GCSE Art Project – Objects

I designed this GCSE Art Scheme of Work based around OBJECTS. The project allows all students to meet the AQA assessment objectives, and I wanted a project that was broad enough for students to personalise their work.

Students researched how artists use ‘objects’ as sources of inspiration, then experimented with materials and their own ideas. Finally they planned and developed some outstanding final outcomes!

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This ‘objects‘ scheme of work was designed to meet all of the AQA GCSE assessment objectives. AQA is the exam board at our school and the project roughly follows this process:

• Research
  • Secondary, Primary, Artist
• Experimentation
  • Using a wide range of materials such as charcoal, acrylic, felt tip, lino printing
• Refinement
  • Reflecting on experimentation and developing plans for final outcomes
• Responding
  • Creating personalised final outcomes based on research and experimentation

This was the first full art project that my GCSE students had started, and I had a huge mixed-ability class, so I had to plan carefully to cover a few points:

• A theme that was broad enough for them to take ownership over
• A variety of techniques that allowed all students to succeed
• A range of artists that had varying styles
• Introducing new materials
• Students understood the process of completing a full project and meeting all of the AQA assessment objectives

Before this objects scheme of work, students had finished their Skills Training project – which didn’t need to meet all of the assessment objectives.

If you have any successful projects for large mixed-ability GCSE art classes – feel free to let me know in the comments 🙂

I started the project off by talking through (and showing) different artists that could inspire their work: Cath Riley, Juan Gris, Grayson Perry, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Nicola McBride, Andrea Joseph.

Next, I explained the different types of research (primary, secondary) and students started to create moodboards of inspiration. Students started to personalise their projects here, using images of objects that they were interested in or were important to them.

Next I discussed primary research and how it is important to try and work from their own images – rather than relying on someone else’s ideas! We organised a photoshoot in class and some students brought in objects from home. A lot of their photographs were amazing, providing great references to work from.

All of the slides discussing photography / still life composition etc. are on the presentation.

I’m fully aware that some of these items are still life (not objects!) but some students had asked to move into still life and of course, that was completely fine.

The next part of the project was all about drawing – yay! Drawing from primary sources (to a high standard) meets a number of the assessment objectives.

Since students were working from their own images, they were (mostly) highly motivated to make their drawings really good quality. I used the grid method and emphasised how important it was to make these drawings as precise as possible.

This class were already aware of how to use the grid method thanks to their previous Art Skills Training project. These drawings took a few lessons – all of the resources are included in the presentation.

Examples of student’s GCSE Art Grid Drawings:

I was so impressed with their work! 😍 At this point (before they added any tone etc.) I photocopied their drawings ready to start experimenting with materials.

Since this Objects project was the first one in the year that would meet all of the assessment objectives for AQA, I spent more time on experimentation that I would with say, a mock project.

I also wanted to introduce some new materials and techniques for students (a lot of high ability in the group) so saved time by photocopying their work. This isn’t something I would usually do to experiment, but there was no reason for students to be re-drawing the same objects / still life items over and over again.

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Artist research 1 – Cath Riley

When I think of ‘Objects’ in art, Cath Riley immediately springs to mind (a classic!) and students love her work for it’s hyper-realism and easily accessible subjects. This also meets some of the assessment objectives as students are experimenting with appropriate media.

This part of the project went really well but some struggled with smaller details (we didn’t have any charcoal pencils) but I love the work that students created using charcoal 😍

The full presentation includes more examples.

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Experimenting with Acrylic Paint

Since we’d only used dry materials so far, I set an acrylic paint piece next. Students spent a lesson colour matching (from their own photographs) then started working. This is particularly appropriate for assessment objective 4 – making a personal response.

In hindsight, this part of the project was quite a challenge, so I could have made some of their grid drawing copies smaller. It took some students too long to complete this piece – lesson learned!

My class had already been taught about colour mixing and how to apply the acrylic in their Art Skills Training Project. Which made this set of lessons much easier 😆

Still, their paintings were excellent:

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Artist Research 2 – Michael Craig Martin

In contrast to Cath Riley and her hyperrealist style, students next created work inspired by Michael Craig Martin. After having nearly 30 students using acrylic paint (and all of the mess that comes with it) for two weeks, this was a much simpler part of the project to prepare for! They only needed a pencil and felt tips 😊

This part of the project really engaged the boys in my class and I really loved these pieces 🤩 sometimes, simple is best:

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Experimenting with Reduction Lino Printing

In their Art Skills Training project, my class had done some printing with polyboard / Styrofoam so I wanted to up the challenge and introduce reduction lino printing. These pieces were again inspired by Michael Craig Martin’s compositional ideas and students chose a number of items to carve out of their blocks before printing.

Students had quite a few lessons lino printing so there are plenty of entry / exit tasks included in the full presentation for you to use.

We aimed to reduce the lino block three times, which most students did. However, some wanted to do more and a couple of students were happy with two or three colours in their prints. How fun are these?!

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At this point in the project we finished for the summer break, so we had worked on it from January to July. The aim was for students to plan and create their final pieces when they came back in September. I set homework regularly and these slides are also included in the full presentation.

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Refining ideas and work to plan final outcomes

The next part of the project was planning a range of final outcomes and pieces. Students were to come up with three completely different ideas to finish off their project.

Since this was the first time they had had to do anything like this at GCSE level, I included lots of examples from previous years and quite a few checklists to make sure their thinking was as clear as possible. These are all included in the full presentation.

Some of the plans started off quite simple then each lesson we made them more developed. We discussed how to combine materials from their experimentation to refine their work and how to take the best elements of their primary research to create winning compositions.

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Once students had planned out three different designs (some only managed two with the tight deadlines) they chose their strongest and made a start on their final piece(s). I used a countdown in my lessons to keep my class on track, which seemed to work!

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The rest of the lessons are pretty self explanatory: students work on their final pieces! I loved the artworks this class ended up creating – a full range of work inspired by objects / still life / a mash up of both. It was great to see students develop their work and ideas from their initial drawings to these incredible final outcomes 😍

What do you think of the artwork? Or the project?! Have you done anything similar with your classes? How did it turn out? Let me know in the comments.