Drawing in Visual Arts 7 & 8:
Exposure to new materials and techniques

Learning Area Visual Arts & Design (Additional) 1, Semester 1 - June 2020

INTRODUCTION & PURPOSE

My undergraduate degree exposed me to a range of new media that I had not explored previously. My previous experience with Visual Arts in secondary school consisted mainly of pencil drawings, acrylic painting, clay ceramics and collage. Many of my classmates in my undergraduate degree were exploring video, sound, performance and installation art and due to my lack of exposure to these materials, I had a hard time understanding and engaging with them. These new genres and materials opened up a world of possibilities for art making, and I regretted not having the opportunity to explore them in my secondary school education. 

In this rapidly changing world, so are ideas of art making and creativity. I believe that Visual Arts education within schools should also change with it. In spite of on-going discussions about technology, creativity and contemporary art within the field of art education, classroom practices remain loyal to traditional media, materials and art school styles (Anderson & Milbrant, 1998). Rarely do we see a curriculum that embraces the possibilities of a contemporary culture, including new genres and media within their classroom. Adolescent students today are already engaging with a technology-saturated culture and learning, communicating and entertaining themselves through digital and non-traditional materials. Exposing these students to an art education which embraces the contemporariness of their lives may allow them to find greater confidence in their art-making ability.

Visual Arts classrooms are guilty of adhering to the art school style. Arthur Efland’s definition of the art school style explores how, even in the 1970’s, the school art style had been in place for years despite the changing of society (Anderson & Milbrant, 1998). Due to my own experience, I believe this is because of what schools consider as “high” art and “low” art. Although the distinction between “high” art and “low” art is sometimes unclear, it is commonly seen that “high” art is for those with a more cultivated taste, whereas “low” art is for the masses, accessible, and easily understandable (Plescher, 2013). This distinction seems to suggest that there is a hierarchy of forms of expression. A realism painting seems to have much more credit than a digital drawing made through Procreate.

My experience placed a preference on “high” art, and I was discouraged to create the art that I wanted to make, as it was deemed “low”. Even though “high” and “low” read as having contrasting qualities, they are not synonymous for “good” and “bad”. For any artist, “high” art and “low” art should not be what matters, but the experience and enjoyment itself of the art making process. In an educational context, the focus should be more on the process of learning and creating, rather than what the final product will be.

Warranted from my own experience within a Visual Arts education, my research aims to expose Visual Art students to methods and materials of art-making that are not commonly explored within the secondary school classroom. 

The Victorian Curriculum for levels 7 and 8 in Visual Arts (2020) state that students “explore how artists use materials, techniques, technologies and processes to realise their intentions in artworks” and “experiment with materials, techniques, technologies and processes in a range of art forms to express ideas, concepts and themes in artworks.” I have noticed through my own previous experience and observations during placement, that classrooms following these content descriptions often offer a small variety of materials and techniques at this level, consisting mainly of acrylic painting, hand-building clay ceramics, collage and graphite drawing. I have noticed that it is not until students reach VCE levels when they have more choice in their art making that they have the option to be exposed to methods such as oil painting, printmaking, or using a pottery wheel etc.

VCE Art and Studio Arts both have a strong focus on material knowledge. Key knowledge for Art in Units 1 & 3 include:

• the qualities and characteristics of materials and art forms and how they may be used to present concepts and images (Unit 1, Area of Study 2)

• the methods for experimenting and exploring with materials, techniques, processes and art forms (Unit 1, Area of Study 2)

• the art process relevant to materials, techniques, processes and art forms (Unit 3, Area of Study 2)

• artistic practice that explores and experiments ideas, concepts, materials, techniques and processes (Unit 3, Area of Study 2)

Key knowledge for Studio Arts in Units 1 & 3 include:

• the characteristics and nature of art forms, materials and techniques (Unit 1, Area of Study 1)

• the characteristics and properties of a variety of materials and techniques in a selection of art form/s (Unit 1, Areas of Study 2)

• the materials and techniques used to produce a range of effects (Unit 1, Areas of Study 2)

• the types of materials and techniques used in making artworks in particular art forms (Unit 1, Area of Study 3)

• the materials, techniques and processes used in the production of the artworks (Unit 3, Area of Study 3)

I believe that more exposure to a variety of different materials and techniques less commonly explored at lower levels will better facilitate students wanting to study VCE Art or Studio Arts, as well as providing an increased interest and potentially higher enrollments in these classes. I aim not to discredit the value of traditional art media, but simply offer a wider variety, including those deemed synonymous with “low” art.

METHODOLOGY

Circumstances at the time meant that this research had to be conducted remotely, resulting in some limitations. After some consideration, I chose a schema task I had not seen explored previously within a classroom, but was also easily accessible for students to complete remotely with resources they had at home within a 30 minute timeframe.

I based my lesson around the technique of cross-hatching and layering with a ball-point pen. This was a material that I used during my undergraduate degree that a teacher discouraged me from using because it was too “illustrative”. The material is considered more graphic as opposed to traditional, as well as being an every-day writing utensil. 

The participants in this lesson included a university Visual Arts teacher and seventeen postgraduate students studying to be Visual Art and Design teachers. It is presumed that every student would have previously participated in their secondary school’s Visual Arts program.

Schema chronology:

As the task I was demonstrating was a new skill that participants were likely to be unfamiliar with, I chose to present an introductory lesson that established the skill and demonstrated it’s basics. Previous schema knowledge of tonal differences and recognition of light and dark is required to understand and complete the task. This is commonly demonstrated using graphite pencil, so I used the same concept but with a different material. The ideas explored within this lesson - mark making, line, pressure, grip, (as well as the ideas in the bonus task including looking, surface, texture and form)  - are all easily transferable to other material.

Learning Experience Design:

Research took place via a remote digital learning experience. A lesson was created through Google Slides and included pre-recorded demonstration videos for students to watch and follow. Google Slides allows for students to see who else is viewing the document and where they are up to, as well as including a chat function which came in handy to troubleshoot during my lesson.

Reflection on the experience:

A valuable source of student feedback was collected at the end of the lesson, where students submitted a photo of their task and feedback via Google Drive. This gave students an opportunity to comment on the task at hand as well as my presentation of it.

DATA & ANALYSIS

My initial curiosity was whether or not these students, who had previously been exposed to a secondary school Visual Arts education, had prior knowledge in the skill presented in the digital lesson. Secondly, I wondered if there was an increased interest or engagement in a material that is deemed ‘non-traditional’ post students’ exposure to it.

I aimed for students to not worry about a final product, but simply learn and enjoy the process of the skill. I asked students to draw a grid of six to eight squares and use the method demonstrated within the digital lesson to shade each square a different tone. Within my presentation and demonstration videos, I explained the whole process to achieve this, even how to hold the material. 

A challenge occuRred when many students informed me that they could not access the demonstration videos within my presentation. These students attempted to follow the rest of the presentation, but without the demonstration of the schema, they could not complete the task accurately. Due to the collaborative format of Google Slides and the chat option, I was easily able to provide an alternative link to the videos to resolve the issue. This allowed students to access the videos and complete the task, and provided me with additional data of their ability after simple written explanation verses watching a demonstration video explaining the schema task.

I noticed that without access to the demonstration and explanation videos, students had trouble differentiating their thinking about how to use the material. As a ballpoint pen is an every-day writing utensil, a change in mindset, as well as application, is required to allow it to become a tool for art making. One student described the experience as “exciting and the exercise helped me to understand how to use this skill beyond what I could have imagined.” Other students admitted that it was a tool that is often “overlooked” or “taken for granted”.

This lesson proved how valuable demonstrations and examples are for the teaching of Visual Arts. The demonstration videos proved to be useful tools for remote teaching. From the feedback collected at the end of the lesson, it was clear that students found them well paced with thorough explanations provided. The reflection on the task in real time allowed for the students to “follow these reflections on the process visually and organically” before applying them to their own work. The simplicity of the task allowed students to “connect with the process in such a short time frame” and focus on developing and contemplating the skill.

Many of the students admitted to having no prior knowledge in this material beyond using it as a writing utensil. In their feedback, students spoke that they “genuinely began to learn a new skill” and they “learnt a lot from the task”. This task allowed students to really connect with the material and mark-making process while experiencing something new. One student even admitted to being inspired to use the skill in their own art making after the lesson. Overall, the data collected supports that the majority of students responded positively to being introduced to a new material.

CONCLUSION

This study aimed to expose students to a new method of art-making that they had not been exposed to in their secondary school Visual Arts education. As a teacher, I gained many insights into how to present new skills and the importance of demonstrations and examples of skills within the classroom. 

Although only one example of a new material was explored within this study due to limitations and timing, the data collected proved that students responded positively and were engaged with the art-making process.

It is my hope that art educators will expand their teaching practices and find value in more contemporary methods of art-making. Visual Arts education should expand beyond drawing painting, sculpture and ceramics using traditional materials and explore those that are “overlooked” or synonymous with “low” art. 

This study may suggest that expanding these opportunities for young people in the classroom may allow students to access art and express themselves in a new way, and find comfort in the process of art-making, regardless of the final result.