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Welcome to St John’s Art Gallery
Take a tour and see what our students have been working on this year. Click on the images to see them full-size.
Art Gallery Term 1 2023-2024
Examples of our GCSE final art and textiles work from the summer series 2023
Year 9 have been drawing Masks from a variety of Non Western Cultures. They have embellished their drawings with patterns relevant to the cultures chosen.
Year 10 GCSE students with Mrs Tin and Miss O’Brien have been studying Picasso and focussing on his Blue Period. They have researched, made copies of his work and then begun to create their own pieces based on their own photographs using tones of Blue. Beautiful work – a great start to their GCSE course.
Year 12 Art and Design students have been making work in response to the Surrealist and Dada movements. They began by making collages – choosing fairly random images to collage, and have developed them into mono-prints, paintings, drawings and computer generated images. So creative and so many beautiful pieces.
Art Gallery Term 6 2022-2023
Mrs Tin’s Year 7 students have been working on a environment-themed project, making drawings and colleges using a variety of different materials including recycled materials. Themes have been based on fish, bugs and other animals.
Year 8 students World Culture project. Mrs Tin’s class have made drawings of fantasy houses and streets inspired by the illustrator Rob Dunlavey. They’ve also been creating large scale work based on our own school building – developing them using patterns and colours found in patterns from around the world.
Year 8 students in Mrs Spokes class have been making 3D towers based on Gaudi’s architectural pieces using bright colourful patterns.
Year 9’s project is called Words and both Mrs Tin & Miss O’Brien have been inspired by music icons and lyrics to create pieces. Mrs Tin’s class made observational drawings and then developed them in the style of painter, Stella Vine and Miss O’Brien’s class used a stencil and added lyrics afterwards. They look really effective!
Art Gallery Term 5 2022-2023
Art Club: The KS3 art club for the last two terms has been run by Mrs Rushby. Students have enjoyed working with clay to make pinch-pot animals and have also created lots of work to do with other natural forms using oil pastels and chalk and charcoal. It has been lovely to see the group of 20 or so artists build their skills and confidence as the time has gone on.
Arts Award: Year 8 students have worked incredibly hard the last few terms on their Arts Award projects. Most recently, this involved students teaching a skill to someone else and writing this up in their sketchbooks and included workshops on acrylic, watercolour and graffiti style writing. We have been so impressed with the exciting outcomes they have made, well done year 8.
French and German Exchange – Whilst the French and German exchange visitors were over in April they each enjoyed participating in an example Art lesson. The German Students spent time with Mr Harrison creating simple monoprints of celebrities inspired by Andy Warhol and the French students spent time with Mrs Tin creating brightly coloured circular patterned designs inspired by the artist, Pacita Abad.
Access to Art in the curriculum is, apparently, fairly restricted in both countries so the students really enjoyed being able to use different materials in a creative manner!
Year 10 work – Both groups of GCSE students are now working independently in their sketchbooks, beginning to develop ideas on a topic of their own choosing. Students have been recording their early ideas by creating mindmaps, moodboards and taking lots of their own photographs. They are beginning to create drawings and paintings based on these now and are really enjoying working in this independent way. Well done Year 10!
Year 12 work – Both groups of Art and design A’Level students are now working independently – creating work based on their own ideas and taking inspiration from a huge variety of sources! Students have been being ambitious with drawing, painting and sculpture, as well as learning to appreciate and analyse other artists’/ photographers’/ designers’ work. Here are some lovely examples of what they have been creating…
Year 9 Pop Art – Some great examples of repeated Pop Art-inspired designs by Mrs Coupland’s class back in term 4. The students used tracing paper to create the repeated/ mirror imaged designs and then used pens and markers to add bold, bright colour.
Year 7 fish – Mrs Spokes’ Year 7 class have been producing work inspired by the colours and patterns of fish. The theme this term is The Environment and we will be producing sculptures using recycled materials. These lovely examples from 7I are mono prints, tissue paper and glue fish and zentangle fish.
Year 7 Flying inventions – Back in Term 4 Mrs Rushby created, with her Year 7 students, amazing flying machine sculptures. The students started by creating designs based around the shape of a milk bottle (which would eventually form the sculpture) and then began making the sculpture itself using the milk bottle, paper mache, card and then, eventually, paint. Students had been heavily influenced by the stories and creations of Jules Verne and the Puppet Theatre company Royal de Luxe. Fabulous, ambitious work from all of the students and they were able to learn and develop skills such as resilience, creativity and team work throughout the project.
Art Gallery Term 4 2022-2023
This term, Year 9 have been creating research pages about Surrealism and studying artists such as Hannah Hoch and Salvador Dali. In response to these artists, students produced some fantastic surrealist collages which show effective use of layering and composition.
Mrs Tin’s Year 9 class have been designing and creating Packets, which are now on display in the main Atrium.
Art Gallery Term 3 2022-2023
Year 7 have been working on their self portraits inspired by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The students used colouring pencil and watercolours to add detail to the face and background, then drew their favourite animals using oil pastel into the background.
Year 8 have been working hard on their Arts Award Projects. This has included students developing a particular skill which they are passionate about and attending art exhibitions and museums. The broad array of work they have produced is really exciting!
Year 8 students designed their own Coat of Arms incorporating Values that they hold dear and symbols of their interests. Some students build the designs up into cardboard relief pieces too.
Inspired by Picasso, Year 8 students have created their own Cubist self-portraits. They used oil pastels to add bright, blended colours really successfully.
Mrs Tin’s Year 10 students have been inspired by Van Gogh’s chair painting, in our project based on structures. and made lino prints of a small chair. Students made single layered prints and then cut into the lino a second time to create the double layered design.
Also inspired by Van Gogh’s chair painting, Ms O’Brien’s Year 10 students have made large, three dimensional cardboard chairs and are now decorating them based on another Van Gogh artwork.
Year 10 Photography students have been working with Mrs Spokes to produce work inspired by The Formal Elements (tone, texture, shape, form, space, tone and colour). They have taken a variety of photos from colourful objects to scrunched paper, inspired by many photographers such as Nigel Tomm, David Hockney and Abigail Reynolds. Coursework by Emily Daking and Rowan Davies.
Art Gallery Term 2 2022-2023
Year 9 students have been working with Ms O’Brien on Dada inspired paintings created from collages the students created in class. Their work is painted using acrylics, and students have learned about colour mixing, how to create unique and individual artworks and about a significant post World War I art movement, looking specifically at the most famous Dada female artist Hannah Hoch.
Mrs Coupland’s Year 10 students have been creating some experimental pieces exploring the theme ‘man-made structures’ this term. They have learnt a range of key skills including embroidery, applique and image transfer which have led to some really exciting outcomes.
Year 9 students in Mrs Spokes’s class have made mask inspired collagraphs and worked into them with patterns and colours.
Art Gallery Term 1 2022-2023
Year 12 Art and Design students have spent the first few weeks of their Sixth Form course exploring the work of Dada artists such as Hannah Hoch and Raoul Hausmann. Dada was a movement that began during the first world war and the work produced was a negative reaction to the horrors and folly of the war. Students have made collages, taken photos and then created some large and small scale work in response to their collages.
Year 12 students in Ms O’Brien & Mrs Spokes class have created lovely paintings from the collages they made at the beginning of the year, also exploring the Dada movement and creating ‘nonsense’ collages.
Year 10 students have made a great start to their GCSE Art and Photography courses this term.
GCSE Art students are focusing on Natural Structures and have creates monoprints, photographs and drawings working from a variety of natural forms and focusing on the work of Peter Randall Page.
The Photography students have been learning how to take a variety of different photographs based on the Formal Elements (Line, Tone, Colour etc.).
This Year Key Stage 3 students are looking at Art Movements and the History of Art for their homework tasks. Every term each year group are being asked to look at movements in art which relate to artwork they are focusing on in class. Any student who completes a Stretch and Challenge task earns themselves an art badge. There are 16 Art Movement badges to collect for KS3.
