Paint with pencil, marker, watercolour, charcoal and spray, mix your own colours, make collages, follow art projects and put on a gallery show.
1Pick a brush (pencil, marker, watercolour, charcoal or spray), choose a colour and draw on the paper with your finger, a stylus or the mouse.
2Open Colour to mix your own paint from red, yellow, blue, white and black, or tap the colour wheel to find a colour and its opposite.
3Want an idea? Open Projects, choose one like Warm and cool landscape, and follow the steps and the guide lines on the paper.
4Use Layers to keep the sky at the back and details at the front, try Symmetry for mirror pictures, and use Collage to add photos and paper shapes.
5Fill in your artist statement: a title, what you made, the techniques you used and what it means. Press Snap progress a few times while you work.
6A finished artwork fills the paper, uses colour and texture on purpose and has a statement. Save it to your Gallery, then press Gallery show to present it.
Australian Curriculum v9.0 · The Arts · Foundation-Year 6
Art Studio is a digital art room built around the ideas artists really use: line, shape, colour, texture, pattern, space and balance. Children paint with five brushes that behave like real materials (a grainy pencil, a see-through marker, soft watercolour, dusty charcoal and spray paint), draw lines and shapes, fill areas, stamp motifs and paint with patterns such as hatching and bricks. A colour wheel shows primary, secondary and tertiary colours, warm and cool colours and complementary pairs, and a paint mixer lets children add drops of red, yellow, blue, white and black to mix their own colours, tints and shades. Three layers keep backgrounds, middle ground and details separate, symmetry mode mirrors every mark for faces, butterflies and mandalas, and collage mode brings in photos from the device or coloured paper cut into circles, stars, hearts and torn shapes. Fifteen guided art technique projects teach warm and cool landscapes, tessellation, portrait proportions, light and shadow, perspective, pointillism and more. Children write an artist statement, snap progress photos to show how they worked, save up to 12 artworks in their gallery and present them in a full-screen Gallery show.
Top Tip
Start with big shapes and colours on the back layer, then add details and texture on the front layer. Artists work from big to small, and layers let you fix the details without painting over your sky.
Skills You Are Practising
Using line, shape, colour, texture, pattern and space in an artwork
Mixing primary colours to make secondary colours, tints and shades
Choosing warm, cool and complementary colours to create a mood
Experimenting with different materials and mark-making techniques
Planning a composition with foreground, middle ground and background
Drawing faces and objects with proportion, light and shadow
Making collage from photos and cut paper shapes
Writing an artist statement that explains ideas and techniques
Documenting how an artwork developed and presenting it to an audience
In the real world
Illustrators, animators, graphic designers and concept artists all use digital brushes, layers and colour wheels every day. The same ideas of warm and cool colour, light and shadow, perspective and pattern are used in painting, fashion, architecture, advertising and film. Galleries display artworks with written labels and statements, just like the Gallery show.
For parents & teachers
Ask your child to take you on a tour of their Gallery show and explain one choice they made in each artwork.
Mix real paint together after using the digital mixer. Do red and blue make the same purple on paper?
Go on a texture hunt around the house or garden and try to recreate what you find with the charcoal, spray or pattern tools.
Talk about how famous artists use colour to show feelings. Is a painting with lots of blue calm, sad or cold?
Respect culture together: if your child is interested in First Nations art, look at real artworks, learn each artist's name and Country, and never copy their designs.
Who it suits: Foundation to Year 2: explore brushes, colours and stamps, try symmetry, mix red and yellow to make orange, and talk about what the picture shows. Years 3 and 4: use the colour wheel to choose warm, cool and complementary colours, try tessellation, collage and layers, and write a short artist statement. Years 5 and 6: plan compositions with guides for proportion and perspective, use tints and shades for light and shadow, snap progress photos to document their process, and present a curated gallery show.
Australian Curriculum v9.0
This game practises these content descriptions. Tap a code to see its full wording and other games for it.
AC9AVAFC01(Foundation The Arts)create arts works that communicate ideas
AC9AVAFD01(Foundation The Arts)use play, imagination, arts knowledge, processes and/or skills to discover possibilities and develop ideas
AC9AVAFP01(Foundation The Arts)share their arts works with audiences
AC9AVA2C01(Year 2 The Arts)use visual conventions, visual arts processes and materials to create artworks
AC9AVA2D01(Year 2 The Arts)experiment and play with visual conventions, visual arts processes and materials
AC9AVA2P01(Year 2 The Arts)share artworks and/or visual arts practice in informal settings
AC9AVA4C01(Year 4 The Arts)use visual conventions, visual arts processes and materials to create artworks that communicate ideas, perspectives and/or meaning
AC9AVA4D01(Year 4 The Arts)experiment with a range of ways to use visual conventions, visual arts processes and materials