Highlights from The Arts

Student of the Month

The Art department is pleased to announce that Year 7 Art student Kyah is the new winner of the Student of the Month award. This award recognises deserving students and aims to encourage their continued commitment to art practice.

Kyah's artwork captures the theme of Still Life. Students start by learning about line and shape, and considering line quality to produce a line drawing and high quality photography. Kaya’s ability to observe and pay attention to details using composition, angles and perspective was outstanding and unique. Kyah has natural creative ability and has created an outstanding food sculpture which shows strong influences of Claes Oldenber who is the artist Year 7 students studied this half term.

Congratulations Kyah!

Year 7 Fantastic Homework

We are so pleased with Year 7 homework inspired by the artists Lucy Sparrow and Clas Oldenburg we had to share them with you. The Year 7 students got creative making food sculptures using different materials from cardboard to plasticine. Here are just a few of the amazing results :)

Artist Visitor - Yeti Lambregts, Illustrator

We love to foster a creative environment, and provide our art students with memorable experiences. Students learn more about the world of art through interactions with living, breathing artists.

This term we invited established Book Designer Yeti Lambregts, whose portfolio includes works such as Maggie O’Farrell’s award winning ‘This Must be the Place’ and Sarah Winman’s ‘Tin Man’. She was kind enough to spend the afternoon speaking to our students about her experience and also gave positive feedback on our students' book cover illustrations they designed this term which they were very pleased about!

It was really exciting to watch our students riffle through sketchbooks and ask lots of questions ‘what inspires you?’ and ‘how does your work develop into the final piece?’ This opportunity allowed students to humanise the profession in a positive, approachable light and made lasting memories for our students.

The Future Artists Programme

The Future Artists Programme offers FREE art workshops to KS3 students on Saturdays 9am-2pm. Throughout this academic year we will be offering workshops in oil painting, printmaking, photography and other creative disciplines. Our aim is to engage promising young artists in our school and provide them with the inspiration and opportunities that might not otherwise be afforded them, these classes support cultural enrichment and wider social development, students get to work with materials and techniques that are usually too expensive or time consuming to be accessed in normal lessons.

These free workshops are funded through fundraising events that are run throughout the year by the art team and we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported these events so generously and in particular Ms Patel who has volunteered her time to deliver the initial course in her specialism, oil painting, this term.

Student Testimonials

Year 7 Dominic - I found the sessions to be really fun and I have learnt a lot – I’m so glad I was able to attend for the first 4 sessions. I hope to continue next term. I enjoyed the drawing process and not worrying too much about the end result and learning how to use oil paints :)

Y8 Fatima - The classes gave me confidence in my drawing skills and encouraged me to continue experimenting at home with oil paints.

Life Drawing Classes

This term we hosted our first life drawing classes for our C6 students. Drawing plays a big role in a students' cognitive development. It can help us learn to write and think creatively, develop hand-eye coordination, hone analytic skills, and conceptualise ideas. The students have made great progress throughout each of the life drawing classes. The students clearly enjoyed themselves experimenting with different media and techniques.

The benefit of drawing from life is that it allows students to analyse the three dimensional subject to decipher how to represent it on the two dimensional page. Observational drawing skills are fundamental in any visual art discipline which is why life drawing is a requirement for any art degree application. By providing our students with life drawing classes at our school, free of charge we hope to overcome some of the issues that have historically made such classes beyond our students’ reach.

Student Testimonials

Y12 Sara - I really love life drawing sessions and can see that I have made great progress with my drawings. I now notice the different structures of the body. Thank you Art Department