National Year 11 Art and Design
Chapters: 3
1. Component 1: Portfolio completion
Sustained project from brief to final outcome · Selection and presentation of further work
- The Design Process: From Problem to Product – The design process is a loop of steps designers use to solve a real problem for real people: investigate the need, define it in a brief and a measurable specification, generate many ideas, build a prototype, then test and evaluate it against the specification. Whatever fails sends you back round the loop. This repeating is called iteration, and it is how almost every product, app, building and artwork is improved.
- Visual Arts: Elements, Principles and the Creative Process – Every artwork, from a pencil sketch to a sculpture or a poster, is built from the same seven elements: line, shape, form, colour, texture, value (tone) and space. Artists arrange these with principles of design: balance, contrast, emphasis, rhythm and pattern, proportion and unity. Colour theory (primary, secondary, tertiary, complementary, warm and cool) and perspective help you make pictures look real or feel a certain way. In school art courses you also learn a process: research artists, develop ideas, experiment with media, record observations, and present a final personal response in a portfolio.
2. Component 2: Externally set assignment
Responding to a chosen starting point · Supervised time: realising a final outcome
- The Design Process: From Problem to Product – The design process is a loop of steps designers use to solve a real problem for real people: investigate the need, define it in a brief and a measurable specification, generate many ideas, build a prototype, then test and evaluate it against the specification. Whatever fails sends you back round the loop. This repeating is called iteration, and it is how almost every product, app, building and artwork is improved.
- Visual Arts: Elements, Principles and the Creative Process – Every artwork, from a pencil sketch to a sculpture or a poster, is built from the same seven elements: line, shape, form, colour, texture, value (tone) and space. Artists arrange these with principles of design: balance, contrast, emphasis, rhythm and pattern, proportion and unity. Colour theory (primary, secondary, tertiary, complementary, warm and cool) and perspective help you make pictures look real or feel a certain way. In school art courses you also learn a process: research artists, develop ideas, experiment with media, record observations, and present a final personal response in a portfolio.
3. Contextual study
Studying artists, craftspeople and designers
- Art History: From Cave Walls to Today – People have made art for at least 40,000 years. Prehistoric art shows animals and hands on cave walls. Ancient civilisations made art for rulers, gods and the afterlife. Classical traditions arose in Greece and Rome, India, China, Africa and the Americas. The Renaissance brought perspective and realism; modern art (from about 1860) broke those rules; contemporary art uses any material. To appreciate any artwork, describe it, analyse its elements, interpret its meaning in its context, and judge why it works.