Deirdre O’Reilly, Arts Education Portal Blog

The second installment on our guest blog series on The Education Arts Portal.

We’re delighted to continue our guest blog series, sharing perspectives from the arts in education programme, Creativity in the Classroom.

Creativity in the Classroom: Colour, Curiosity and Collaboration

As a visiting artist working through Creativity in the Classroom, I’m fortunate to spend up to nine weeks at a time with each class group. That time matters: it gives children full authorship over their ideas, space to develop, and the confidence that comes from genuine collaboration. This term I worked with 5th Class boys and girls from Presentation Primary School Warrenmount, Dublin 8 and their energy shaped the whole project.

Getting started

We began with colour mixing, exploring a palette of blues, yellows and reds. Working in groups, each team used a hula hoop and circular templates to create intersecting shapes across large sheets of paper. These shapes became dedicated spaces for experimenting with colour. The children negotiated how to divide the page, shared discoveries, and surprised themselves with the range of tones they created together.

Drawing techniques

Over the next sessions, we shifted into drawing techniques using 2B, 4B and 6B pencils. I brought in images of birds and demonstrated how I approach a drawing—where to begin, how to fill the page, and why mistakes are part of the process. The children started with A4 studies before enlarging their drawings to A3, focusing on observation, shading and texture. Their concentration and excitement for this technical challenge were remarkable.

Printmaking

When they were ready, they prepared their drawings for printmaking. Each child simplified their bird, transferred it onto foam board, and added texture through mark making. Printmaking with a large group can be lively, but with the right setup the children can take full control. Using their earlier colour‑mixing sheets as backgrounds, they produced vibrant collaborative prints, along with individual A3 prints finished in black marker. The results were joyful, confident and entirely their own.