Year 6 - Art and design
Layers and symbols: surface, texture and identity
Charting self: exploring portrait and identity
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Study Guides
This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
Made in collaboration with October Gallery, in this unit pupils express personal identity through portraiture, material, memory and imagination. Pupils create textured paintings, symbolic surfaces, close-up feature portraits, and expressive self-maps that combine journey and face.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to create a textured artwork that expresses who you am through pattern, layers, and materials.
Key Notes
- Thick texture can show emotion and link to a place.
- Personal objects and images can become symbols of identity.
- Material surfaces and patterns can carry cultural or spiritual meaning.
Vocabulary To Learn
- texture: the way a surface looks or feels
- impasto: using thick paint to make a bumpy, textured surface on the artwork
- memory: something you remember from the past - an event, a place, a feeling, or a person
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- If the shapes look abstract, it seems like they don't mean anything.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
Thick texture can show emotion and link to a place. Personal objects and images can become symbols of identity.
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'texture'
the way a surface looks or feels.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: If the shapes look abstract, it seems like they don't mean anything. Correction: Artists often use abstract shapes and textures to suggest hidden meaning or feeling. Symbols and patterns can carry personal or spiritual meaning - and sometimes, part of the power is in the mystery.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 6 Art and design guide library.