Visual Arts

Inspired and Equipped

Art Camp 2022 was an exciting two-day experience where Year 12 (2023) Visual Art students explored new skills, learnt techniques, and developed creative concepts for our upcoming Body of Work task.

There were many workshops and options to choose from over the two days, so each student had their own individual learning experience focusing on their favoured mediums and methods. Upon arrival at the camp, we started our first workshop that all students participated in, a presentation with Sydney ceramicist, Ebony Russell. As a student with a strong passion towards ceramics, this was such a valuable experience and certainly my favourite workshop. I had already come across Ebony Russell's works before the camp. Her colourful, ethereal creations of piped ceramic resemble sweet cake frosting. She has similar interests to me, inspired by childhood nostalgia, Rococo art, and pastel colour palette. Ebony Russell spoke about how her life has affected her practice and explained the process of her innovative technique in depth. At the end of her speech, she led a workshop consisting of multiple timed challenges using clay. We dabbled in different hand-building techniques, such as using coils to create figures and organic shapes. I left Ebony's workshop feeling inspired and left the camp with a strong vision and concept for my Body of Work. It was such a useful and worthwhile experience, and I am so grateful for the knowledge Ebony Russell and the art staff shared.

Sarah Smith

The overnight Visual Arts camp was an enriching experience that inspired my peers and I. It provided a space to learn and grow. Each student was able to choose from a multitude of workshops and hands-on teaching sessions. A particular favourite of mine was a workshop inspired by artist Chuck Close. In this workshop we expressively used charcoal to draw a section of Close’s face. We used a technique often used by the artist to grid up the artwork, individually we created a tonal drawing of our allocated square and then joined all the squares back together. The effect was a visually stunning large-scale portrait completed by many students, each square differed slightly in style but as a collective piece it was striking and connected. Another aspect I enjoyed was the art trivia night, with rounds like “guess the artist”, “guess the painting” from a small section, recreating a painting with a drama performance, and the collaborative decoding of anagrams of famous artworks. The Galston Gorge CRU camp location set a gorgeous backdrop for peaceful reflection on our initial gathering and exploring of ideas, and an inspirational natural space to create and develop art. At the end of the camp, I came away with greater assurance of not only what materials I wanted to work with, but how I wanted my concept to be portrayed. The collaborative sessions in discussing ideas and mediums helped to spark self-reflection on what I deeply loved about art, history and culture and how to portray this ultimately in my own work.

Anna Horner

The Visual Arts camp of 2022 was an extremely valuable experience that allowed me to focus on what I intend to make for my Body of Work and how to do this. Before the VA camp, I had way too many ideas that varied greatly. I was struggling to filter through these ideas and wasn’t sure what would work best for

the HSC. The camp was a great environment where I could solely focus on my Body of Work with no distractions from other classes. There were three aspects of the art camp I found most helpful, the first being the elective workshops that focused on specific artmaking techniques. The elective artmaking activities allowed me to explore different materials and techniques that I hadn’t tried before or hadn’t tried in a long time. I specifically found the digital media seminar class with Mr Ryan useful for me. It allowed me to see the different ways in which I can present my photographs, such as laser etching or printing onto metal, making me think about how I could present my photographs in a physical space, something that I hadn’t previously considered. On the second day we broke into small groups that focused on concepts. I found this very useful, specifically the class on “Titles” from Mrs Jongsma, which showed me the effect that a good title can have in conveying the message more effectively to the markers. The final small discussion groups at the end of the camp were probably the most useful to me, allowing me to talk to my teacher, Mr Ingrey, about my ideas, getting suggestions from him and my peers on how to expand my concept. Overall, Visual Arts camp 2022 was an extremely important and helpful experience, giving me the opportunity to narrow down my ideas, find out how to discern what is effective and what isn’t, while allowing me to experiment creatively and discover different artmaking practices that I can apply to my artworks throughout the rest of the year.

Oliver Mills

Tara Jongsma Head of Visual Arts