ART SET CREATED BY Jane Lancaster, Teacher MLC School Burwood

VISUAL ART FOCUS AREA Brett Whiteley’s landscapes

SUBJECT MATTER Places

FORMS Drawing, painting & mixed media

OUTLINE

In this unit, the students will investigate Brett Whiteley’s landscapes of Australia. Students will gain an understanding of how the environment influenced Whiteley and how it shapes our identity, as a nation and as individuals. Students will explore how Whiteley’s work was influenced by other Australian landscape painters. Students will observe photographs and footage of natural disasters from news articles and will reflect on how a natural disaster impacts communities and environments.

RATIONALE

Visual Arts has a significant role in how meaning is made in peoples’ lives. It offers students the opportunity for personal expression, enjoyment, creative action, imagination, emotional response, aesthetic pleasure and the creation of shared meaning. In the longer term, visual arts education assists students in their lifelong learning – encouraging them to participate in and contribute to cultural life and to become informed consumers of the arts and culture. (Board of Studies NSW 2000 Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus, pp - 6-7)

In Visual Arts, students develop knowledge and understanding, skills, values and attitudes in Making and Appreciating by engaging with the concepts of artists, artworks, the audience and the world. In Making they learn how they can investigate the world through selected subject matter (eg. people, objects, places and spaces) and work with various forms (eg. painting, drawing, digital works) in expressive ways. These investigations of subject matter and the forms are further developed in their appreciation of artists, designers, craftspeople, architects and their works. Learning in visual arts is most effective when learning experiences in making and appreciating are integrated in a planned and sequential teaching and learning process. Teaching and learning experiences may begin with a focus on either making, appreciating, subject matter, a form, particular artists, selected artworks, audiences or the world – offering multiple approaches to the visual arts to enhance students’ learning. (Board of Studies NSW 2000 Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus, p -10)

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The Visual Arts program is designed to enable students to gain increasing understanding and accomplishment in the visual arts. It also encourages appreciation for the meanings and values that visual arts offers - personally, - culturally, and as a form of communication.

In Visual Arts, students will develop knowledge, skills and understandings by;
- making artworks informed by their investigations of the world as subject matter, use of expressive forms and consideration of the audience for their works
- appreciating their own artworks and those of others, recognising the roles of artists and audiences and how the world can be interpreted
(Board of Studies NSW 2000 Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus p.8)

INDICATORS

Students in Stage 3 will learn to:
- think about their art-making as a kind of social practice that employs both their own resources and their understanding of art
- apply what they have learnt about concepts in the artworld to their artmaking
- interpret subject matter which is of local interest in their making of artworks
- organise and assemble materials in various ways in the making of artworks suited to particular purposes and think about the meaning of their decisions
- become critically focused in their judgements about artworks and artists and seek to explain their reasons

Students in Stage 3 will learn about:
- how artists engage in a form of social practice in making art and contribute to the field of the visual arts
- a range of concepts and subject matter that is of interest to the artworld and community
- how concepts and materials are thought about, organised and assembled, and serve different ends in artworks that they and others make
- how artworks can be subject to different interpretations by artists and audiences
- how audiences can form different opinions about artworks and artists
(Board of Studies NSW 2000 Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus p.58)

OUTCOMES

Making
VAS3.1 Investigates subject matter in an attempt to represent likenesses of things in the world.
VAS3.2 Makes artworks for different audiences assembling materials in a variety of ways.

Appreciating
VAS3.3 Acknowledges that audiences respond in different ways to artworks and that there are different opinions about the value of artworks.
VAS3.4 Communicates about the ways in which subject matter is represented in artworks.
(Board of Studies NSW 2000 Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus, p. 30)

ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING

Assessment is based on the Visual Arts learning outcomes, as outlined in the Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. A variety of assessment strategies are used to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and understandings about artists and artworks and the skills connected to the unit of work they have undertaken.

Anecdotal information collected during oral and written art appreciation sessions assists in the assessment of students’ prior knowledge as well as their visual literacy skills. The students’ preliminary sketches inform initial assessments for learning. Interactions with students foster deeper insights into their capabilities, as they are learning. The students’ artworks are testimony to their learning. The analysis of their work samples, using outcomes and indicators, is the basis for the assessment of learning.

Summative assessment is based on rubrics for Art Making and Art Appreciating, which form the basis of formal reporting. Students are also encouraged to assess their own learning, making judgements about the qualities of finished works and works in progress based on the intentions of a unit of work, outcomes and indicators.

REFLECTION AND EVALUATION

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the program?
How can this project be adapted for the future?

BRETT WHITELEY’S ART AND LIFE

ART APPRECIATING

OUTCOMES
VAS3.3, VAS3.4

Students learn about:
- the connections between Brett Whiteley’s artworks and the classical elements of nature, ie. water, air, earth and fire
- similarities and differences between Brett Whiteley’s landscapes and other Australian landscape paintings
- the elements of art by focusing on how the artists have used the elements of art (eg. line, colour, shape, texture, tone, size) by writing down an observation on a post-it note and displaying it next to or on the reproductions
- the importance of colour in conveying meaning and atmosphere in artworks and the effects of different tones and special effects in the collection

Students learn to:
- select an image from the text Painting Australia: a child’s guide to Australian paintings by Margaret Plant and read the brief summary connected to the artwork
- reflect on how the artist has portrayed the classical elements of nature (ie. - water, air, earth, fire)
- consider the role of the curator and choose one of Brett Whiteley’s artworks for an exhibition, justifying their choice
- select an artwork by Brett Whiteley and construct a brief summary of the artwork to create a gallery object label to accompany the imagined exhibition
- record the artists’ name, the title of the artwork, the year it was made, materials used and any interesting historical facts about the artwork
- explain how some of the elements of art (eg. line, colour, shape, texture, tone, size) have been used in the artwork
- reflect on their emotional response to the artwork, and any memories or ideas it sparks
- print and display the gallery object labels beside the artworks to create a mini exhibition

RESOURCES

Painting Australia: a child’s guide to Australian paintings by Margaret Plant
laptops, cardboard

EXPERIMENTS WITH THE ELEMENT OF LINE

ART MAKING

OUTCOMES
VAS3.1

Students learn about:
- Brett Whiteley’s use of different types of lines in his artworks
- techniques for drawing repetitive lines and creating different types of marks/lines with drawing materials
- Hokusai’s woodblock print The Great Wave, highlighting the line effects created in the water
- words to describe different types of lines eg. smooth, splashed, rough, jagged, thick, thin, swerving, zig-sag, long, rising & falling, slow, fast, dripping

Students learn to:
- draw a selection of different types of lines onto cards using different drawing materials - exploring effects with hard and soft pencils, felt tips, pens, wax crayons, chalk pastels, oil pastels, ink and charcoal
- label the different types of lines with adjectives and words to describe them
- create a line drawing of a natural disaster landscape using permanent marker
- highlight the types of lines eg. cracked lines of a drought, splashing lines of a great wave
- repeat the lines of the landscape by following alongside the original lines (about 5mm below or above) with various thicknesses of line, building up a pattern of repetitive lines
- add some organic solid shapes for contrast in and around the lines
- layer chalk pastels over the lines, smudging and blending them in
- create mood in the artwork through dramatic use of colour to create atmospheric effects

RESOURCES

Brett Whiteley The Divided Unity, 1974
Hokusai The Great Wave
Lloyd Rees Fire haze at Gerringong

The Great Wave – A Children’s Book Inspired by Hokusai by Veronique Massenot and Bruno Pilorget

Hard and soft pencils, felt tips, pens, wax crayons, chalk pastels, oil pastels, ink and charcoal, fixative

NATURAL DISASTER SHAPE POEMS

ART APPRECIATING

OUTCOME
VAS3.4

Students learn about:
- the impact of a natural disaster on people, animals, plants, buildings, the land and the sea
- environmental changes created by a natural disaster eg. burnt trees, cracked earth etc.
- Bruce Whatley’s illustrations in the books Flood, Fire and Cyclone and the techniques and effects he used to create a sense of unease and confusion in the illustrations representing the disasters
- the illustrations in Flood - based on floods in Brisbane, - Whatley painted with his left hand using acrylic paints to create wobbly line effects
- the illustrations in Fire – the difficulty of painting flames because they are constantly moving; Whatley painted with his right hand imitating the left
- the illustrations in Cyclone – Whatley relied on photographic references from the impact of Cyclone Tracey in 1974 to create realistic images

Students learn to:
- select a photo of a natural disaster landscape and list nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs to describe the scene
- build up sentences for poetry connected to the scenes, – with special consideration of the visual characteristics such as colours, lines, textures etc.
- draw a pencil sketch of the landscape onto a sheet of A4 paper
- incorporate words or extracts into the sketch by writing poetry along the key shapes using a fineliner pen
- add or repeat words to allow them to ‘fly’ freely around the page to create a visual effect similar to debris scattering in a disaster

RESOURCES

Photographs of natural disasters eg. earthquakes, bushfires, droughts, floods, cyclones, volcanoes
Fire, Flood, Cyclone by Jackie French & Bruce Whatley

Laptops, A4 paper, black fine liner pens

NATURAL DISASTER ARTWORKS

ART MAKING

OUTCOMES
VAS3.2

Students learn about:
- abstracting an image by zooming in on an area of interest using a viewfinder (a small hole cut into a piece of A4 card, with a ratio of 2:3, to align with proportions of the final work)
- creating a unique, unusual, asymmetrical viewpoint for a close-up image of a disaster
- the visual qualities of a landscape composition eg. the proportions given to land/sky and the size, shape and arrangement of images

Students learn to:
- identify, observe and reflect on images of various natural disasters by observing photographs and images from online media and news articles
- select an image, or part of an image, to use as the stimulus for a composition that will reflect their understanding of their chosen natural disaster
- use viewfinders to zoom in on an interesting aspect of a chosen photograph
- sketch the view seen through the viewfinder onto A3 watercolour paper
- tear rice paper or tissue paper and glue in place to highlight features of the landscape and to add texture, eg. - tree trunks, smoke etc.
- paint a background wash for their artwork, using diluted Edicol dyes, painting over rice paper
- develop foreground, background and middleground in the landscape by drawing, painting and using mixed-media materials
- add texture by applying additional types of paper to the artwork to create images eg. brown paper that has been scrunched and then laid flat to create tree trunks
- layer watercolour paints to create stronger, darker images in the foreground or to highlight the central element eg. the flames of a fire
- use chalk pastel or charcoal to create smoky skies or dusty effects relevant to the chosen disaster, or use gloss to create a wet finish

RESOURCES

Viewfinders, graphite pencils, A3 watercolour paper, rice paper and tissue paper, glue sticks, Edicol dyes (diluted), paintbrushes, water pots

EXTENSION ACTIVITIES AND LINKS TO OTHER LEARNING AREAS

Research events (History)
Investigate places in Australia that have been devastated by natural disasters eg. the Brisbane floods (2011) and Cyclone Tracy in Darwin (1974). Create a news article or historical recount of the events. Create a presentation about an aid organisation.

Soil experiments (Science)
Investigate different types of soil, sand and rocks. Include samples of desert sand, local soil, beach sand. silt and clay. Place specimens in a clear jar with water and shake to mix. Allow the mixture to settle for a while and then observe the layers of the soil. Compare the content in different soils to observe how they vary.

House designs (STEAM)
Explore strategies used to protect people in cyclone prone areas. Investigate architectural designs and building materials that can withstand cyclones. Design and build a model of a cyclone resistant house, using a variety of mixed media materials.

Interview (Visual Arts)
Reflect on their own artworks, using the same criteria used to assess Brett Whiteley’s work ie. reflect on their work in terms of what is happening in the scene, their use of the elements of art, feelings evoked and how it represents the chosen disaster. Students can film each other in an interview scenario.