ROLL CALL TO ART STUDENTS!

[masonruc]

CALLING ALL 2014 ART STUDENTS

Hello my name is Mason.

So you have chosen VCE ART, gosh aren't you in for a journey, folio work can be very demanding! Therefore in a few weeks I will be posting up a guide to VCE ART.

Struggling to understand how to start your folio over the holidays...

This Year I scored a study score of 44 with full marks in my essays and folio work. During your time on Atar Notes you find that the art board is dead compared to most subjects. The reason for this is because the little amount of people that do VCE ART. Please don't feel like there is no one here to help. I'm willing to answer any questions, provide folio and essay tips etc. I will help with particular ways to respond to exam questions.

The art study design at times can be vague but I can clarify it so you can create a folio of A+ standard!

I hope that other 40+ students are hovering and will help, also get your friends to join up and get a big art community going.

Peace out and good luck!

[lpcc]

oh man am i the only 3/4 art student in 2014 

[gurlpls101]

I didn't realise how unpopular art was as a subject

[ninaincerti]

HI !!!!! My folio is due in 4 days  also we never do theory like all our lessons are prac (is that bad)

[coconut stripes]

Hey, I'd like some tips on what theme I should base my folios on this year!
I was thinking of doing 'entertainment'- in particular, "film & the history of film". I want my folio to have a 'vintage' feel to it, and I think this theme would really suit it. I think my teacher would be fine with it, too.
But my only concern is, I'll probably end up doing quite a few portraits of period celebrities- Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, etc. And I've heard that doing portraits of celebrities is not a good idea? Because it's too superficial and doesn't 'mean' anything?

Can anyone clarify?

[literally lauren]

Hey, I'd like some tips on what theme I should base my folios on this year!
I was thinking of doing 'entertainment'- in particular, "film & the history of film". I want my folio to have a 'vintage' feel to it, and I think this theme would really suit it. I think my teacher would be fine with it, too.
But my only concern is, I'll probably end up doing quite a few portraits of period celebrities- Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, etc. And I've heard that doing portraits of celebrities is not a good idea? Because it's too superficial and doesn't 'mean' anything?

Can anyone clarify?

I wouldn't say they're inherently superficial, but like anything in Art it has to have meaning. If you're doing portraits for the sake of doing portraits then you might have some trouble justifying it, but it's not hard to turn this into a more impactful concept. Researching other portrait artists is a good place to start - how might the meaning change through different styles (hyper-realism, pop art, pointillism, cubism etc. --> all good opportunities for racking up your no. of folio pages )
Even researching the characters you're representing can help add depth. If you're looking at the consequences of fame then you might want to go for a more serious look at how their public personas differed from their personal, or look at the way they might have suffered, or even died.
There was a kid in the year above me who loved the style of drawings in the original Alice in Wonderland, but rather than just replicating this, he took an image from the book and painted his friends and family in place of the characters, thereby making a statement about the personal nature of art and the way we project our lives onto fictional representations, or vice versa.
So long as you're putting thought into your piece, and you can demonstrate this process in your folio, you should be fine. Having said that- Art is so ridiculously subjective that you'll probably be better off catering to your teacher's whims anyway
Good luck!

[coconut stripes]

Wow, thanks!
Yes, I did think about doing 'The price of fame'- venturing into the drugs, alcohol abuse, depression, etc.behind such celebrities. Incorporating this into my artwork is probably a better idea than just straight out doing pretty portraits And it's a good idea to see how a portraits meaning will change depending on the style it's represented in- thanks

And I have a question- are the folios marked by your own art teacher or by an examiner? And also, is it really such a bad idea to use 'second-hand' images (images from the internet, etc.) rather than taking your own? I'd heard it is, but I'm not sure that the website I read this on was catered for vce students- it was probably more of a uni student guide.

[literally lauren]

are the folios marked by your own art teacher or by an examiner?

Again, this can vary from school to school, but generally the folios are marked by your classroom teacher. Occasionally VCAA will do an audit (selecting a couple of schools per year and remarking everything to make sure the teachers are assessing fairly.) If this happens, you should be told.

Even if you have an awful teacher and get audited, they'll realise something is up with the marking if the whole cohort's scores are wonky.

Cater to your teacher and you should by fine

are the folios marked by your own art teacher or by an examiner?

is it really such a bad idea to use 'second-hand' images (images from the internet, etc.) rather than taking your own? I'd heard it is, but I'm not sure that the website I read this on was catered for vce students- it was probably more of a uni student guide.
[/quote] Can't see why this would be a problem. Obviously if you were claiming other people's work was your own, then you might be in trouble, but in terms of research, I'd say it's almost required.

Your folio should follow some vague progression of brainstorming/ idea generation --> researching artists and artworks ---> developing purpose, message, and formal elements --> trialling --> documenting process --> discussing final decisions --> photos of final.
^Just my recommendations, this isn't set in stone or anything. But I'd imagine most teachers would be keen to have you look at artists you find interesting, or who have used similar materials and techniques.
Probably a good idea to combine this documentations with trials though - a page of research on Warhol's work, and then a few pages where you replicate or adapt his technique.

You could also go to art galleries and take your own photos of artworks, especially if there's a relevant exhibit being shown. This can earn you brownie points with your teacher too, but you didn't hear it from me

[coconut stripes]

Lol thanks for the tip. Unfortunately there isn't much in the way of art galleries in my town though, which is sad.
And thanks so much for telling me  what my folio should contain My art teacher can be so vague sometimes, and I really struggle in anything where they don't give me a proper criteria. I just end up worrying that I'm doing it wrong!

[coconut stripes]

How hard/how much work is it to get a 40+ score in art? Do your folios have to be immensely filled, with extensive annotations? Or is there no such way to guarantee a high score?
I'm quite a strong art student, but I don't want to completely disregard my other subjects. With this in mind, how many hours a week (roughly) would you say you'd have to spend on your folio to score 40+?

[literally lauren]

It's not hard work if you enjoy it
If you pick a theme that interests you and you're doing folio experimentation that you find fun, it won't seem so laborious. Usually the people scoring 40+s are putting in quite a bit of time making their folios reflect their abilities, but how "good" your folio is totally depends on your teacher.
For example, my art teacher loved clay. No one wanted to do clay for their final, but we all had at least 10 pages each of ceramic experimentation for the sake of appeasing her

Be flexible with the hours. There'll be weeks next year where you'll have SACs in every subject; you don't want to be rushing (-->compromising the quality of) your folio in that time as well. Plan waaaaaaaay ahead and aim to have things finalised about a week in advance. So if you know you don't have much assessment to worry about in Week 3 Term 2 or whatever, aim to whittle away at some pages for a few hours every night.

I'm usually not a fan of arbitrary hour guidelines, but if you feel you need the structure then I'd say set aside long (2-3+ hour) blocks for folio work since it's not really the sort of thing you do for half an hour then move on.

Also, we were constantly told our folios didn't have to 'look pretty,' it was more about the idea development going on, so if you find yourself pouring hours into making stuff look amazing, maybe cut back or vary it up a bit with some less time-consuming trials or work

[coconut stripes]

Any exam tips if one is aiming for 40+ ? 

[literally lauren]

Write heaps, and use a tonne of techniques to describe everything.

In hindsight, those are the biggest things that are tested in the Art exam because almost everyone is capable of answering the questions competently, and almost everyone will have basically memorised their pieces for the Extended Response. What'll set you apart from the 35-40s is your ability to be really concise and descriptive in Sections A and B, and the quantity of your writing overall. It's an hour and a half, but I remember writing almost as much as I did in the three hour English exam because I was told to go overboard and say as much as possible, rather than prioritising a neat three paragraph structure or anything like that.

A good test: go through your short answer responses and highlight every word that is describing the visual features (ie. any of the frameworks, formal elements, broader things like mood or a sense of ___, adjectives and adverbs to describe what the artist has done.) Ideally, you want basically all of your writing, except a few prepositions or conjunctions to be highlighted The more language you can cram in (whilst still having it remain grammatical, of course,) the more you'll stand out from the people who fluff about for ages.

You'll notice in the Assessor's Reports the high scoring responses tend to just say 'In Artwork 2...' or 'The third image...' and go from there, as opposed to having a long, drawn out 'The piece 'Fancy Painting' by the German artist What's-his-face is characteristic of 1890's Neo-Gothic...' Cut to the chase, and just say as much as you can.

Also, try and end strongly for all of your extended response pieces. It's a silly cheat, but if you can close on a nice resounding quote or a lovely phrase, it puts the assessors in a better mood, and again will make you stand out from all the other students who might've written some quality stuff, but didn't give themselves time to finish properly

[coconut stripes]

Write heaps, and use a tonne of techniques to describe everything.

In hindsight, those are the biggest things that are tested in the Art exam because almost everyone is capable of answering the questions competently, and almost everyone will have basically memorised their pieces for the Extended Response. What'll set you apart from the 35-40s is your ability to be really concise and descriptive in Sections A and B, and the quantity of your writing overall. It's an hour and a half, but I remember writing almost as much as I did in the three hour English exam because I was told to go overboard and say as much as possible, rather than prioritising a neat three paragraph structure or anything like that.

A good test: go through your short answer responses and highlight every word that is describing the visual features (ie. any of the frameworks, formal elements, broader things like mood or a sense of ___, adjectives and adverbs to describe what the artist has done.) Ideally, you want basically all of your writing, except a few prepositions or conjunctions to be highlighted The more language you can cram in (whilst still having it remain grammatical, of course,) the more you'll stand out from the people who fluff about for ages.

You'll notice in the Assessor's Reports the high scoring responses tend to just say 'In Artwork 2...' or 'The third image...' and go from there, as opposed to having a long, drawn out 'The piece 'Fancy Painting' by the German artist What's-his-face is characteristic of 1890's Neo-Gothic...' Cut to the chase, and just say as much as you can.

Also, try and end strongly for all of your extended response pieces. It's a silly cheat, but if you can close on a nice resounding quote or a lovely phrase, it puts the assessors in a better mood, and again will make you stand out from all the other students who might've written some quality stuff, but didn't give themselves time to finish properly

Thanks a heap!
Do you know where I can post up exams to be marked? Whenever I start a new topic on this part of the forum, no one seems to respond. Unfortunately, my art teacher isn't responding to any of my emails     Grrrrr. And the exam's tomorrow!

For Section A, I noticed on the examiner's report that a lot of high range responses seem to incorporate meaning into 3 mark questions about something like 'how is texture used?' I followed your suggestion with the highlighting thing, but found that I didn't have that much to highlight in terms of describing words because I had a sentence or two which talked about meaning. Am I better off not talking about meaning and just explicitly describing how texture is used with heaps of art terminology?

[literally lauren]

Thanks a heap!
Do you know where I can post up exams to be marked? Whenever I start a new topic on this part of the forum, no one seems to respond. Unfortunately, my art teacher isn't responding to any of my emails     Grrrrr. And the exam's tomorrow!

For Section A, I noticed on the examiner's report that a lot of high range responses seem to incorporate meaning into 3 mark questions about something like 'how is texture used?' I followed your suggestion with the highlighting thing, but found that I didn't have that much to highlight in terms of describing words because I had a sentence or two which talked about meaning. Am I better off not talking about meaning and just explicitly describing how texture is used with heaps of art terminology?

That's odd, I remember the Art exam being a week later in my year. Oh well, at least you can get it out of the way sooner

Happy to mark your work here, or you can send me a message if you prefer.

Re: using meaning in the first short answer section, it's good to incorporate it, but it shouldn't be your main focus. I'd say you should have two to three sentences of pure description and analysis, then maybe half a sentence at the end like '... which creates a sense of balance and harmony' or '...which contributes the dark, solemn mood of the painting.' I believe the question technically reads: 'Discuss how a technique has been used,' so although bringing up 'why' it is used, or 'to what effect' is interesting, it's not the true focus of the task. That said, you're right about many high-range responses working this in towards the end, and the analysis can feel incomplete if you don't sum it up, so discussing the meaning at the end is fine - just try to minimise the amount of time you spend on it by being super-concise