Getting Started with Visual Arts
Getting Started with Visual Arts
In this video, Diana introduces Visual Arts as a subject in the Australian Curriculum: The Arts. She gives you an overview of Visual Arts, discusses its value in the curriculum and illustrates ways that it can engage other curriculum areas.
These resources will help give you the confidence to teach Visual Arts in your classroom. Give it a go! Don't be afraid to take some creative risks. By incorporating Visual Arts you offer students a rich and stimulating learning environment to make, imagine and explore. You don't need many resources to get started either.
There has been a lot of research done on how the arts play a key role in student learning. The Song Room research reports and the findings of international reports such as Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning indicate the value of the arts to assist students with:
self-esteem and self-expression
social interaction with peers and adults
cooperation and sharing
creative thinking and problem-solving skills
eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills
language and literacy
sensory awareness
concentration and perseverance
observation and ways of seeing
innovation and adaption for all learning areas.
Encourage play
It is important to allow students to experiment and explore ideas and concepts, materials and techniques, learning through trial and error. Creative play should be encouraged and valued as an important part of the art-making process.
Demonstrate to inspire students
It is important to be a confident and inspiring teacher when engaging in the visual arts but it doesn't matter whether you consider yourself to be artistic or not. Explore artworks, materials and techniques so that you can be informed and enthusiastic when engaging with your students. Demonstrate your willingness to explore and experiment with materials and concepts to model and support students' own exploration.
Use examples
It is crucial to provide students with a rich and stimulating environment when engaging in the visual arts. This includes providing quality examples of artworks such as:
quality reproductions (large format posters or prints)
quality art books
images showing a variety of different art styles and mediums
original artworks and objects
items and objects students can touch and hold.
Think about developing displays of a variety of artwork. For example, if you are exploring the elements of art such as line and shape, develop a display that showcases different images and examples of artwork where these elements are dominant.
Useful teaching strategies
When reflecting on artworks or exploring new creative topics, it may be useful to use the following teaching and learning strategies.
Visual analysis of artworks
Visual analysis is one of the key skills needed to engage in discussion about visual arts. To analyse a work of art visually is to break it down into the basic elements and principles of art.
Students will learn how to look at artworks and identify and describe the formal elements in order to recognise and understand the visual choices the artist made and why (in relation to the artwork's context). By learning to formally describe the artwork and what they see, students will be able to reflect on, wonder about and questionthe ideas and meanings within an artwork.
This technique also supports inquiry. Students (or teachers for that matter) do not necessarily need to know much about artists and artwork to be able to look at, describe and reflect on images - therefore making their own observations and developing their own meanings.
See, think, wonder
The "See, think, wonder" method encourages students to make careful observations and give thoughtful responses when exploring works of art:
What do you see? Encourage students to really look at the work. Provide time for students to explore and describe what they see, including naming the formal elements of art.
What do you thinkabout that?
What do you wonderabout?
Use one stem at a time (I see - I think - I wonder ?) and list responses on the board to make thinking visible. It's also a good idea to provide adequate time for students to think about the question before requesting answers.
(Look) Think, pair, share
The "(Look) Think, pair, share" method is a cooperative learning technique that encourages individual participation and is applicable across all year levels and class sizes. Students think through questions using three distinct steps. This method is particularly useful when doing visual analysis (looking at and responding to artworks) as the students' ideas become refined through the process.
Look refers toidentifying the formal elements and principles of art to support the following:
Think:Students think independently about the question that has been posed, forming ideas of their own.
Pair:Students discuss their thoughts in pairs. This step allows for all students to articulate their ideas and to consider those of others.
Share:Student pairs share their ideas with a larger group, such as the whole class. Students are often more comfortable presenting ideas to a group with the support of a partner.
Planning
Incorporating Visual Arts into your classroom does require planning. Challenge yourself to put Visual Arts ideas at the centre of your curriculum and plan your curriculum priorities and subject areas around them, rather than the Visual Arts component being added on.
Preparation
Along with planning, Visual Arts requires preparation. However, with some time and innovative thought you can make it work for you.
Part of your planning is developing and collecting the resources you need. If you are organised you will know what you need in advance for each project. If you plan holistically for your units of work, then Visual Art preparation can easily be incorporated.
Students love helping - get them involved in prepping materials.
Use the school community as a resource. Send a call out to families for particular materials you may need. For example: recycled small cartons for construction; buttons and materials scraps; string and bottle caps.
Don't be afraid to ask families to help you prep materials too. For example: collecting certain sized sticks; cutting up recycled cardboard boxes into a particular shape you need; or collecting a specific colour of paper.
Use the local community as a resource. Ask the local picture framers for their mount card offcuts or the printers for any offcut paper. Be clear about what you need and don't be afraid to ask - you'll be amazed at what is out there.
Organisation
Along with planning, organisation is key for incorporating Visual Arts into your classroom. We all know that space is at a premium in classrooms and everyone's environment will be different. However, if you incorporate some of the following ideas, you will be able to offer some exciting opportunities to your students.
There is a real art to "place making" and you might have to consider the function of your classroom as a whole space. Consider the following:
Is there enough desk space for doing and making?
Do you have access to any outside space?
Do you have any wall space - for display but also for making, eg a large board to clip paper onto for drawing and painting?
Is there access to water for cleaning up?
How can areas be changed so they can be multipurpose?
Can you store works in progress and finished works? Is there a place to put paintings to dry?
Do you have class sets of equipment, eg paintbrushes, pastels and pencils?
How will you store materials?
Overcoming constraints
Time
A truly integrated arts program needs time, not only in the planning stage but also in the classroom. This can be difficult in a busy school environment but here are some suggestions:
Timetable blocks of time for specific projects and integrated subject work.
Initiate whole school, learning area or year level planning so the arts can be adequately programmed.
Materials
Art materials can be expensive; however, with a bit of innovative thinking and planning, you can resource your program on a budget:
Invest in quality "infrastructure" items such as scissors, paintbrushes, paint, marker pens, crayons, glue and paper.
Rather than purchasing items from art catalogues, consider alternatives such as community business donations, offcuts, scraps, charity shops and call-outs to parents.
Use recycle centres such as Resource Rescue .
Presentation
Displaying and presenting students' artworks in a professional manner not only promotes achievement, wellbeing, belonging and pride, but also the value of arts learning. Consider:
Is there an area of your classroom (a corner, bench or just a few shelves) you could dedicate to an art display?
Can you put on exhibitions within the school and/or community?
Can you display work in a different and innovative way?
It's a good idea to display a cross-section of students' work and rotate it so everyone is represented at some stage during the term.
Documentation
Documenting the Visual Arts is an important step in the recording of process. Not all artwork culminates in a finished product - some artworks are transient or ethereal in nature. Keeping photographs will allow you to diarise your students' work across projects and terms.
Photographs, video and other documentation offer a valuable resource for future students to respond to.
The documentation of students' projects is a valuable resource for assessment purposes.
Students can document their process via written evaluation and critical reflection. This is a good way to capture the student's "voice", which can be used for quotes and descriptions to enhance artwork displays.
Document a project by collating images and responses to create a book or digital slideshow.
How to manage technology
The internet is a good source for ideas and inspiration.
Use presentation software as a tool to present images and artworks to inspire students. Be sure to credit your images and include their source. Follow your school guidelines and include as much information as possible, for example:
the name of the artist
the title of the artwork
where it was published (if online, include the website name and URL and the date you viewed the image)
the name of the museum or art gallery where the artwork is located
dimensions of the artwork.
Low-tech options can include overhead projectors. These are a fantastic resource for projecting light and transparent objects onto walls. Have a play - they're fun!
Tips and tricks
Questioning is the best form of inquiry. The Australian Curriculum: The Arts provides key questions to help students consider a range of viewpoints in their exploration and interpretation of artworks. It lists Viewpoint questions under the headings:
Contexts
Knowledge
Evaluations (judgements).
Engaging in art making is as much about the process as it is about the finished product.
Encourage everyone to "have a go" and focus on the positive aspects of their work.
Focus on problems solved, techniques, similarities and differences, rather than value judgements such as something being "good" or "right".
Aim for expression rather than perfection.
Stagger the materials for the activity so students don't feel rushed.
Allow time and space for students to work individually, as well as collectively.
Encourage empathy and understanding for others by asking students to step back and view their own artwork alongside others?.
Links to general capabilities
Resources on ARTS:LIVE help students develop the general capabilities from the Australian Curriculum. Visual Arts can be linked to all general capabilities.
Examples from ARTS:LIVE
Funfair High: Responding to Ghost Train, Bulleen challenges students to analyse and respond to artwork, developing Literacy and Critical and creative thinking.
Making a Mask; Decorating a Mask develop students' ethical understanding and intercultural understanding when researching masks in different cultural contexts.
Links to cross-curriculum priorities
The Australian Curriculum embeds cross-curriculum priorities in all learning areas and stresses their importance in a globalised world. The Visual Arts addresses strong cross-curriculum priorities in many areas.
Examples from ARTS:LIVE
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures
Story Starters: Visual Storytelling engages students with the rich oral and visual storytelling traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through:
talking circles
making collages
looking at artwork and learning about the associated stories.
Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia
Mask Making: Decorating a Mask gives students the opportunity to research different cultures in relation to the rich traditions of Asian Art such as:
Bian Lian Chinese opera performance using masks from the Sichuan Province
Tibetan Vajra Mask Dance
traditional Vietnamese masks
Balinese carved masks.
Sustainability
Activities in the Junk Percussion course can link to Sustainability through the exploration of recycled materials for instruments.
Visual Art Starters: Sustain Your Art extends students' awareness of sustainable materials, techniques and technologies through the making of an artwork using clean recycled materials.
Balinese carved masks: traditional masks made out of wood, used in traditional dance and theatre. Masks may represent gods, animals, demons or humans.
Bestiary text: a compilation (compendium) of medieval beasts, some real, some imagined, to represent a symbolic language of animals.
Bian Lian Chinese opera performance: an ancient Chinese dramatic art that is part of the famous Sichuan opera.
Collage: an image or design created by sticking materials such as paper, card, fabric, printed material and string to a base.
Found objects: everyday objects that can be used in artwork, eg in a collage or to create sculptures, or to inspire ideas.
Media: materials and tools used by artists.
Pattern: created by the repetition of discernible shapes, colours and/or textures in a composition.
Proportion: the relative size of parts of a whole, eg proportions of the face - the nose is usually the same size as the ears.
Rhythm: the flow, with variation, of lines, shapes, colours and/or textures in a composition.
Scale: the size of one object relative to another. For example, is an artwork larger, smaller or the same size as a person (life-sized)?
Sculpture: a three-dimensional artwork that can be walked around and looked at from different viewpoints.
Shape: an enclosed, two-dimensional space (eg a triangle). Shapes may have clear edges (eg squares, circles) or be organic with irregular edges (eg hearts, flowers).
Space: the areas between, around and within an artwork. Space can be positive (white or light) or negative (black or dark), open or closed, shallow or deep, and two-dimensional or three-dimensional.
Surface: the outer layer or 'skin' of something.
Texture: how a surface feels to touch, or its representation in a medium such as paint.
Tone: the lightness or darkness of a colour.
Vietnamese traditional masks: usually made of bamboo and looking like round shallow baskets. Masks are decorated using the make-up styles of Vietnamese traditional theatre, and represent different emotions.
Produced by the Song Room with support from the Australian Government Department of Education
Talent in videos: Diana Nguyen
References
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), http://www.acara.edu.au
Australian Curriculum: The Arts, Foundation to Year 10, http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/the-arts/introduction
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), http://www.aitsl.edu.au