By Eliza Hoyer Millar
Year 11 Art Ambassador for Year 11, Eliza Hoyer Miller, reflects on the artwork of the GCSE Art students this term
Last term in GCSE Art, we focused on finishing our Component 1 coursework. I had the following themes: natural forms, contrast, and human beings. At first, I felt unsure about how to approach them. However, in the first theme that we did (natural forms) it was more teacher led, which I found really helpful. Then we moved onto the theme of contrast, for we were fortunate enough to visit the National Gallery which really inspired me to look at the contrast between life and death. For the final part of the component, we were given the choice between 3 themes: in the city, human beings, and ordinary extraordinary. I selected the theme human beings as I was unsure of what constituted being ordinary and what was extraordinary, and I had some experience with drawing people.
My favourite theme was definitely human beings as I felt I was able to combine all of the skills that I had cultivated in the past two themes and become much more independent. One of the artists that I studied, who was particularly inspiring for me, was Lucian Freud. After studying his technique, I created my first prototype using an image of my sister and oil pastels. Although the outcome was not as detailed as I wanted- I learnt a lot about how I could improve it for next time. After cycling through this process multiple times, I decided to experiment with lino printing which was a medium that I was unfamiliar with. I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom that this medium allowed me, experimenting with: colour, gel printing, and different papers and fabrics. Finally, I was ready to begin planning for my mock piece.
In Art, we don’t have exams in the way other subjects do. Instead, we’re given a set amount of time to create a final piece that brings together everything we’ve explored so far. For our mock, we had almost 10 hours to create our outcome. I decided to use oil paint on canvas and paint an edited picture of my sister. This was very challenging for me as it was a much larger scale than I was used to, and also I had chosen a reference with untraditional colours.
After the mock, I wrote a reflection about what went well and what I’d change next time. I realised that I wanted to prep my canvas before the exam began so that I would have a smoother surface to work on. Feedback from my teacher also helped me to see where I could push myself further and experiment more.
Looking back on this term, I’m proud of the level of experimentation that I achieved as I feel this really helped me to improve my work and challenge myself. I am currently working on Component 2, and I aim to continue working on larger scales using more foreign mediums.