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VCE Art Making and Exhibiting (Year 11) · Unit 1 — Explore, Expand and Investigate · 11m read

Expanding Ideas — From Experiments to Artworks

Unit 1 asks you to expand your exploration into artworks. The key skill is selecting and developing your strongest ideas.

Learning objective: Expand experiments and ideas into artworks by making deliberate choices about subject matter, materials and composition.

By the end of this lesson you can:

  • I can generate ideas from a starting point.
  • I can choose the strongest experiments to develop.
  • I can plan an artwork from experiments.

Pruning a tree. Gardeners cut weaker branches so the strongest can grow. Artists choose their best experiments and develop them further.

Expanding ideas

IDEA GENERATION
• Starting points: a word, object, place, memory, artist or issue.
• Mind maps, photo walks, observational drawing, collecting objects.

SELECTING
• Which experiments best communicate the idea?
• Which are most original or visually striking?

DEVELOPING
• Vary scale, viewpoint, composition and colour.
• Combine techniques (e.g. photograph + paint + collage).
• Make a series of related works.

Worked example (Medium)

Starting point: "home". Show how to expand an idea into an artwork.

  1. Generate. Photograph objects in the kitchen; sketch floor plans from memory.
  2. Select. The overlaid floor-plan drawings are most interesting.
  3. Develop. Layer floor plans of every house lived in on tracing paper, lit from behind.

Answer: Generate broadly, select the strongest idea, then develop it through layering, scale and presentation.

Common mistakes

  • Jumping straight to a final work Ideas stay shallow. Fix: Develop through several stages first.
  • Developing too many ideas at once Nothing gets resolved. Fix: Choose one or two to pursue.

Practice questions

  1. Which helps expand an idea?

    1. Repeating the same image exactly
    2. Varying scale, viewpoint and materials
    3. Avoiding experiments
    4. Copying another artwork

    (1 marks)

  2. Explain how you would decide which experiment to develop into an artwork.

    (2 marks)

Summary

  • Generate ideas from starting points.
  • Select the strongest experiments.
  • Develop through scale, viewpoint, materials.
  • Explain your choices.

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