The painting unit for the Year 8 Visual Arts students for Term 4 was an artwork inspired by surrealist artist, Rene Magritte. Composition wise, Magritte was known for including an apple in front of a person’s face and clouds as a background. Following the art process, students used Adobe Photoshop to digitally combine two unusual things together. Using acrylic paint on canvas board, they brought their witty and surreal ideas to life.

Examples of their compositions include:

a block of butter flying with butterfly wings (butter fly)
a woman’s portrait with coral as her hair
a tiger walking in the night sky with fish swimming around them
a beach ball as the sun in the solar system
a guitar with a person trapped in the soundhole of a guitar

Well done to the Year 8 Visual Arts classes. Their ideas and painting skills have blown me away!

Visual Arts teacher

Fros Stabologlou

Visual Art - Unit 2 Year 11

Artworks: 1 - Me and you & 2 - You and Me

Artist: Sarah Delord

I chose to focus on the theme of loneliness. I have had a complex relationship with loneliness as I feel everyone does. In the first piece, there is sheet music for ‘Les feuilles mortes’ by Yves Montand. It is about separation, which is what happened. The reason is explained in the second piece by the text messages. I hope to show irony; despite being connected by technology, their relationship is strained because they are

apart... however, despite inconveniences, we can still meet up and be friends.

Artwork: Revoked

Artist: Sienna Gilson

“Revoked” my ceramic artwork communicates the view of women coming from the male gaze. Her stomach has been removed and imprinted with the male symbol, showing that although it is her physical body, it does not truly belong to her. Recently, in America, the freedom for women to have power over their bodies was taken away.

Artwork: Greed

Artist: Indiana Smith

In my artwork, I attempt to communicate the impacts of human greed on the planet. ‘Greed’ depicts an overgrown scene where man-made objects have become rundown and rusted with no signs of human life. I based this landscape on places and objects (buildings, bridges, cars) that I've seen myself and reimagined in this apocalyptic spin-off. I wanted to show the plausible effects of our actions (war, climatechange) in an environment familiar to many.

Artwork: A familiar scene

Artist: Cathy Ma

‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ - a phrase so palpable that I know a lot of us are familiar with. I took a more personal route for this project. My good friend and I had seen this film in theatres after hearing the two-phrase synopsis of ‘queer’ and ‘Asian’ - of a troubled relationship between a mother and daughter, no less. It is an understatement to say that we laughed and sobbed.

Artwork: Words of Misery Dressed As Wisdom

Artist: Michaela Tran

My photographic collage installation is based on text and photographs looking at the topic of “East Asian Beauty Standards”. The text surrounding the photographs is just as vital as the imagery amongst them.

Artist: Jasmyn Smith

My digital artwork is a mythical and ethereal self-portrait, a goddess-like version of myself that represents my zodiac sign Aquarius. Astrology is one of my biggest interests and I wanted to show the connection I have with my zodiac sign and planets. It depicts a sense of inspiration, dreams and other worldness in me. This ties into a tendency to get lost in my imagination– something that can be a nuisance at times but something that is also a part of my individuality.

Artwork: Transcend

Artist: Taegan Truong

‘Transcend’ depicts an appreciation for beauty and nature. The peacocks are used to represent beauty, confidence and nature, and evoke the message of how these things are in our grasp, and how we can seek beauty in all things - starting simply with the things surrounding us.

Ms Pearson

Visual Arts Teacher

Year 10 Photography & Film

During Monday 28 November Photography and Film Head Start lessons, both Year 10 classes experimented with camera-less photography. In particular sun prints and photograms.

Students selected from a range of natural and artificial items to create designs for their sunprints. To prevent the sun sensitive paper from being exposed, students composed their prints in the darkroom. When ready, they left their prints outside in the sun for five minutes, waiting for the blue paper to turn white. The sun sensitive paper was then placed in water to finish the developing process and fix the image. The result was a light blue silhouette of the object contrasting against a dark blue background.

The second activity for today was the introduction to the darkroom, by creating a photogram. Using the same items, however, composed in a different manner, students learnt how to use the enlarger and understood the purpose of each chemical that is used to develop the light sensitive paper (developer, stop bath and fixer).

The students’ facial expressions and comments were amazing to witness when the images on the sun and light sensitive papers appeared!

Some feedback from our students regarding today’s lessons:

Francheska Bu: One thing I thought was fun from the HeadStart lesson was that the Sunprint Paper changed so quickly right before our eyes. Especially when the objects were moved and we could see the contrast of the colours on the paper.

Jessica Hopgood: Something I learned during this lesson was how to create a photogram which I enjoyed. I think the photogram is cool and my photo looks really good even if not everything worked.

Choe Shinkfield: Today, during periods 5 and 6 in Photography and Film, I found choosing the different designs to print on the photogram a lot of fun and interesting.

De Leggo and Fros Stabologlou

Visual Arts teachers

Head Start incursion: VCE Art Creative Practice & Visual Communication Design

On Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24th November both the Year 11 and 12 VCE Arts Creative Practice and Visual Communication Design classes were fortunate to participate in ‘Head Start’ workshops withTrudi Harley. Trudi is a highly respected artist and also the owner of Atelier art supplies where we purchase our art supplies.

All four workshops were skill based focussing on observational drawing and rendering. Trudi started each workshop with warm up exercises and then each class focussed on content related to their particular VCE Study. This valuable experience will assist all students when developing and completing their own work for their folios next year.

The Year 12 ACP students experimented with a range of white drawing pencils on different types of black paper. They tested the drawing pencil's opacity and how it transferred onto the different papers. In preparation for the second task of the workshop, the students took a photo of themselves and printed it in black and white and then cut it in half lengthways. The students then drew and rendered the missing half of their portrait on the black paper, taking into consideration the tips and techniques Trudi shared at the beginning of the session to complete some excellent final portraits.

Ms Stabologlou

The Year 11 ACP students enjoyed their workshop with Trudi Harley. It was fascinating to hear about the inspiration and influences behind her nostalgic drawings and paintings. Many techniques were trialled and developed on the day with lots of experimentation and mark-making. The students worked on some beautifully rendered final drawings of sea shells using a limited range of colours and completed them the next day in class.

Ms Pearson

The Year 12 VCD students focused on observational drawing for their Unit 3 Outcome 1 folio in the field of Industrial Design. The students learnt skills using a range of grey lead pencils for their observational drawings to show realistic scale and proportion of form together with surface texture by the application of line, shape and tone for a final drawing. They also discussed the mechanisms and working parts of their scissors and the importance of ergonomics for human use to complete a series of drawings focused on these parts. The students should be proud of the realistic drawings completed in this workshop.

Ms Leggo

The Year 11 VCD students focused on observational drawing for their Unit 1 Outcome 1 folio ‘Drawing as a means of communication’. The students studied the material of glass for their observational drawings. Realistic scale and proportion of form together with surface texture with the application of line, shapes and tone was applied with coloured pencils on black paper to produce some fabulous final drawings .

Ms Leggo

VISUAL COMMUNICATION DESIGN

Year 12 VCD ‘SAT’ Final Presentations

In celebration of my wonderful, creative and talented, Year 12 VCD class of 2022. Their achievements this year speak volumes about their talent, skill, dedication and application to their work. They should all be very proud of their achievements.

In May this year each Year 12 VCD students completed their final SAC for 2022 in writing their Brief for their SAT folio. This was the beginning of each student's journey to follow the design process culminating in their two Final Presentations. Each Final Presentation can result in a number of pieces of work, what you see in this newsletter is only a small part of each student's body of work. Their Final Presentations came from all three fields of design, ranging from logo design and branding, brochures, DVD cover, architectural designs, book jackets, packaging and large scale promotion posters.

Each student's two Final Presentations specifically addressed, through resolution, the audience characteristics, purpose/s, intended contexts and constraints of their Brief. They utilised design thinking routines, considered, selected and applied materials, media, methods, design elements and principles to specifically meet the communication need in an innovative way to communicate a clear message to the audience. Each student demonstrated a high level of technical skill in their two Final Presentations.

De Leggo

Visual Arts Learning Leader and VCD teacher

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