Art

Introduction to the Department

The main aim of the Art Department at Holy Family RC and CE College is to provide the highest quality education for student’s so that they are equipped to the very best of their abilities, to move into Higher Education, or employment.

Students develop critical and aesthetic awareness as they are introduced to the work of other artists from different times, places and cultures and evaluate their own work through discussion. We seek to extend the potential for achievement, confidence and personal development.

Throughout KS3 and KS4 pupils follow a curriculum which allows them to experiment in most fields of Art. This includes drawing and painting, textiles, relief work, printmaking, 3D and modelling work. Sketchbooks are an important feature of pupil’s creative development.

Aims & Objectives

The aims of the Curriculum are to encourage students to develop:

Intellectual, imaginative, creative and intuitive powers;

Investigative, analytical, experimental, practical, technical and expressive skills, aesthetic understanding and critical judgement;

An understanding of the interrelationships between art, craft and design and an awareness of the contexts in which they operate;

Knowledge and understanding of art, craft and design in contemporary society and in other times and cultures

The Department prides itself on its commitment to developing the skills and abilities of student artists. We welcome your interest in the Department and would be happy to answer more detailed questions you may have.

Rationale

Art is one of the primary means by which we may express ourselves in a visual language; a language that has been developing since the earliest days of mankind and the earliest moments of our own lives. Art is a fundamental language-form. It is a tool with which we organise our understanding of, and hence control of, the natural world.

Art has the ability of transcending the barriers between logic and creativity; a drawing, for example, has the ability of being both creative and analytical at one and the same time.

"A mathematician, like a painter or a poet , is a maker of patterns....The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way."

(G.H.Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology )

Department Calendar

KS4 dates for 2010 are as follows:

Wednesday 13^th October- Year 11 pupils will work with the Artist Rachael Elwell in the classroom. They will produce several outcomes based on the theme of experimental drawing and architecture.

Thursday 16^th December- Year 10 pupils will work with an Artist from the Whitworth Art Gallery. Workshops to take place in school.

Tuesday 5^th April- Year 10 pupils will visit Touchstones Art Gallery. They will have a tour of the Gallery and work with an Artist in residence.

Wednesday 13^th July- Year 10 pupils will visit The Whitworth Art Gallery. They will work with an Artist in residence and have some free time to look around the gallery and explore the gallery grounds in Manchester.

May Half term 2012- Plans are under way for an overseas Art trip to Amsterdam for Year 10 pupils and Year 9 pupils who opt to take Art at GCSE.