In this activity we drew upon previous work we had done with these art elements. We re-visited
Escher’s drawings and looked at several books including Cat and Fish.

With an A5 piece of paper folded into eight, the children tried a variety of lines.

In one section, they drew a line diagonally across from opposite corners. This line was doubled and then a
curvy line was added to one. A series of pointy lines was added to the other. Some of this was filled
in and more lines added. This type of ‘line dictation’ helps to focus the children’s
attention onto small sections of their work to ask the questions ‘what more can I add?’
where can I add it? How else can I enhance the original line?

The children quickly grasp the idea of moving on to the next section of their A5 paper when they are either
satisfied or dissatisfied with their work.  This is, after all, experimental work.

The group discusses their results and comment on each other’s work. Ideas are swapped, a collection
of work is mounted as a reference and more experimenting is done, until each child is happy to choose a
specific pattern or series of lines with which they want to work.

We began on a small piece of black and white Scratch Art paper.

When this was completed the question of how to present the work to an audience led us to mounting this on
white and continuing the line work in black fineliner. This was mounted on black and the line work
continued with white gel pens.

Many children wanted to continue mounting the work and adding more pattern. This type of activity engages
even the most inattentive children and almost always produces great results of which they are very
proud.

Lyn Ferrall
Visual Arts teacher
Beverley Hills PS
Suitable for Level 4