — they carefully selected pastel techniques to match each part of their picture.

We saw blended skies, layered oceans, pointillism grass, and beautiful textured animal fur and feathers. The children thought deeply about how their artwork could share an important message: Earth needs our help, and we can all make a difference.

To finish, the class proudly shared their pictures and talked about the choices they made as artists. Their final pieces were full of colour, care and creativity — a wonderful celebration of art with a purpose.

What a fantastic lesson, Year 1. You didn’t just make art… you made a difference.