Visual Arts

An arts education helps build academic skills and increase academic performance, while also providing alternative opportunities to reward the skills of children who learn differently.
Gavin Newsom

The Visual Arts encourages and develops students’ abilities to think creatively and to problem-solve whilst engaged in Art Making and Art Responding activities.

Students develop their drawing, painting, graphics, printing, sculpture and ceramic skills through investigation and exploration of art projects using both established and unconventional techniques.  While the courses are primarily hands on practical work, the development of key art language and understandings is central to each activity.

Year 7

Year 7 students have the opportunity to explore Art Making in a variety of studio areas such as painting, printmaking, sculpture and mixed media.  Students are shown new drawing skills and techniques, which they will can use to create their own series of art projects using new art tools and equipment.

Year 8

Year 8 students continue to expand their knowledge of the range of art techniques and materials within Art Making such as painting, printmaking, sculpture and ceramics, and they try out some computer graphics. Drawing skills also continue to be developed through observed and imaginary tasks within each project.

Years 9-10

Students can elect to study Visual Arts electives in Year 9 and 10 including Graphic Design and Sculpture.

Graphic Design

Graphic Design is all around us in both the Art and the Commercial/Business worlds. Students might illustrate a story or a song, design a package or a postage stamp, design a t-shirt or use a computer program to design their own environmental poster on sustainability using hand drawing or computer based skills.

Sculpture

Sculpture can be made from a variety of materials, including ceramics, metal, plastics, card and wood. The use of recyclable materials in creating a sculpture supports the school’s focus on sustainability Students are given the opportunity to participate in both individual and community/group arts projects.

Year 9

In Art Making, Year 9 students might make a painting, print a limited edition or print a t-shirt, make a pot or sculpture and glaze or paint it, or design a unique graphic artwork or poster. Students will improve their drawing through practice and new techniques, such as perspective drawing, and to think creatively and problem solve to express themselves.

Students can start studying Art in Year 9 even if they have not done so before and the course will be at a slightly more challenging level.

Year 10

The Year 10 Art course prepares students to enter the WACE courses in upper school. Although desirable, students do not have to have studied Visual Arts in previous years.

This course provides students the opportunity to develop as an artist or designer with high quality skills, extending and developing artworks that express their creative ideas and values. What is made in the studio area during this course will be negotiated with the teacher. Students continue to improve in drawing skills through practice and techniques, and to extend on their knowledge of perspective drawing. Students also have opportunities to explore and use a variety of media such as conté, chalk pastels, charcoal, as well as watercolour and acrylic paints.

Visual Arts Year 11 and 12

ATAR Course

Year 11

In this course, students engage in traditional, modern and contemporary media and techniques within the broad areas of art forms. This course promotes innovative practice. Students are encouraged to explore and represent their ideas and gain an awareness of the role that artists and designers play in reflecting, challenging and shaping the values of society. The Visual Arts ATAR course allows students to develop aesthetic understandings and a critical awareness to appreciate and make informed evaluations of art through engagement of their own art practice and the work of others.

Year 12

In Year 12, students make art as their main focus, including consideration of other people’s work as well as how what they do fits in with activities within the art world. Students will be expected to complete good image analysis and well-researched case studies.

General Courses

Year 11 & 12

In the General course students engage in a range of studio areas where they will have the opportunity to make work exploring their imagination and their own personal experiences. There are opportunities to take part in exhibitions of artworks at the school and in the community.