Visual Arts Curriculum
The study of Visual Arts seeks to contribute to the understanding and appreciation of the visual arts by providing students with a range of creative lessons, excursions and exhibitions that explore drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, graphic and digital art. Visual Arts engages students in the practices of art criticism, art history and their own artmaking practice through the four frames (subjective, cultural, structural and postmodern) and the artist, artwork, world, audience relationship of the conceptual framework.
Stages 4 and 5
Visual Arts provides opportunities for students to enjoy the making and studying of art. It builds an understanding of the role of art in all forms of media, both in the contemporary and historical world, and enables students to represent their ideas and interests in artworks. Visual Arts enables students to respond critically and creatively to the world, in written and visual form.
The ideas explored include:
- People – portraiture, the self, family and friends
- Places – school, camp, home, natural, suburban, urban and virtual environments
- Objects – still life, natural and man-made forms
- Other Living Things – animals, sea life, imaginary and mythical creatures
- Events - personal, social, cultural and political
The forms explored include drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, graphic and digital media.
Stage 6
The preliminary course offers a broad range of experiences in Visual Arts and extends to the increasingly sustained, independent and interpretative focus of the HSC course. Visual Arts engages students in the practices of art making, art criticism and art history. Students develop their own artworks, culminating in a Body of Work in the HSC course that reflects students’ knowledge and understanding of the artworld, and artmaking practice. From this foundation, the students resolve a conceptually strong and technically sensitive work. Additionally, students critically and historically investigate artworks, critics and historians from Australia as well as those from other cultures, traditions and historical eras.
Visual Design
This is a 1 Unit course offered in Year 11. The Visual Design course encourages students to explore the practices of graphic, wearable, product and interior/exterior design in contemporary society.
Photography, Video and Digital Media
This is a 1 Unit course offered in Year 11. The course encourages students to develop a range of skills through the acquisition of techniques, such as traditional wet photography (darkroom), digital photography and video.