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Documenting temporary artworks
Fire, Water and Decay Emma – one of my 2nd year visual arts students – is interested in the process of decomposition and destruction by fire. She’s interested in the way things change as they end...
View ArticleArts assessment: Thoughts and Suggestions
We are in the middle of the November visual arts examination session so I thought that I would highlight some assessment-related things that friend and colleague Jayson Paterson recently said on My...
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Sensitive Issues in Art and the ‘spectrum of offence’
A while ago I posted a blog entitled ‘Nude vs Prudes’. I was a little exasperated that our life drawing workshops appeared to make a colleague so uncomfortable. But of course, nudity is just one of a...
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Are you ready for the new “revised” Visual Arts course?
No, of course you aren’t, because the final report on the course will not be seen by teachers until 2021 and you won’t start teaching it until 2022 – but hey, it’s a-coming! What’s happening next? We...
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A Story of Cheating
In a recent visual arts workshop, we had a lot of discussions about academic honesty and how to detect plagiarism, and one of the teachers described this encounter: One of his students returned to...
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Working from Observation (“direct observation”)
In September, for many schools it’s the start of another school year, and if you are a DP visual arts student, you will be either returning for your 2nd year or starting your first. Where to Start? Of...
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Five Years of the process portfolio
We have now had FIVE full years of the ‘new’ visual arts course. It was started in 2014, with first examinations in 2016, so for those of us who have been riding this particular horse from the start,...
View ArticleCindy Sherman
Wow! I have just seen the Cindy Sherman Retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Click the link for a quick video of the works from the exhibition. “This major new retrospective...
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“Raising awareness of world issues” – The pitfalls (Concepts and Exhibition)
Conceptually speaking, the trouble with ‘raising awareness’ of world issues in your visual arts exhibition is that in most cases, awareness has already been raised, and examiners will probably have...
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Why so generous? – IA predictions
(i.e. why are the marks awarded by teachers for the visual arts IA component – the Exhibition – sometimes wildly unrealistic?) A group of IA moderators were chatting about their experiences in the...
View ArticleTwo issues with curatorial rationales
As an IA (Exhibition) moderator I very often read a) eloquent and frequently passionate curatorial rationales that do not achieve the mark that perhaps the student expected, and b) rationales that...
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Photography (only?) in the Exhibition
Let’s be clear: unlike the Process Portfolio, there are no requirements that students explore a range of media/processes in the Exhibition. A successful exhibition could consist of, say, ten artworks...
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See Real Art: Visit an Art Gallery!
Student question:“It’s 2019. What is the point of looking at art that was made in 1520, five hundred years ago? How is that relevant to me?” We were at the Royal Academy (London) and looking at “Venus...
View ArticleSeven Questions about Starting to Teach the Course
In recent category 1 visual arts workshops I have been asked some great questions about our subject; for example, what to teach, how to balance the things we teach, how much time we should have to...
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COHERENCE? (‘Here is your theme. Stick to it for the next two years’)
Reconsider the theme: is it always a bad idea? There are many things wrong with these two sentences, as uttered by a visual arts teacher to one of his students. First of all, you don’t need to have a...
View ArticleProcess Portfolio (PP) Questions
8 PP questions from new teachers Here are some Process Portfolio questions I have been asked in recent visual arts workshops. I’m posting them here on the visual arts blog because I suspect that some...
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The Visual Arts Upload Reminders/Advice
If you are teaching Grade 12/Year 2 Visual Arts students, by now you should be making final preparations for the upload to IBIS. The deadlines (next month) are listed below with details of what you...
View ArticleQuestions about the Comparative Study
I have received some questions from students about the Comparative Study, mostly – but not all – about making connections to the students’ own art-making practice. The last one dropped in as a comment...
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Are You “Critical, Informed and Discerning”‘?
Great new art… Much new, contemporary and recent art is fantastic – intelligent, thought-provoking, sometimes perplexing and mysterious, frequently posing deep and/or unsettling questions. But of...
View ArticleStudents Can Take 2 IBDP Arts Subjects!
It’s February, and grade 10 students in my school are starting to consider and possibly start selecting the subjects they would like to study in grade 11 as part of their Diploma Programme courses. My...
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