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

KS3 art: painting techniques and media, a guide for parents

The Key Stage 3 curriculum says pupils should be taught to use a range of techniques and media, including painting, and to develop their creativity and ideas and increase proficiency in their execution. Painting is the one medium it names. In Years 7 to 9 that means moving beyond filling in with one flat colour and learning how paint is mixed, thinned, layered and applied to get particular effects.

Painting techniques and media, explained

The curriculum names painting but not the kind of paint, so schools choose. Common choices are watercolour, acrylic and ready-mixed or poster paint, and some schools add gouache, which is an opaque water-based paint, or oil pastels and inks. Over three years pupils are expected to meet more than one, because each behaves differently. Watercolour is transparent and builds from light to dark. Acrylic is usually thicker and more opaque, so it can cover what is underneath, and it dries quickly, so it can be layered and corrected.

Colour mixing is the foundation. Pupils learn the primary, secondary and tertiary colours and how to make a tint (a colour with white, or in watercolour more water, added), a shade (a colour with black added) and a tone (a colour dulled by adding grey). They meet complementary colours, which sit opposite each other on the colour wheel, such as red and green. A little of one mixed into the other dulls and darkens it, and many teachers show this as a livelier way to make shadow colours than adding black. They also learn the difference between warm colours, like reds and yellows, and cool colours, like blues and greens, and how these suggest depth and mood.

Alongside colour comes technique. In watercolour you may hear about washes (a thin, even layer), graded washes that fade from dark to light, wet-on-wet (painting into a damp surface so colours bleed together) and wet-on-dry (crisp edges on dry paper). With acrylic, pupils try dry brush (dragging a nearly dry brush for a rough texture), thin glazes, thick impasto where brushstrokes stay visible, and blending. They also learn that different brush shapes and sizes make different marks, and that brushes need washing and reshaping afterwards.

Teachers usually start with small tests: a colour chart, a strip of tones from light to dark, a patch of each texture. Only then do pupils apply these skills to an observational study or a theme, often inspired by painters. Test patches, labelled in the sketchbook, are valued by teachers as evidence of learning and are easy to support at home. Most teenagers are nervous about spoiling a painting, so the testing stage takes pressure off.

Words your child will hear

Wash: A thin layer of paint, usually watercolour, spread evenly over an area of paper.
Tint: A colour made lighter, by adding white paint or, in watercolour, more water.
Shade: A colour made darker by adding black. Many teachers also show darkening with a deeper or complementary colour instead.
Complementary colours: Colours opposite each other on the colour wheel, such as blue and orange, which look strong side by side.
Wet-on-wet: Painting into a damp surface or damp paint so that colours spread and blend softly.
Impasto: Paint applied thickly so that brushstrokes and ridges can be seen and felt.
Opaque: Not see-through. Opaque paint covers what is underneath it.

What the National Curriculum says

In Key Stage 3, pupils should be taught to:

Use a range of techniques and media, including painting
Develop their creativity and ideas, and increase proficiency in their execution.

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

Try it: mixing a shadow colour for a green apple

A pupil is painting a green apple and wants a believable shadow on one side. How might they mix it?

Mix the main green first. Combine a blue and a yellow, adding more yellow for a warm, sunny green. Make a swatch on scrap paper and wait for it to dry, because paint changes as it dries: watercolour dries lighter, and acrylic a little darker.
Make the light parts. Add white to the green if the paint is opaque, or add more water if it is watercolour, to mix a lighter tint for where the light hits the apple.
Make the shadow. Black is the obvious choice, but it tends to look flat and dead. Instead, add a tiny amount of red, green’s complementary colour, to darken and dull the green naturally. Add it slowly and test each time.
Paint in the right order, which depends on the paint. In acrylic, cover the apple in the main green, add the shadow colour on the side away from the light, blending the edge while the paint is still wet, and add the lightest highlight last. In watercolour, work from light to dark: leave a patch of bare paper for the highlight, paint the pale green first, then add the main green and finally the shadow colour, letting each layer dry or nearly dry before the next.
Record the recipe. Stick the swatches in the sketchbook and write the mix beside each, for example “yellow + a little blue + a speck of red”.

The result is a strip of swatches in the sketchbook: a light tint, the main green and two or three shadow mixes with a little more red in each, every one labelled with how it was made. The painted apple looks rounded because the shadow is a darker, softer version of the green, not a grey patch added on top.

Common mistakes and how to help

Darkening every colour by adding black

Black is the nearest dark in the paint box, so it seems the obvious way to get shadows. It makes colours look grey and flat.

What helps: Try adding a little of a darker neighbour or the complementary colour instead: red into green, orange into blue. Compare a black mix with this next to each other, and the difference is clear.

Using too much or too little water, and treating all paints the same

Watercolour needs plenty of water, while acrylic straight from the tube is thick. Pupils who learn one often carry the same habits to the other, so one paint ends up soggy or too thick.

What helps: Test the consistency on scrap paper. A watercolour wash should be runny, more like tea than cream, while acrylic can be used thick or thinned with a little water. Remember too that watercolour uses the white of the paper for light areas, while acrylic can go over a mistake once dry.

Mixing too many colours, or going back into drying paint, and ending up with mud

Each extra colour dulls the mix, and fiddling with half-dry paint lifts the layer below. Pupils keep adding more because they can’t quite get the colour they want.

What helps: Limit a mix to two or three colours, make a bit more than needed, and wait for layers to dry before painting over. Sometimes a good painting needs patience more than skill.

Starting the final painting without testing

Teenagers want to get on with the real thing, and testing seems like a delay. They then find the mix or the brushwork is wrong halfway through.

What helps: Make testing the first job. Colour charts, tone strips and texture patches in the sketchbook take twenty minutes and save the final piece. They are also what a teacher wants to see.

How to help at home

Try the limited palette challenge. Using only red, yellow, blue and white, how many different colours can you mix? Paint each on scrap paper and label the recipe. Cheap ready-mixed paints are enough, and washable ones make cleaning easy.
Paint a tone strip. Mix one colour and paint six small squares in a row, from palest to darkest, adding white or water for the lighter ones and a dark neighbour for the darker ones. It takes ten minutes and trains the eye for light and dark in every painting that follows.
Match a colour. Choose a colour from a leaf, a fruit or a postcard of a painting and try to match it with a mix. Hold the swatch next to the original. The challenge sharpens colour vision quickly.
Compare dry brush and wet-on-wet. Paint the same simple shape twice: once on damp paper so the colours blur, and once with a nearly dry brush on dry paper. Describe how the two surfaces feel and which suits fur, water or stone.
Look after the brushes. Rinse brushes well, reshape the tips with your fingers and stand them upright to dry. Brushes cared for this way keep their points and last much longer. Cover the table first, and keep paint away from younger siblings.

Builds on

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