Year 5 Art – Expressive Portraits Through Words

Year 5 have been developing their artistic skills by exploring the connection between words and visual art in their recent Art lessons. To begin the project, the children carefully observed themselves using natural light from the classroom windows before sketching detailed self-portraits on tracing paper, focusing closely on facial features and proportions.

They then transformed these drawings into creative word portraits by tracing over their sketches with carefully chosen words, names and phrases that represented their personalities, interests and identities. This imaginative technique encouraged the children to think deeply about how art can be used to communicate personal meaning and individuality.

As the project continues, the children will experiment with a variety of background styles and colours to discover which effects best complement and enhance their portraits.

Throughout the lessons, Year 5 demonstrated excellent creativity, showing confidence in experimenting with new artistic ideas and techniques. Their positive approach, combined with their developing artistic skills, has already resulted in some highly expressive and impressive pieces of artwork.

Well done, Year 5!

Year 5 Art - Expressive Portraits 2026