Visual Arts

The Visual Arts faculty at Prairiewood High School promotes a positive learning environment and curriculum that encourages and nurtures critical and creative thinking skills, coupled with individual and artistic expression. Encompassing a teaching faculty skilled in diverse areas, high expectations in the pursuit of student excellence are supported by a focus on strong conceptual and technical skill development to maximise outcomes for each student.

What subjects/courses do we offer?

The CAPA faculty offers a wide range of subjects and courses that vary depending on which year the student is in at school.

The Visual Arts faculty offers a range of courses across Year 7-12.  These include Visual Arts, Visual Design, and Photography.

Visual Arts is mandatory in Years 7 and 8, and an elective in Years 9, 10, 11 and 12.

Stage 4 (Years 7 and 8) - MANDATORY COURSE

In Year 7 or Year 8, all students study Visual Arts for three periods a week. The course comprises the practical component of artmaking, along with critical and historical studies where students are introduced to the concepts of practice, the conceptual framework and the frames. Students learn to use practical media in at least two of the 2D, 3D and 4D expressive forms.

• 2D forms include flat work, for example, painting, drawing, wet photography and printmaking.
• 3D forms include works that involve volume and mass, for example, ceramics and sculpture.
• 4D forms include works that exist in real and virtual time, for example, time-based works, film and video, digital animation, and performance works.

Topics currently explored in Stage 4 include:

• The Elements of Art: Abstract Design
• Rites, Rituals and Traditions: Wet Photography Tattoo Bookmark Design + African Clay Mask or Aboriginal Papier Mache Totem Shape
• Portraiture: Cubist or Pop Art Portrait Painting

Students are required to keep a Visual Arts Process Diary (VAPD), to record and plan ideas as part of their artmaking practice relating to development of a Body of Work. Students are expected to include all documentation, sketches, planning, experimentation and work samples from all artmaking tasks. VAPDs must also include the completion of all classwork, including theory and literacy activities. VAPD must be neatly maintained, in sequential order, with all handouts secured neatly. VAPDs will be regularly monitored and marked.

Students will participate in Critical and Historical Studies, leading to an increase of knowledge of the art world. They will learn how to interpret and communicate concepts of the art world using specific art metalanguage.

Student evaluation comprises a series of formative and summative assessment tasks throughout the year. These assessments comprise both practical and theoretical tasks linked to the three units of work. Students will sit a formal written examination in Term 4.  

Stage 5 (Years 9 and 10)

Visual Arts (100 or 200 hour elective)

Photographic and Digital Media (100 hour elective)

Visual Design (100 or 200 hour elective)

Stage 6 (Years 11 and 12) - Visual Arts (ATAR)

Students will follow the visual arts curriculum designated to best suit them and their year level.

What will students learn about?

Our students excel when demonstrating their creative side through the visual arts. They learn about the pleasure and enjoyment of making different kinds of artworks in 2D, 3D and 4D forms. They learn to represent their ideas and interests with reference to contemporary trends and they explore how their own lives and experiences can influence their art making and critical and historical studies. They learn how painters, sculptors, architects, designers, photographers and ceramists make artworks and explore how art is shaped by different beliefs, values and meanings. They will examine artists and artworks from different times and places and the relationships between the artist, the artwork, the world and their audience.