Key Stage 1 art and design · Drawing, painting and sculpture

KS1 drawing: ideas, experiences and imagination

Drawing is the first way most children share what is in their heads. At Key Stage 1 they are taught to use drawing, alongside painting and sculpture, to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination. They also build up techniques in line, shape, colour, pattern, texture, form and space. The focus is on telling a story or showing a feeling through marks, not on copying things exactly.

Drawing ideas and experiences, explained

Teachers use drawing in three main ways. Children draw from experience (a trip, a family event, a favourite day), from observation (looking carefully at a shell, a leaf or a toy and drawing what they see), and from imagination (a dragon that lives in a teapot). The curriculum puts the emphasis on ideas, experiences and imagination, so you will often see a drawing that is a small story rather than a copy of an object. When a child tells you about the picture, that conversation is part of the learning.

Alongside the ideas, children learn to handle drawing tools and to make a variety of marks. A pencil makes a darker or lighter line depending on how hard you press, and a thicker or thinner one depending on how it is held, so it can shade a dark patch or a light one. Wax crayons, chalks, charcoal, pastels and felt-tips each leave a different mark, and schools decide which to use. Children try straight, curved, zigzag, dotted and wavy lines, and use shapes as building blocks, so a house is a square with a triangle on top and a person is circles and rectangles. They also begin to think about space: placing things on the page, making things bigger or smaller, putting some at the bottom and others higher up, and filling the page instead of drawing a tiny figure in one corner.

Colour, pattern and texture come in too. A child might draw with oil pastels and use only warm colours for a happy memory, add stripes to a tiger’s coat for pattern, or use short, rough lines to suggest fur or bark. The idea of form, meaning how three-dimensional something is, begins when children add shading under a ball or around the edge of a shape to make it look round. They are not expected to master these at this age, only to try them and to talk about what they notice.

Many schools keep a sketchbook from Year 1, which is a place to try ideas without being marked. Teachers look at the thinking in it: Did your child try the idea more than once? Did they use a new kind of line? Did they add detail after looking again? Children are encouraged to say what they like in their own work and in each other’s, using words like “bold”, “delicate”, “smooth” and “busy”. Drawing also builds the hand control and the habit of looking closely that help with handwriting.

Words your child will hear

Line: A mark made by a pencil or crayon as it moves, such as straight, curved, zigzag or wavy.
Shape: A flat area with an outline, such as a circle, square or triangle.
Observation: Looking carefully at something real and drawing what you see.
Imagination: Picturing things that are not in front of you, such as a made-up animal.
Shading: Filling an area with lighter and darker marks to show tone.
Sketchbook: A book for trying out ideas and practising drawing.
Detail: The small things added to a drawing, such as buttons, whiskers or windows.

What the National Curriculum says

In Key Stage 1, pupils should be taught to:

Use drawing, painting and sculpture to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination
Develop a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: drawing the best part of a day out

Draw the best part of a day at the seaside. Show what happened and how it felt.

Choose the moment. Ask, “What was the best bit?” Perhaps it was jumping over a wave, building a sandcastle or finding a crab. Pick just one.
Start with big shapes. Use pencil to draw the main things large enough to fill most of the page: a wave as a curved line, a child as a circle head and rounded body, a castle as stacked rectangles.
Place things in space. Put the sand along the bottom of the page, the sea above it and the sky at the top, so the picture feels like a beach. Draw yourself big, where the sand meets the sea.
Add detail and different lines. Use wavy lines for water, zigzag lines for a flag, dots for sand, and short upward flicks for splashes. Press harder for a dark shadow beside the castle.
Add colour and tell the story. Colour with crayons or pastels, using blues and greens for the sea and warm colours for the sun. Then tell someone what is happening and how it felt.

A good Key Stage 1 drawing fills the page, uses a few kinds of line and shape on purpose, and clearly shows one idea. A child might say, “This is me jumping the wave. The wavy lines are the splash, and I made it big because it was exciting.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Believing a drawing is only good if it looks exactly like a photo

Children notice that adults and older pupils draw more realistically and think this is the only goal.

What helps: Ask about the story and the feelings, not just the likeness. Show them real drawings that are loose, bold and expressive, and praise effort and ideas.

Drawing very small, in one corner of the page

Small marks are easier to control, and some children are nervous about getting it wrong on a big blank page.

What helps: Give a challenge such as “Make the giant so big he nearly falls off the paper.” Try a bigger sheet, or ask them to draw with a thick crayon first.

Drawing everything as a flat row along the bottom or on a single baseline

Young children draw what they know rather than what they see, so objects sit side by side with no depth.

What helps: Introduce “behind” and “in front”: draw a tree, then a smaller one further up the page, then a house partly hidden behind the first tree.

Rubbing out every line that is not perfect

Children want the drawing to be right first time, so they rub out again and again. The paper wears thin and the drawing never moves on.

What helps: Put the rubber away for quick sketches. Suggest drawing lightly first and then going over the lines they like, or keeping the wobbly line and drawing a better one next to it. Artists’ sketches are full of extra lines.

How to help at home

Draw a memory together. After a trip or a birthday, each person draws their favourite moment in ten minutes. Swap drawings and guess what is happening, then listen to the story behind yours.
Line walks. Take a pencil for a walk on paper: make a wavy line, a zigzag, a spiral and a line that jumps. Turn each into something, such as a snake, a mountain, a snail or a rabbit.
Draw from real things. Put a shell, a leaf or a favourite toy in front of your child and ask them to look for a full minute before drawing. Ask, “What shape is the biggest part? Where are the dark bits?”
Imagine and describe. Ask for a drawing of an animal that does not exist, such as a cat with wings or a fish that lives in a tree. Help them add details to the picture by asking what it eats and where it lives.
Keep a drawing diary. A cheap notebook and a pencil are enough. A drawing a day, even five minutes, builds both confidence and control.