What is expressionist painting? | KS1 | Primary

A person holding an easel with paint on it and using a paintbrush to paint onto a canvas.

What is painting?

Painting is something everyone can do, from artists to children in school - even babies can do finger painting.

Paintings are often made with paints in different colours.

Paintbrushes are usually used to make paintings. But sometimes painters use other tools such as sponges and even fingers.

A group of artists called expressionist painters use painting to show their feelings.

How can you use the word 'painting' in a sentence?

Useful tools used by painters

An artist easel — Image caption,
An easel

Pots of paint in black, red, blue and yellow — Image caption,
Pots of paint

Three paintbrushes — Image caption,
Paintbrushes

Watch how to make expressionist paintings

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Find out what painting is and all the different ways to do it with Oliver Jeffers

Examples of expressionist paintings

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Image caption,
'The Seasons' by Lee Krasner (1958)
Lee Krasner was an American painter but she also made many collages (art made by cutting and sticking materials). Her paintings were often very large and colourful. She said she wanted her paintings to look like they were alive. You could try and make paintings that look like they are alive too. © The Pollock - Krasner Foundation ARS, NY and DACS, London 2023.
Image caption,
'Mural' by Jackson Pollock (1943)
Jackson Pollock was an American painter. Sometimes he would make paintings by dripping paint onto the floor. He would move around the floor and drip the paint from the paint tin or the paintbrush. Some of his paintings have his footprints in them as he stepped in the wet paint. © The Pollock - Krasner Foundation ARS, NY and DACS, London 2023.
Image caption,
'Composition VI' by Wassily Kandinsky (1913)
Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian painter best known for his paintings of shapes, colours and lines. He loved music and many of his paintings have names that are words used by musicians too, such as 'composition'. Sometimes Kandinsky painted and listened to music at the same time. You could do the same.

Using colours and brush marks to express your feelings

Three different tubes of paint. One is yellow, one red and the other is blue. — Image caption,
Tubes of paint in the primary colours

Select the primary colours (yellow, red and blue) and put them onto a You can use an old container or a paper plate.

See what happens when you mix the two primary colours together. You can practise on a piece of scrap paper to check the colours you can make.

A paintbrush mixes red and yellow paint on a white surface. The paint is orange in the middle where the two colours have mixed. — Image caption,
Mixing two primary colours to make a secondary colour

See if you can make the secondary colours (green, purple and orange).

Once you’ve made colours, decide which ones make you feel happy, sad, excited or sleepy.

Choose some other feelings and see if you can make colours that match them.

Lots of different paintbrushes and pots of different paints. — Image caption,
Lots of different paintbrushes and pots of different coloured paints

Choose a brush or a few brushes to paint with.

Choose colours and to show how you feel and paint your expressionist painting.

A surface with lots of different coloured paints splattered all over the place. — Image caption,
An example of an expressionist painting

Your expressionist painting does not have to look like anything in particular. It may even look a bit messy.

There is no right or wrong way to paint your feelings - it's all about how you feel.

You could ask someone to look at your painting and try to guess how you were feeling when you made it.

Activity

A painting with a blurry background. The sky is made of orange wavy paint strokes and a figure is standing on a bridge next to what looks like water. The figure has their hands around their face and their mouth is wide open looking surprised. — Image caption,
This painting is called 'The Scream' and it was painted by Edvard Munch in 1893

Did you know?

The painting called The Scream was made by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. It is one of the most famous expressionist paintings.

The character in the front looks like they are screaming. It was even the inspiration for the screaming emoji.

Edvard Munch created several versions of this painting and pop artist Andy Warhol also reproduced 'The Scream' in a screen print.

It also appeared on Norwegian stamps in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Munch's birth.

This painting has lots of different shades of blue in it. It looks like night time. There is a town at the bottom with a few buildings and one tall dark tower. The swirling sky takes up most of the painting with yellow round stars in it. — Image caption,
This painting made by Vincent van Gogh in 1889 is called 'The Starry Night'

The painting called The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh from 1889, is another example of Expressionism. Notice the swirling brushstrokes. On the cypress tree, the brushstrokes bend with the curve of the branches.

Van Gogh painted this from his window when he was staying in a hospital.

The view is not totally accurate so Van Gogh must have used his imagination.

Quiz

A palette with paint pots and paintbrushes

Glossary

Here are the meanings of some important words.

Brushstrokes - The way you make marks with your paintbrush.
Famous - Known about by lots of people.
Palette - Something artists use to put their paints on.