Visual Arts and Visual Design

Visual Arts offers a wide range of opportunities for students to develop their own interests, to be self-motivated and active learners. Many “old girls” have careers that have their underpinnings in Visual Arts experiences.

Visual Arts Mandatory Course 

Years 7 and 8 students make personal investigations of subjects, experience a range of media and examine a variety of related art images and objects. Students study Visual Arts for 80 minutes each week (100 hours).

This foundation course engages students in drawing, painting, ceramics, photography and sculpture. Students are taught about the frames contextually.

Themes explored include: - the portrait, the object, the environment and the journey.

Students keep a diary to record ideas and intentions explored in their art making and to engage in drawing as a sustained practice. 

Elective Course

For Years 9 and 10, students may elect to study Visual Arts as a 200 hour course providing more extensive learning. The concept of the Body of Work is introduced and students produce one or more individual works that are related through subject and /or form.

Students engage in drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, documented forms and sculpture / installations. Themes explored include: - the city, the object, place, the human figure, representation and women.

The visual arts diary provides evidence of the decisions and actions made by students in the production of their artworks.

Students are expected to research artworks and artists which can inform their own artmaking practice. Students write critically about artworks using the frames and conceptual framework. The level of tasks challenges students to deal with more complex concepts.

Preliminary and HSC Courses

The preliminary course offers broad based experiences in Visual Arts and the HSC course has a more sustained, independent and interpretative focus. Conceptual thinking and practical skills developed empower students to participate in the world as creative practitioners, informed consumers and astute appraisers of the concepts and aesthetics underpinning art and design. 

Students delve into the practices of art making, art criticism and art history. They develop their own artworks, culminating in a “body of work” in the HSC course which reflects their knowledge and understanding. Students critically and historically investigate artworks, critics and historians.

The Preliminary Year enables students to expand their knowledge of the artworld through an exploration of critical, historical and artmaking practice. These practices use the Conceptual Framework (Artist, Artwork, Audience, World) in conjunction with Frames as tools of analysis, interpretation and structuring devices for their art writing, artmaking and understanding.

The HSC year is characterised by specialisation in artmaking, resulting in the production of a Body of Work. Students complete a minimum of five case studies and achieve high standards of knowledge and excellent skills in analysis and interpretation as well as sophisticated and knowledgeable levels in art writing.

Visual Design   Preliminary Course

In this 1 Unit course, Year 11 students elect to study and collaborate in the production of the school magazine, The Chronicle. The specific understandings and skills developed in this graphic arts course include the use of digital photography and desktop publishing to produce, edit and layout images and text. Students study modern and contemporary graphic arts examples using the concepts of practice, the conceptual framework and the frames.

Other activities within Visual Arts

Gifted and Talented Visual Arts students are provided opportunities to extend their skills in art making and their knowledge of art history and criticism by participating in a range of extension opportunities inside and outside the classroom.

There is a long history of student participation in numerous art competitions, newspaper journalism submissions, writing competitions, photographic competitions, film (4D) entries and Art Gallery presentations. To further support such student interest, there is planned a series of school competitions based on portraiture, the environment and contemporary practices where students can become exhibiting artists.

Two Visual Arts Exhibitions occur annually. The HSC Body of Work Exhibition and the Years 7 to 11 Annual Art Exhibition.