Teach-Secondary-14.1

Hannah Day explains why applied art and design warrants a place within a curriculum more typically concerned with matters of painting, sculpture and the like… O ur art department recently needed to find some temporary cover. Fine art teachers were lining up to help us out. Photography tutors were thinner on the ground. The pool of graphic communication specialists proved to be a desert, with no one able or willing to be found, anywhere. Given the increasingly applied nature of the subject, why the lack of available tutors? Limited by resources While the specialisms available for both the GCSE and GCE pathways remain the same, it’s fair to say that many schools – limited by resources and student numbers – only offer traditional, fine art-focused courses. Related subjects such as textiles, graphics and 3D design are often further rooted in technology – could that also be part of the reason? Still contending with our temporary cover needs, I cast my mind back to some of the art teachers I’d got to know throughout my career. While I’m lucky enough to share our graphics course with an experienced illustrator, most art teachers I know are painters who mix their own practice with teaching. It logically follows that if your work is fine art, then that’s where your teaching will be more focused too. If my recent experiences are in line with the national picture, we should reconsider applied art’s place in our teaching – and howwe can ensure teachers and students get to develop confidence in this important area. Applied art has a place It may be that your applied art provision is already extensive. Conversely, you may have barely thought about it at all – or if you have, perhaps even dismissed it as a ‘lesser’ form of creativity. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, we need all art teachers to value applied approaches to creativity, so that they can craft well- considered projects for their students. Graphics is a very popular course at my college for several reasons – the chief one being that students can see how it clearly leads into various careers. They also respond well to being tasked withmeeting clear briefs that have listed outcomes, and can bring their own interests to bear on their studies by linking projects to the graphics outcomes required within various fields. For many, the more typically conceptual and personal nature of fine art projects holds little appeal, but they still want to be creative. These pathways offer them just that. Start simple The vast majority of our students don’t possess any Photoshop experience when they join us, which is why we’ll start with a simple project that teaches them all the basics, before leading to their first graphic outcome. Inspired by the Bauhaus school, our students will learn how Photoshop can be used to move, rotate, resize and duplicate objects. Simple text is then added, and finally their designs will be applied to a set of four postage stamps. This process teaches them about various design parameters, including dimensions, considerations around displaying the price and King’s head, and the need for a collection of different designs to convey a degree of unity. With the added contextual element, we’ll spend around 12 hours on this project, but the process can be streamlined. This being their first project at college, we’ll ensure there’s scope for students to work at a steady, unpressured pace. Whenever we’ve come to plan for the year ahead, this project has always held firm – because introducing the foundational elements of graphics is a neat and rewarding project for our students to take part in. Resource reuse If you’re relatively new to all this, don’t be put off by the potentially time-consuming nature of resource preparation. There are a great many free resources out there, so use those instead. Among my favourites are the videos found on the ‘Mr E’s Art Club’ YouTube channel (see youtube.com/ @nickengland151). Each video spotlights an individual graphic or photographic artist, and then shows you how to recreate their work digitally, step by step. Since each tutorial has a related artist, there’s an easy contextual link to ensure assessment objectives are being meet. What’s more, those steps are demonstrated using Photopea (photopea.com ) – an image editing application clearly modelled on Photoshop, but free to use and a great alternative if your school lacks an Adobe licence. It’s browser-based, meaning students can access it outside of school, thus opening up your homework possibilities. Alternatively, decide what “Couldyour students photograph the rehearsals for the school’s next big theatre productionand design the program?” APPLY YOURSELF 56 teachwire.net/secondary