Visual Arts 

By Ms Cherrie Pocock, Head Teacher CAPA & Wellbeing 

Stage 5 Visual Arts

This term, students continued working on the theme of Bones in Art. Firstly a research task was completed on Vanitas, a style of art which uses sculls and symbols to tell a story. Students were asked to create their own larger artwork which incorporated this style but utilsing modern objects which were brought in by their teacher. They have now been focusing on developing their drawing and painting techniques to create human and animal scull paintings using ink washes, speciality pens and inks. Students have looked at the Mexican festival The Day of the Dead to inspire their coloured sugar sculls. They were asked to include three Australian flowers and three Mexican symbols to develop their deigns. These were all very different and showed students growing confidence when using different materials. The black and white paintings used washes of different tones of black ink which were carefully measured using different ratios of ink to water. They were asked to make these look as realistic as possible. 

The last activity of the term will be for students to freehand draw an animal scull from the real ones in the art room or research their own image. 

Stage 4 - students have been working on a Pop Art unit, focusing on the key elements of this style “Big, Bold and Bright” They have used a variety of materials such as paint, inks and copic pens to develop their artworks that reflect popular culture. Artworks completed so far are; a title page, graffiti style name using computer generated avatars of themselves, contemporary cartoons and cars in this style. Cameron has been teaching drawing skills which has involved teamwork and technology to draw a combined creature.

Stage 5

Students have been completing a drawing unit of work, aimed at developing this important skill in Visual Arts. They started the term learning how to draw basic three-dimensional shapes using lead pencil and tonal variations. Once they mastered the basics, they then moved on to more complex compositions. More recently, they have been exploring using colour and have drawn real fruit.

Stage 6 - Year 11

Students have learnt about digital camera operations including; focus, aperture, depth of field and ISO. They will soon be starting their first assessment task taking photos based on texture and different vantage points.

Preliminary Visual Arts have looked at the key components of their course including; the frames, the conceptual framework and have had complex discussions around what is art and why we make art. 

Students have now started drawing facial features and have just completed a lead pencil drawing of a face. Portraiture in art is now the focus of their studies and they will critically analysis a variety of portrait artists throughout history. In the practical component, they will build their skills to submit a body of work on this theme early next term.

Stage 6 - Year 12 

Visual Arts have just completed their second case study on Postmodernism with the submission of an essay focused on the idea of appropriation in art. 

Kirrily Johnson has been busy making her artworks for her Body of Work which will be due late August.

Photography. Year 12 student, Lataya Gordon has been utilising Photoshop to develop a range of images based on the work of Bea Nettle and Maggie Taylor. Our graduate teacher, Cameron has been teach Lataya a variety of techniques utilising their expertise in digital photography.