Key Stage 3 art and design · Techniques, media and materials

KS3 art: handling materials in drawing and sculpture

The Key Stage 3 curriculum says pupils should be taught to increase their proficiency in the handling of different materials, with the aim that they become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques. It names no materials, so schools choose. The idea is control: knowing how a material behaves, choosing it for a reason, and working with it carefully and safely.

Handling different materials, explained

“Proficiency in handling” is about skill, not a shopping list. A pupil who handles a material well knows what it does when it is wet, dry, pressed hard or touched lightly. They choose the right tool, control pressure and amounts, allow for drying times, work safely and look after equipment. By Year 7 children have already played with materials in primary school. At Key Stage 3 the expectation is more deliberate: not “try it and see” but “I know how this works, so I will use it like this”.

Take drawing materials, which are the most common 2D materials. Graphite pencils come in grades. H pencils are hard and make pale lines, B pencils are soft and make darker ones, and HB sits in the middle, so a 6B is not a “better” pencil, just a softer one. Charcoal is soft, blends easily and smudges, and an eraser can lift light areas out of it. Pastels, pen and ink and chalk each behave differently, and paper matters too: smooth paper suits fine detail, rough paper gives texture. Techniques such as hatching (parallel lines), cross-hatching (crossing lines) and blending build up light and dark.

In 3D work, clay is the best-known material, but schools also use card, wire, plaster bandage, papier-mâché, wood offcuts and found objects. Pupils meet three ways of working: modelling (adding and shaping), carving (taking away) and constructing (assembling parts, sometimes over an armature, which is an internal frame that holds the shape). With clay, they learn pinch, coil and slab methods, how to join pieces securely, how to keep the thickness even and how to dry the work slowly. The school usually fires it in a kiln, so there can be a wait between lessons.

Proficiency grows by practice and from teachers’ demonstrations, usually through short exercises and samples before a major piece. Pupils learn from things that go wrong, such as a crack or a collapse, as much as from things that go right. Safety is part of it: damp-cleaning clay dust rather than sweeping, washing hands, and using tools sensibly. For parents, the most visible signs are clay-stained clothes, finished pieces that don’t come home for weeks, and homework that is often drawing.

Words your child will hear

Hatching: Shading made with closely spaced parallel lines; cross-hatching adds a second set of lines across the first.
Blending: Smoothing the edges between light and dark so that tones merge without a hard line.
Score and slip: Scratching two clay surfaces and brushing on slip, which is clay mixed with water, to join them.
Slab: A flat sheet of clay rolled out to an even thickness and used to build shapes.
Coil: A long rope of clay that is rolled by hand and stacked in layers to make a pot or form.
Armature: A hidden frame, often of wire or card, that supports a sculpture while it is being built.
Kiln: A very hot oven that fires clay so it becomes hard and permanent.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

Pupils should be taught to increase their proficiency in the handling of different materials
Aim: pupils become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques.

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

Try it: joining two pieces of clay

A pupil is making a small clay creature and needs to attach a leg to the body. Why does simply pressing the leg on not work, and what should they do instead?

Understand the problem. Clay shrinks as it dries, and a small piece dries faster than a large one. A leg that was only pressed on will pull away from the body as the two shrink at different speeds, and it often falls off.
Score both surfaces. Use a pointed modelling tool to scratch a criss-cross pattern on the part of the leg and the part of the body that will touch. The rough surface gives the clay something to grip.
Add slip. Brush a little slip, which is clay mixed with water to the thickness of cream, onto both scored areas. It acts like a glue made of the same material, so the join dries and shrinks along with the clay around it.
Press and blend. Push the pieces together with a slight twist and then smooth the seam with a thumb or tool until it disappears. Support the join with your other hand so the shape doesn’t slump.
Check the thickness. A piece that is thick and solid can crack or burst in the kiln, because water trapped inside turns to steam. Teachers ask pupils to hollow out larger pieces, with a small hole for air to escape.
Dry it slowly. Cover the model loosely with paper or plastic for a few days so that it dries evenly, then leave it for the school to fire.

The joint holds because both surfaces were scored, joined with slip and blended, and the whole model is of even thickness and dried slowly. Pressing alone leaves a seam that opens as the clay dries.

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking that pressing clay together is enough, or that water works as glue

Fresh clay is soft and sticks easily, so a pressed join feels firm at the time. The weakness only shows days later when it dries and cracks.

What helps: Always score and slip. Look together at a join that failed, if there is one, and ask why. If the join isn’t visible in the finished model, that means it has been blended well.

Believing more water makes clay smoother and easier to work

A little water does help smooth the surface, so pupils add more. Too much turns clay into a sloppy mush that slumps and is weak when it dries.

What helps: Use water sparingly, on a sponge or fingertip. If clay becomes sticky and soft, let it stand a while, or knead it with some drier clay before carrying on.

Pressing harder with a pencil to get a darker line

It seems obvious that more pressure means a darker mark. But it shines the paper, dents the surface and makes the shading hard to rub out or blend.

What helps: Use softer pencils for darker tones, such as 4B or 6B, and build tone gently in layers. Make a strip of grades from H to 6B and see the range from one sheet.

Looking at a sculpture from one side only

Pupils are used to drawing and painting, where there is one viewpoint, and they treat a 3D piece as a picture made thick.

What helps: Walk around the model, or turn it on a board, at every stage and look from the back, the side and above. A shape that works from the front may look odd from elsewhere.

How to help at home

Make a pencil grade chart. If you have a few pencils from H to B grades, draw a square of shading with each and label them. If you only have one, make a strip of five tones from pale to dark by changing the pressure and layers.
Practise hatching and blending. Shade a simple ball in three ways: lines in one direction, crossed lines, and smooth blending with a finger or a tissue. Then compare which looks most solid and which suits a rough surface.
Use air-dry clay or modelling dough. Make a small pinch pot, a coil pot and a flat slab tile. Join a handle by scoring with a fork and brushing on slip made from a pinch of the clay mashed with water. Let air-dry clay dry slowly, away from heaters, and wash hands afterwards.
Build with card and tape. Corrugated card, cereal boxes and tape make a good first sculpture. Build a figure or building from strips, a flat sheet and rolled tubes. An adult should supervise any cutting, and safety scissors work well.
Crumple foil into a form. Kitchen foil can be scrunched and squeezed into animals or figures with no tools. It is a quick way to practise looking at a model from all sides, and mistakes can be reshaped at once.

Builds on

Key Stage 2: Pencil and charcoal drawing
Key Stage 2: Painting techniques
Key Stage 2: Sculpture with clay