'Take One Picture' is the National Gallery's countrywide scheme for primary schools. Each year the Gallery focuses on one painting from the collection to inspire cross-curricular work in primary classrooms. National Gallery Education then displays a selection of the work in the annual 'Take One Picture' exhibition at the National Gallery.The lower school students and teachers at ACS Hillingdon have explored and discussed the picture and projects are ongoing.

The second grade students got so excited by the picture that they wanted to see it in 'real life' by visiting the National Gallery. Students, parents and teachers spent a terrific day in October and were introduced to the painting by Bell who works at the National Gallery. To read a write up by Eamonn on the visit please click here.
On their return, the students decided to compare and contrast the leaves that Rubens painted and the leaves falling of the trees in the grounds at school.The students collected the leaves and used them to make their own pictures.

Second grade students also looked at the building in art and compared it with Hillingdon Manor that houses the high school. In the sidebar there is a photograph of of Marley painting her interpretation of Hillingdon Manor in art class.

There are a variety of trees in the Ruben’s painting which ties in with the tree unit 3rd grade have been studying both in their classroom and in art. We have a diverse range of trees in the school grounds which provided us with some great subjects for our charcoal drawings. Students were then given the task of studying one tree through the art room window and make this the subject of a drawing that would be worked into a painting. We can look at this tree over the coming seasons to see how it may change.

Kindergarten looked at the painting and the detail that caught their eye were the clouds and their colour. After a discussion it was decided to look closely at the clouds above our heads to see if they were also yellowish. The children drew what they thought clouds looked like and all but one drew bright white clouds. The children then began to look more closely at the clouds and took some photographs looking closely at the shape, colour and texture of the clouds. After this research they worked on their own sky collages's and they were so different from the original drawings - so full of colour and texture. The children enhanced their observation skills and were fully engaged in a long term art project

After looking at the Ruben’s painting ‘Het Steen’ 4th grade were inspired by the way Ruben’s had used clouds and color in the sky to show day break. They looked at cloud formations and worked outdoors trying to capture the fleeting shapes of the clouds with watercolor.

Another artist who used many clouds in his paintings was a surrealist painter called René Magritte. We projected one of his cloud paintings onto the students’ faces and took photographs of what they would look like if they were the subject of a "cloud painting." These photographs are now the basis of a papier mache mask project.

This exploration of art has been a great cross-curricular project where students find new ways about looking at all of the areas of study from a common starting point.