Personal response: appropriate resources and creating artwork
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can develop my theme by experimenting with my own photos and drawings
Key learning points
- Artists may select from existing first-hand resources to develop and explore new creative outcomes.
- Photos can be developed in ways, such as collage, stitching, drawing, or digital editing, to create new visual ideas.
- Experimenting with various materials and techniques helps develop drawings with richer textures and deeper expression.
Keywords
Experiment - to try out new ideas, materials, or techniques
Media - the materials and tools used to create artwork
Develop - to build on your initial ideas by exploring, refining and pushing them further
Common misconception
Once a photo or drawing is finished, it can’t be changed or developed further.
A finished photo or drawing is just a starting point—artists often rework, edit, layer, or translate their images into new forms using different media to explore deeper meaning or fresh creative directions.
Teacher tip
Encourage students to see their photos and drawings as flexible starting points — prompt them to experiment with layering, cropping, or changing media to spark new ideas and keep the creative process open-ended.
Equipment
Digital editing platforms, paint, collage materials, pencil crayons, oil pastels, scissors, fineliners, marker pens.
Content guidance
Risk assessment required - equipment
Supervision
Adult supervision required
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.What does it mean to develop an artwork?
Q2.Why might artists use their own photos when starting a new project?
Q3.Name two types of media that could be used to develop a photograph into a new piece of art.
Q4.What might happen if you focus on just one section of a drawing?
Q5.Why is collage an effective technique for working into photos?
Q6.Which of these best describes what it means to experiment in art?
To help you plan your 10 art and design lesson on: Personal response: appropriate resources and creating artwork, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 10 art and design lesson on: Personal response: appropriate resources and creating artwork, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 art and design lessons from the First sustained project: working from a theme unit, dive into the full secondary art and design curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.