Knowledge and Understanding Workshops

Suitable for GCSE and A Level students

Outline

Knowledge and Understanding Workshops are designed to address the needs of some of the aspects of A Level and GCSE Art and Design syllabuses. (see panel opposite)

The workshops begin with a Presentation which is similar in format to the interactive event that starts the Great Artist Workshops, but is much broader, wider ranging and explores to a much greater depth.

Presentations

Consider the biography and history of artists, movements and trends in art, understanding the social and cultural context, the motivations of individual artists as well as analysing their working methods and techniques. Presentations are intended for students studying GCSE or A Level Year 11 Students

and are designed to be engaging and challenging .

Practical Workshops

Practical workshops seek to develop some of the ideas discussed in the Presentations. Practical workshops can take many forms depending on the requirements of the examination or the school. Examples of some of Filbert’s Presentations and Practical Workshops can be found below.

Are your students about to embark on their GCSE or A Level art examinations? Prepare them with one of our Examination Workshops

Workshops

Aim to contribute to the following generic subject aims of GCSE and A Level Art and Design syllabuses:

GCSE Art and Design

1. Developing creative and imaginative ability and the practical skills for engaging with and for communicating and expressing original ideas, feelings and meanings in art.

2. Gaining cultural knowledge and understanding of art, craft and design and of technologies used in different times, contexts and societies

3. Developing their ideas through investigations informed by contextual and other sources demonstrating analytical and cultural understanding

4. Refine their ideas through experimenting and selecting appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes

A Level Art and Design

1. Developing a personal investigation based on an idea, issue, concept or theme leading to a finished piece or pieces, the practical elements of which should be linked with some aspect of contemporary or past practice of artists, designers or craftspeople.

2. Developing a knowledge and understanding of how images and artifacts relate to the time and place in which they were made and to their social and cultural contexts.

3. Use knowledge and understanding of the work of others to develop and extend thinking and inform their own work

Sample Presentations and Workshops

There are over 20 different Presentations covering the last 200 years to choose from and just a sample is shown below and we are willing to design one for your specific needs. Practical Workshops can take many forms from purely skills based workshops that look to extending students skills set and learning the techniques of individual artists to workshops that seek to develop investigation skills, linking ideas to context, time and culture. Workshops can also be based on themes that you may wish Filbert to explore with your students. A sample of workshops is shown below. Why not contact us with your requirements now?

Present'n 1
Present'n 2
Present'n 3
Workshop 1
Workshop 2
Workshop 3

Young british artists Years ago, artists used oil paint to make pictures and marble from which to carve sculptures. Today, they are just as likely to smear elephant dung on a painting and call an unmade bed a sculpture. What possesses them to do it and what is more, why do these artists win the major art prizes?

Context: Beginning in the late 80's to early 90's - From get rich quick to recession

Artist's considered: Chris Offili, Gillian Wearing, Gary Hume, Marc Wallinger, Rachel Whiteread, Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst

Pop Art Who would have thought a picture of a soup can or a screen-printed image of Marilyn Monroe would sell for millions. How did blow-ups of cartoon comic strips come to grace the walls of American art galleries? It all happened in the 1960s. Not surprising really.

Context: Just 20 years after World War II, a period of optimism, consumer boom and the teenage revolution

Artist's considered: Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Roy Litchenstein

Abstract Expressionism They started by painting billboards and ended up dripping paint on huge canvases. Some even covered naked women in paint and rolled them on canvas in the name of art. It could only happen in America you might say? Well, not quite.

Context: Late 40's early 50's in America, strongly influenced by Surrealism. Two distinct groups; Colour Field painters and Gestural painters

Artists considered: Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Wilhelm de Kooning, Ashile Gorky, Barnet Newman

scribble drawing with graphite The aim of drawing workshops is to enhance skills by placing students in the context of an art school environment. Filbert will demonstrate a number of drawing methods, techniques and ideas and students will be expected to work with him. All excersies will be time limited some as little as 1 minute others much longer. Exercises will be challenging, - drawing with a pencil attached to a 1 metre pole, or taking drawings to the point of destruction.

Students will realise that drawing is not just about recording ideas, but also a means of investigating and developing ideas. and that drawings can be works of art in themselves.

This workshop is ideal for those GCSE and A level students who are reluctant, or lack the confidence to express themselves boldly using pencil, pen. graphite, pastel, charcoal etc.

A level Art

The aim of this workshop is to explore painting techniques, the way colour can be mixed and paint applied to a surface. Workshops can focus on an individual artist, like Matisse for example, and explore colour mixing, painting directly with the brush, often an arms length and multiple view points. Or workshops can take movements like Impressionism or the Expressionists as starting points and explore ways in which paint can be applied, the marks a brush can make, how brush marks and colours can affect mood, drama and expression.

This workshop is suitable for GCSE and possibly some A Level students who see their focus as being painting.

African Mask Picasso face This workshop explores the idea of culture and the effect culture can have on how objects and ideas are perceived. Starting points can come from a number of sources, the face is a great example - how it has been depicted through the centuries in Europe compared with how it is seen in China and Africa during the same period. The perception of space in paintings is a wonderful subject to explore starting with Giotto, Uccello through to the Classical painters and of course the disintegration of space that Picasso and others created. Comparisons between western artists attitudes to the depiction of space compared with Japanese and Chinese artists is also explored.

Students will be encouraged to explore the techniques these artist used to depict space in their own work. This workshop is particularly good for A level and Year 11 GCSE art and design students.

Filbert Demonstrates painting