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Home > Visual Arts > Course Content > Practice: Artmaking, Art Criticism & Art History > Artmaking Practice > The body of work and the Visual Arts Process Diary

The body of work and the Visual Arts Process Diary (VAPD)

Issues covered in this document:

1. Getting Started
2. Where to start
3. The body of work, your VAPD and syllabus content
4. Demonstrate your visual perception and aesthetic awareness.
5. Explore expressive possibilities of the expressive form.
6. Reflect consideration, demonstrate sensitivity towards intuitive selections and make evident your conscious ordering of images and objects.
7. Aim to communicate ideas, feeling and beliefs and ensure that the body of work shows the depth of your conceptual strength and meaning.
8. Show skills and confidence in the use of materials and techniques you employ in your body of work.
9. Develop self-directed and self-motivation strategies that will result in the effective production of resolved artworks.
10. Develop the ability to appreciate, analyse, evaluate and discuss your own art making and the artmaking practice of others.
11. Be motivated to visit galleries, lectures and read articles that will broaden you understanding of artmaking.
12. Record and participate in all areas of the visual arts and ensure your VAPD. documents these activities.
13. Submit a body of work that observes the size, weight and other restrictions for marking.
14. Listen to the advice and criticism given by your teacher, believe it or not they know what they are doing.
15. Avoid the cliché!
16. If the work needs further explanation the markers may call for your

1. Getting started

   This is an important part of your preparation for the HSC. The VAPD allows you to collect, explore and develop conceptual ideas and artmaking techniques. The results of a body of work should reflect artwork(s) that are informed, relevant and clear and resolute in meaning and display finesse in technical skills.

   Within any art practice, the quality of the artwork is dependent on the amount of time, thought and effort placed in its production. The Australian artist Fred Williams was asked what makes a good painting? The artist replied “200 paintings!” This suggests that the formula to produce a good piece of art is a long and laborious one complimented with lots of experimentation.

   Many artists work by documenting ideas in folios or books, some artists do not work in this way. The HSC course and all tertiary art courses require students to adopt this method of working. As suggested by its title, visual arts process diary, your VAPD. is a diary or journal that documents your development of ideas from beginning to completion.

   Your VAPD is a tool for you to refine your ideas and technical skills. It allows you to experiment and make mistakes and learn from this process of investigation without having to waste time correcting these errors in your major work.

   What the VAPD looks like is entirely up to you. What is important is how it is used. It could be a book that documents every step carefully and with much care. It could be a chaotic fusion of bits and pieces that are in some semblance of order. The form or degree of order is not important. The appearance of your diary is up to you. The important issue is its use value, and how it assists in the development of your body of work.

   The diary can contain images and words as well as anything that could act as a prompt for creative expression. This could include postcards, photographs, and just about any thing that has personal significance to you as an artist.

   One important fact to remember is that the VAPD is a tool to help you make your body of work, however it must not be included as part of your body of work for examination purposes.

   Make sure you spend an appropriate proportion of your time on your VAPD but ensure it does not interfere with the time needed in the production of your body of work. Keep things in proportion!

2. Where to start

   The syllabus describes the production of a body of work as a response to the student’s environment. This can mean your physical, social, religious, political, emotional, psychological, racial or gender environment. The boundaries of what constitutes your world and environment are wide and full of creative potential. It is up to you to determine what constitutes your environment in terms of your study.

   Your body of work should reflect an interest, concept or issue that you relate to and feel strongly towards and wish to incorporate as a visual statement. Try to avoid cliché concepts. Be honest in relating your art work to your genuine interests and not what you think the markers want. Use your VAPD to explore issues and concepts that interest you and attempt to figure out how to create an artwork(s) that presents these ideas in a thoughtful manner. Your body of work should reflect these interests and conform to the information that appears in the Visual Arts Senior Syllabus for The Higher School Course and Visual Arts Stage 6. http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au

3. The body of work, your VAPD and syllabus content

   In developing your body of work, you should be constantly exploring possibilities and questioning your intentions and actions. You should consider how you can develop meaning in your work by applying the frames: are you focussing on personal comment (subjective), cultural expression (cultural), communicating through a system of signs and symbols (structural) or questioning conventions of art practice (postmodern) in your work. You should illustrate and notate these thoughts. Similarly you should use the conceptual framework to constantly examine your work. Log your ideas about your relationship with your world, artwork and imagined audience in your VAPD and apply these considerations to the production of the body of work.

   Finally, be aware of your own practice, your choices and pathways in producing a body of work and how you use subject matter and forms to develop conceptual strength and meaning and material coherence in your work. Register all of your ideas and experiments. Understanding how syllabus content and the artmaking outcomes can assist you in your work will reinforce your understanding of the artmaking practice of other artists.

4. Demonstrate your visual perception and aesthetic awareness.

   Show the markers through your body of works and VAPD that you have learnt and incorporated formal and conceptual knowledge of art works and artists. Sometimes the best way to start is to look and understand work from artists or exhibitions that have been of interest to you. This acts as a style guide where you learn from such innovations and methods of construction, as well as acting as a catalyst to further develop your research.

5. Explore expressive possibilities of the expressive form.

   Try to push your experimentations of the expressive form you are using. Don’t stop until you are completely satisfied. Never settle for mediocrity. A number of experiments in the beginning can help you in the long run, assisting you in the development of technical skills and providing a critical revision of the visual conventions operating in your artwork(s). Art making is like a disciplined sport for which you train and work up until the event. This is also the case in the preparation and development of your body of work. Learn how to use and exploit the material you intend to use in your artwork. Don’t assume that because you have read about the medium in a book or seen in it a gallery, that it is easy. You will quickly realise the importance of experimentation. Good art looks easy but it’s the result of many hours labour in getting it right.

6. Reflect consideration, demonstrate sensitivity towards intuitive selections and make evident your conscious ordering of images and objects.

   Try not to make an artwork(s) that is fashionable or facile but make an artwork that is sincere and comes from the “heart, guts and head”. This is an opportunity to make an artwork(s) that is ”you” and makes this visual statement about you. Make the artwork reflect your originality and idiosyncrasies.

7. Aim to communicate ideas, feeling and beliefs and ensure that the body of work shows the depth of your conceptual strength and meaning.

   Use your VAPD. to record and explore ideas and aspects that are important to you. The aim of the body of work is to present ideas and concepts that are important and authentic to you. Ensure that your visual message is expressed well. Don’t take short cuts. Work out ways you can best communicate your thoughts. This may take many sketches, notes, experimentation with different media, plans and constructions to get it right but it’s worth working on. Your subject matter should be well researched. The greater knowledge you have about the concept, the more sophisticated the artwork(s) can become.

   Your body of work might pursue a single idea or concept, or you might have parallel interests – either way, it should show that you have been involved in refining or redefining your ideas.

8. Show skills and confidence in the use of materials and techniques you employ in your body of work.

   Try to show your skills and prowess in whatever expressive form or forms you have decided to use for your body of work. Select the medium that shows off your skills and that you are excited about using.

   Your selection of material and technical means of production should complement your content (subject matter). A resolved work shows that these things have all come together to a peak of finish.

9. Develop self-directed and self-motivation strategies that will result in the effective production of resolved artworks.

   Prove that you are a mature and reliable student who will pursue individual (self directed) study and experimentation. The whole idea about the new syllabus is to develop student autonomy in terms of their art making and studying art. Use the VAPD. to plan ahead ensuring you use your time experimenting with materials and researching concept in a positive and useful manner. Use the VAPD to inform your teacher of your developments.

10. Develop the ability to appreciate, analyse, evaluate and discuss your own art making and the artmaking practice of others.

    Try to feel confident in talking and writing about your own art making and recognise and appreciate the experience of other artists including your classmates. Having to articulate your ideas in an oral or written form can be useful to develop you ideas. Often others can offeri you inspiration through discussion.

11. Be motivated to visit galleries, lectures and read articles that will broaden you understanding of artmaking.

    Be motivated and visit galleries, lectures and workshops to gain a better understanding of art. Students who go out and see contemporary exhibitions and take these experiences back to their art making, tend to develop informed ideas in their body of works.

12. Record and participate in all areas of the visual arts and ensure your VAPD. documents these activities.

    Make sure that all experimentation and the progress of your body of work are documented. Anything you do that goes towards a better understanding of Visual Arts should be recorded in your VAPD. Review your decisions as you make a record of the progress of your works. Also, if your VAPD. is called for as support material towards the marking of your art work it gives a clear message to the markers concerned about the depth of investigation and experimentation that has been carried out.

13. Submit a body of work that observes the size, weight and other restrictions for marking.

    Make sure you read the requirements noted in Board of Studies http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au documents that your teacher has provided for you. Work with your teacher and discuss any concerns you have in regard to your art making

14. Listen to the advice and criticism given by your teacher, believe it or not they know what they are doing.

    The teacher’s role is to give you guidance to ensure you produce the best artwork you are capable of producing. Your teacher is responsible on a one to one basis for a number of students sitting the HSC. Often their time with students is very brief. If you are not happy with the modes of communication, speak to your teacher about arranging another time such as lunch or before or after school to discuss your art making.

15. Avoid the cliché!

    Your body of work will be submitted as a number and the marker will judge the work on its artistic merits. The more resolved the artwork is in terms of technique, subject matter and concepts investigated, the better the mark you will be awarded. The body of work is marked in terms of two criteria, these two criteria are equally weighted. They are:

    • conceptual strength and meaning: This refers to the richness of your thoughts and how they have been developed into an artwork(s).
    • resolution: This refers to the way the thoughts, ideas, concepts are communicated in terms of the selection of expressive form and the technical prowess which compliments the concepts being transmitted to the audience.

    Selection is paramount to the body of work. You are required to take on the role of a curator and decide what artwork or works best represent the conceptual basis of your work as a whole.

16. If the work needs further explanation the markers may call for your diary for clarification

    The VAPD. acts a little like a catalogue in terms of explaining the relevance of your artwork and clarifying your decisions in art making. Not all diaries are called, but all must be available to the markers when required.

Craig Malyon, Visual arts teacher