CAPA Junior Showcase

St Andrews' annual Creative and Performing Arts showcase was a great success this year, with an incredible display of artworks, ranging from Years 7 to 10 throughout the past two terms. The event was held within the Junior Learning Centre on the 22nd of May and started at 6pm with guests, including students, parents, and teachers, enjoying light refreshments while viewing the fantastic series of artworks put on display. The exhibition featured units from "The Archibald Prize", “Cubism”,  "Suburbia" and many more. 

As a fellow artist who participated in this amazing art exhibition and event, it was an exciting opportunity to showcase my creativity and to see my work alongside my peers. I and alongside many of the artists felt a sense of pride and accomplishment in seeing our hard work come to full display and be appreciated by others in the community. Altogether, it was truly an evening to remember!

Lorraine Layug 10B5

Year 8 Artist Presentation - Johnny Romeo

Our student artists at SAC are no strangers to renowned Australian artist Johnny Romeo. On Wednesday Week 5, our Year 8 students enjoyed a presentation by Johnny, who spoke to them about his career as a practising artist as well as his influences and his current artmaking practice. Johnny who was an art educator prior to his successful career as an artist, gave insight into his work ethic and provided advice to our young artists. After the presentation, students had the opportunity to ask questions.

It was an engaging experience for our Year 8s. Due to our limited time, not all students were able to present their questions to Johnny. This showed the level of enthusiasm from our students and we were blown away by their thoughtful questions. 

Congratulations to Nahum Pathak (8B2) who was the winner of an open edition print from Johnny for his insightful question of "How do you suppress your inner critic when creating art?". 

HSC Work in Progress Night

Year 12 students presented their Body of Work in progress for feedback during our annual HSC ‘WIP’ Night. Working with resident artist Johnny Romeo, students prepared for the evening by considering their working titles as well as their material and conceptual practice. In addition to our families and friends for the HSC class, Year 11 students were in attendance in order to become familiar with the process, as they will be embarking on this journey from Term 4. Students received instant feedback from external markers on how they can further improve their Body of Work. Students will now work towards finalising their works before submission to NESA for the HSC. We will have a HSC Showcase in Term 3 to display their finished artworks.

SAC Art Teachers - Professional Development

We are incredibly blessed to have art teachers at St Andrews who come from a diverse background when it comes to their artmaking. Recently we decided to make changes to our Stage 4 and 5 teaching programs to include the interests of our students based on their unit evaluations and feedback. In order to expose students to a range of artmaking mediums as well as working in 3 dimensional forms; Year 8 and 9 students will also be working with clay this year. 

We made use of our time away from face to face teaching last Friday and got together for a ceramic workshop. Led by Mrs Kemal and Mrs Psaila, they both shared their knowledge of working with clay and demonstrated different ways they approach this medium with their classes. After discussing the learning intention and success criteria for our students, we made work samples for our classes all whilst improving our own ceramic techniques prior to introducing this to our students. 

We are looking forward to using clay with Year 8s and 10s this term and Year 9s in Term 3/4. Watch this space for their creations!

Mrs Claudia Harris

Leader of Learning Visual Arts

Year 7 - World Heritage Site Animal Artworks

Year 7 artists have been exploring World Heritage Sites such as the Great Barrier Reef and The Daintree Rainforest. Students then explored an animal of choice that lives in one of these sites. After researching their animal, students practised a range of oil pastel techniques such as feathering, stippling and blending. Students were then asked to create a large scale oil pastel artwork focusing on demonstrating accurate colours and textures applying appropriate oil pastel techniques. 

Year 8 - Mombasa inspired Artworks in Progress

Year 8 artists have been studying the practice of artist Reg Mombassa. Mombassa's artworks tend to have a unique style in the way he conveys his messages to his audience. Students selected an Australian Issue or Australian stereotype to depict in their artwork composed in a similar style to Mombassa’s, demonstrating a cartoon-like style, shadow-work, bold outlines and text. See artworks in progress attached. 

Year 9 - Portrait paintings

Year 9 artists have recently learnt how to draw a face using proportional methods, shading/rendering of features and how to refine an artwork to level of completion using Goal strategies - working on project/time management skills. This assessment task asked students to interview a sitter of their choice, which would then help them develop layers of meaning to reveal the identity of their sitter to the audience. Some of the ways their identity was revealed include, use of colour palette, symbolism, body language and appropriation. 

Year 9 - Richard Hamilton Inspired Collage Artworks

Year 9 students have been introduced to our next unit, Popular Culture. Pop Art challenged art critics and movements that came before as it focused on mundane subject matter, blurring the line between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. One of the first artists we are introduced to is ‘Richard Hamilton’, a Pop Artist who utilised American magazine cutouts to construct artworks (collage method). As a way of understanding the practice of Richard Hamilton, students were asked to construct a living space inspired by Hamilton commenting on today’s popular culture. 

Year 11 - Art as Social Commentary - in progress

Year 11 artists have been exploring methods and approaches various artists such as Xu Bing and Ai Wei Wei have used to create ‘Art as Social Commentary’. After gathering information from the world around them to inspire their artmaking and experimenting with potential mediums/expressive forms, students decided on their final direction. Artists are currently working on these artworks, attached are some photographs of their works in progress.

Mrs Shandel Kemal

Visual Arts Teacher