Welcome to another exciting term within The Arts!

Hello everyone! My name is Stephen Di Girolamo and I am thrilled to be expanding on my role at HPS last year to teach The Arts. My goal is to provide our students with a range of ways to broaden their creative thinking through the Arts in order to allow them to further express themselves individually.

This year, the Arts area that we have been focusing on is Media Arts. Specifically, allowing students the opportunity to explore a range of different technologies and applications, in order to develop and gain a broader understanding on how Media Arts can be used in conjunction with traditional Arts mediums, in order to enhance the way we can view Art and communicate ideas.

Currently our Junior Primary classes have had the opportunity to experiment with a variety of different Media Arts applications that can be used to enhance the way we view, respond to and communicate with Art. With technology continuously progressing and evolving, artists have been developing applications and incorporating it within their own art, to further push the boundaries of the way we perceive Art as a medium. One application was ‘Quiver’, an Augmented Reality app that turned two-dimensional illustrations into living characters. Students were thrilled to see their unique pieces of Art come to life. Extending on this, student also experimented with the application ‘Quiver Masks’ – an extension of the original Quiver app. This app allows students to design their own masks based on a template and bring them into the real world, through their iPads. Students were amazed that they could wear the masks they designed, as well as noticing how the app can recognise facial movements. We also have been looking at photo manipulation software and programs such as ‘Toontastic’, a creative storytelling app designed to empower students to draw, animate, narrate, and record collaborated ideas into cartoons. Using technology has also enabled the students to collaborate to create their own Artworks in the style of more traditionally created art – such as ‘Pop Art’ faces.

Students have also been working towards creating a digital storybook, based on the theme ‘All About Me’. We have been following a process that will enable student illustrations, to be developed into a moving image story that can be viewed by their peers. This will be achieved by allowing students to create artwork based on milestones or personal reflections unique to them, before using movie-editing software to compile these images together with the addition of narration. The final result will be an illustrated movie of their views, thoughts, likes and the important people within their lives.

Using the theme ‘Our School, a Community of Learners’, our Upper Primary students began the year experimenting and creating Art for an activity we’ve named ‘Our Hive’. Hampstead Primary School has a strong focus on Values and Ideals that are intrinsic to adopt not only at school, but also within our daily lives. Within our classrooms, there is a strong emphasis on collaboration, respect, support, drawing inspiration from each other and ensuring the wellbeing of every student. I felt that many of these themes drew similarities to a Beehive, where every Bee works together and has a specific role and purpose within the colony. If there is a weak link, or if that support network fails, then all Bees within that community are affected by this. Students spent time experimenting with different visual ideas before applying these designs to a ‘Honeycomb’ template.

While each piece of student artwork is striking in its own right, when linked together, the art becomes more of a collaborative installation piece. It represents the idea that although we are individuals, we each have a purpose and role to play within our community.

Upper Primary students have currently been working through their major task of the term called ‘Concept Pitch’. The purpose of this activity is to allow students to develop a range of skills (such as Critical and Creative thinking, Idea Generation, Problem Solving and Reflection) by taking them through the process of developing a concept from initial thoughts, to a complete ‘marketable’ idea that will be pitched to the class. We began this task by discussing what a pitch is, before viewing examples such as ‘Shark Tank’ to strengthen our understanding. Next, we then started to develop ideas based on a positive theme, as our chosen concepts needed to reflect an important message. Students decided to develop a range of concept ideas, such as Game Design, Storybooks and Movies, through the use of themes such as Friendship, the importance of working together, Recycling and Cyber Safety. Throughout this process, students have been exploring ideas involving Character Design and Development, World Building and ensuring that their concept idea is appropriate for the chosen target audience. The final result will be a presentation that shows a range of different ideas that encompass their created design concept.

I look forward to seeing the continued creativity of each student throughout this Term!

Stephen Di Girolamo

Governing Council Nomination Form