One Point Perspective (Bedroom)- Year 5-6 Art lesson

When we had to go to remote teaching in 2020, I had to throw out my planned lessons as they required too many “special materials” that students would not have handy at home. So it got down to, “What materials are easily accessible for all students at home?” Greylead and coloured pencils and copy paper! So I knew it would involve drawing and needed to be about learning new concepts and skills as well. I usually do some sort of one point perspective art in the senior years, so this was the perfect opportunity.

I broke down the tasks with video and powerpoint demonstrations of the key points about perspective- horizon line, vanishing point and converging lines, followed by simple Seesaw activities to show understanding of the basics. (Oh how I love the Seesaw app!)

The next lesson was to get students to practise drawing using a horizon line, vanishing point and converging lines, using basic shapes above and below the horizon line with a video demonstration.

We looked at on of the most famous paintings of a bedroom- ‘ Bedroom in Arles’ by Vincent Van Gogh and used the converging lines on some of the furniture to estimate the Vanishing Point (and therfore horizon. (Some of the lines are a bit out, but Van Gogh was probably working by eye!

The focus of the next lesson was to start drawing the basic geometric shapes that will become bedroom furniture. They uploaded their draft to Seesaw for me to check them, and for some I needed to draw some lines on their draft to show what to do, or where to draw, as well as explain- (when in the classroom you can just point it out while they are working on paper!)

Once their draft with shapes was checked, they were able to go ahead and add details, add to the shapes to make them into furniture and accessories in a bedroom, like their own.