Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Alton.

Welcome to this lesson on art and design.

Today's lesson is all about developing ideas through experimentation, and this is from the unit "Foundation workshops, selecting primary sources and inspirational source material." So let's get started.

So I hope that by the end of today's lesson, you can experiment with different materials leading to creative and innovative discoveries.

Let's take a look at some key words for today's lesson.

Experiment means taking risks and seeing what you can create or discover through practise and exploration.

Refine is when you make artwork more expressive, cohesive, and skillful through practise or selection of the visual elements.

Development is when you improve ideas, make adjustments, and explore new possibilities until artwork reaches its final form.

The lesson today has been broken down into three learning cycles.

The first is analysing experimental techniques.

The second is mark-making playfully with materials.

And the third is drawing lead by materials.

So let's take a look at learning cycle one.

Assessment Objective two in GCSE art is all about creative making.

And this includes how you refine your ideas by experimenting with materials, techniques, and processes.

When refining your ideas, ask yourself, what are you trying to achieve? Are you taking creative risks and using new discoveries? Have you connected your work to the work of other artists, designers or craftspeople? So this relates back to the content of looking at other artists that we've been developing throughout this unit.

After your initial response to a stimulus, it is important that you don't just keep producing the same idea.

And this links back to our previous learning that a stimulus can be anything that gives us inspiration.

In art, development refers to the process in which an artist experiments and refines their idea until they have exhausted all creative possibilities.

Quick check for understanding.

What does the term 'development' refer to in art? Is it A, refining ideas by exhausting all creative possibilities.

B, refining ideas by only copying an artist's work.

Or C, refining ideas by only experimenting with colour.

Well done if you said A, refining ideas by exhausting all creative possibilities.

And this idea of exhausting all creative possibilities is thinking about experimenting with all the different ways a piece of work could be created.

In art there's no right way to do experimentation, it really depends what you're setting out to achieve with your work.

Here Aisha is experimenting with different techniques like mark-making.

So she's using pencils and dry media and seeing what types of marks she can create.

And Alex is experimenting with materials and tools to create textures.

So here he could experiment with things like printing equipment, or even make his own brushes to create interesting textures and marks on his paper.

It's a bit like setting out to do a science experiment and recording your results as you go along.

How do you experiment with your work? Artists experiment in many different ways to express personal themes and concepts.

Hew Locke experiments with historical objects to create sculptures that reflect on colonial history.

Studio Lenco experiments by combining performance, video, painting, and sculpture to explore cultural identity.

Alberta Whittle experiments with materials like found objects and textiles to address themes of migration.

Frank Gehry experiments with unusual shapes and materials in his buildings making them look like functional sculptures.

Quick check for understanding.

Experimentation in art means A, using only traditional materials like paint and canvas.

B, trying out different materials, techniques and ideas.

C, sticking to a fixed style and never changing it.

Or D, focusing on technical skills without creative thinking.

Well done if you said B, experimentation in art means trying out different materials, techniques, and ideas.

Repeated experimentation gives an artist's work a distinctive style.

The style is what makes an artist's work stand.

How might we identify an artist's style? Izzy says that we might look for similarities in their use of colour, composition, or marks.

So for instance, if you went into an exhibition and you saw a whole collection of work, would you be able to identify works from a particular artist, and that's because of their similarity in approach or style.

Sophia comments that spotting differences in an artist's work is also important as it shows how an artist has developed their style and ideas over time.

Quick true or false question.

An artist's style is about how they look and the fashion choices they make.

Is it true or false? Well done if you said false.

An artist's style is the unique way that they use things like techniques and materials, setting them apart from others.

Over to you for our first task.

Select three artworks by the same artist and answer the following questions.

How has the artist experimented with techniques and materials? What makes their style distinctive? So remembering to look for these similarities and differences in the artworks that you've selected.

And just some examples of collections of artwork.

So Christina Kimeze 'Interior (I)' "interior III' and 'I too wander.

' And Michaela Yearwood-Dan, 'The girls take their places.

' 'If we carry on we fail.

' 'You can't fight the tears.

' Pause the video here while you analyse experimental techniques.

So for this task you may have said, like Andeep, we chose three artworks by Christina Kimeze.

She uses suede or velvet canvases, combining dry chalks, oil pastels and wet paints, pressing them into the fabric.

Laura comments that her work is distinctive due to the vertical blocks of paint and a hazy colour palette that creates a ghostly feel with human shapes emerging from the canvas.

So we're looking at these common uses of materials, techniques, and approaches that makes this artist's work distinctive, or that you could recognise in a room full of other work.

Let's look at learning cycle two, mark-making playfully with materials.

One way that artists develop their ideas is playing with materials and taking creative risks.

Es Devlin is a set designer that often discusses how important play is in terms of creativity and generating ideas.

Do you agree that play is important to creativity? Drawing playfully means making art freely without worrying about mistakes.

This can often stop us from experimenting when we're so worried about the outcome, we forget to approach it in that really carefree manner.

Drawing playfully also means exploring, experimenting and enjoying the process.

Quick true or false question.

Drawing playfully means drawing quickly without thinking carefully about what you're creating.

Well done if you recognise that's a false statement.

Can you think why? Well done if you mentioned it doesn't mean rushing or being careless, it's about exploring new ideas and enjoying the process without focusing on this idea of perfection.

Mark-making is central to drawing playfully because it is the foundation of how we express ideas and communicate emotions visually.

As young children, making marks is our first form of observation and exploration of the world.

So if you think back to being a real young child or if you've ever watched a child play and start to draw, they're really not concerned with the end product.

It's all about the experience of putting marks on the paper.

Through different types of marks, we can create a wide range of effects and meaning, adding depth, texture, and feeling to our artwork.

Artists explore mark-making by experimenting with different materials, tools, and techniques.

Mark-making can be achieved with almost any material and the choices artists make, including ink, paint, charcoal, graphite, fabric, or metal can shape the marks they create and convey their ideas and emotions.

Julie Mehretu, Jeanette Barnes, Mark Bradford, and Enam Gbewonyo each experiment with different materials and techniques to create unique marks that communicate various themes and feelings.

Which of these materials and tools can be used for mark-making? Is it A, charcoal, ink, pencils and paper.

B, ink, paint, pen and brush.

C, wire, clay, chalk and fabric.

Or D, all of the above.

Well done if you said all of the above.

There's a limitless selection of tools and materials that can be used for mark-making.

In this example, Andeep has experimented with mixed media to explore his chosen artist's mark-making techniques.

What techniques can you identify in this artwork? Take a look.

Sophia says that she can see wax resist, overlapping, masking, dripping, scratching and dry brush techniques.

And dry brush technique being where you use a brush without using water in the paint, and that creates these quite rough marks on the surface of the paper.

Which of these images show dry brush technique using paint? Take a look.

Well done if you identified that C shows the dry brush technique, and we can see the individual bristles of the paintbrush on the work.

These pupils are discussing misconceptions about how to use inspiration from artist's work.

Andeep comments that he loves how artists use different materials for mark-making, but their abstract style doesn't fit with his still life project, so that he can't use them.

And Laura comments that you can still be inspired by the marks.

We can adapt elements from an artwork and refine them in our own way, even if the subject or style is different.

So this goes back to our previous learning about how we can look at artists in different ways and take different elements of inspiration from their work and apply it to our own subject matter, or technique that we want to explore.

So now over to you for our second task.

You're gonna create your own unique mark-making inspired by an artist.

So select an artist's work and study their mark-making techniques.

List words to describe their style of marks, and this could be anything from zigzag, linear, calm, swirls, anything that comes to mind when you look at their work.

Gather a variety of monochromatic materials.

So monochromatic literally means one colour.

And it could be for instance, white and black, and then everything in between.

So all the types of greys.

Gather material, anything you have laying around.

So it could be pens, ink, string, tape, newspaper, charcoals, pencils to name but a few.

So lastly, experiment playfully with the materials that you have selected.

Focus on using the techniques described in your list of words.

So for instance, if you've said layering, you might layer the newspaper with the tape and the string, and think about how you might manipulate the materials in that way.

Or maybe you've come up with a kind of smudging and think about what materials might smudge together.

Lastly, reflect on which marks are your favourite and any new discoveries.

Pause the video here where you create mark-making playfully with materials.

Let's take a look at what your work may have looked like.

Lucas comments that he enjoyed experimenting with masking techniques, letting the materials and artist reference guide him was fun and opened up new possibilities for techniques.

Let's take a look at our last learning cycle, drawing lead by materials.

These pupils are discussing the differences between Michaela Yearwood-Dan and Christina Kimeze experimental approach to mark-making and materials.

Sophia says that Michaela Yearwood-Dan uses fluid marks to create movement with drips of paint, ceramic petals, glitter, and gemstones.

And Jacob says that Christina Kimeze uses unusual surface materials and vertical, linear blocks, focusing on structure and pattern.

So they're really picking out what makes each artist's work unique and they're looking for that similarity in approach to their work.

Here's some example of what a fluid mark may look like.

They're very loose, flowing, and expressive.

And in contrast, you can see here that linear marks are straight and structural.

So these two artists have very different approaches in the way that they apply marks to their work.

The materials we use with a fluid, like the first example, or linear like the second, can guide our drawings and shape our perspective.

Experimenting with different materials helps artists to embrace uncertainty and allow for things to arise through exploration.

Materials have endless possibilities, as I'm sure you've noticed through that last task, and can be manipulated and developed in many ways.

In the GCSE Assessment Objective Two, it identifies that students should be able to select appropriate resources, media, materials, and techniques.

What do you think this word 'appropriate' means in this context? Aisha rightly identifies that it means that you choose the most suitable material to achieve your desired outcome.

So it's understanding the qualities of materials and how they might be best applied to a particular outcome.

Label which materials would be most suited to this idea of fluid marks or linear mark-making? Well done if you identified that flowing materials like string, wire and paint are better for fluid mark-making.

And rigid rule lines and materials like tape are better for linear mark-making.

Now onto our last task, use your newly acquired mark-making techniques to make a more experimental drawing lead by materials.

Use direct observation to sketch out your chosen stimuli.

So that might be any type of image or inspiration, or source material that you're working from.

Be lead by the materials when recording your textures, surfaces, and tones in your drawing.

So using your mark-making from task two, almost as a palette of marks for this drawing activity.

And thinking about which marks or approaches to materials would be best suited for different parts of your drawing.

Consider the areas that are more suited to those fluid expressive marks, or lineal structural marks, or maybe even a combination of both.

Pause the video here while you create a drawing that's really lead by the materials.

Let's take a look at what your work may have looked like.

So we can see here that the material experimentation has really lead this drawing.

And also if you look closely, you can see linear and fluid mark-making.

Take a moment to reflect on how you refined your ideas through selecting and experimenting with appropriate materials, techniques, and processes.

Did you discover anything new in your experimentation? What idea would you like to develop further in your work? Pause the video here while you reflect on how you refined your ideas and experimented.

So Sam here, he drew a previous sketch of an apple using mark-making techniques.

He created a cardboard linear background inspired by Christina Kimeze and added flowing lines and splatters like Michaela Yearwood-Dan.

Let's take a look at the summary for today's lesson.

Artists use experimentation to develop their ideas and express personal themes.

Experimentation involves trying new materials, techniques, and approaches to push beyond traditional boundaries.

Artists create unique and cohesive bodies of work by refining their ideas through repeated experimentation.

Embracing unexpected outcomes leads to new discoveries.

Well done for all your hard work today, I look forward to seeing you soon.