Year 7 Visual Arts
2020 began as most years do, with our new Year 7 students arriving in their practical Visual Arts classes ready to get creative. Coming from a range of primary schools, and a range of art experience, they were keen to learn about the Elements of Art by studying artworks and making their own. The 4 units of work, based on “My World”, covered in Year 7 are People, Places and Spaces, Objects and Nature.
As well as the practical work displayed below, students regularly work in their Visual Arts diaries learning about the work of other artists and analysing through the frames. Each semester students completed an assessment task with a range and a choice of learning activities to extend their creativity and critical thinking.
Places & Spaces
Students settled in well and started with their first unit. "Places and Spaces" was a good starting point as we moved to online learning as they could be inspired by their home environment. While working from home students were keen to share views of their street and house and bedrooms!
Domestic interiors inspired by the work of Howard Arkley
Still at home when term 2 began we moved to “People”, and students were given some very difficult (but entertaining!) tasks to complete on portraiture.
One of the challenges were to make faces from words and another required students to find items from the kitchen drawer and arrange them in a in a face. Students could see that art can be fun and can be made from anything, anywhere, anytime!!!
People
Objects
As students returned to school they were back to our recently refurbished facilities and moved into the "Object" unit where some students worked in clay, others in printmaking, paint and photography, as year 7 is all about providing experiences while learning the basic building blocks of Visual Arts.
Nature
Students explored the shape and forms of the school's gum trees and created line designs as well as mixed media drawing focusing on tone and texture.
Meanwhile other classes created fish prints and animal sculptures with clay.
The Archies 2020
A highlight of the year 7 2020 year was creating portraits of our teachers in our own St Ives Archies competition.
The results were amazing!!!
The winners of the 2020 competition!
Assessment Tasks
A wide range of choices were offered in the assessment task which allowed students to demonstrate their understanding of artists' works, to write creatively as well as producing an artwork in the style of their chosen artist.
