There’s been a number of fabulous activities happening in the Arts department recently.

The Year 12 Theatre Studies class went to see “MacKenzie”, the sensational play by the Bell Shakespeare Company, at the Victorian Arts Centre. Based on ‘Macbeth’, the story follows a 13-year-old child star and her ruthless ‘stage mum’, who scheme and plot their way to fame. As part of the day, the students also took, part in a ‘monologue workshop’ with experienced educator, Sam Mackie at the Malthouse Theatre. The students are hard at work on their own monologues for their exam, where they present their monologue interpretation to VCAA assessors during the first week of Term 4. Parents and friends will get to see their work on Tuesday 8 September, at 6pm, in the Drama Room.

The 12 Media class presented their final products this week. The combination of nearly two terms’ work featured a series of wonderful films, animations and photographs, which were presented last Thursday night in the Theatre and Drama Room. Thank you so much to the work of Mrs, Carla Matthews, who guided the students through this very long process. The public will get to see their work again, as part of our VCE Art Exhibition early next term, and there’ll also be a repeat screening of their films, during lunchtime at school this week.

Year 9 and 10 Media have been learning the nuances of manual photography and photographic composition and have produced some amazing work this term. The Year 10 Media class were joined by a group of our visiting Japanese students who enjoyed taking photographs as part of these lessons.

Our Year 10 Art students have been busy doing some still life painting and developing their Intricate painting skills over the last few months.

Over the next few weeks, we will be hosting a ‘Festival of the Arts’, celebrating the work of our 12 Music, Media and Theatre Studies students this year. We will also be able to enjoy an exhibition of work by our VCE Art Creative Practice and Visual Communication students’ early next term.

One of the major projects for this year's Festival of Arts is the creation of a mural near the Well-Being House. Coordinated by Arts Captains Charlotte and Emily in collaboration with the Wellbeing Captains, the mural will provide a vibrant and lasting addition to the College. Students and visitors will be able to enjoy the artwork near the Well-Being House, with installation planned for the upcoming holidays.

With only a few weeks to go until their final work is due, we asked a couple of year 12 Arts students about their work:

Throughout the year in 12 Art – Creative Practice, I’ve been experimenting with paints and different kinds of mediums and in second semester, I’ve been painting book edges as part of a series. I have been reading and exploring different ways to show ‘memories and tones’ through the use of watercolour paints. It’s been challenging, because of the time pressures and having to weigh up folio development, including the use of annotations, as well as the actual creation of the artwork. Doing these tasks at the same time, to meet an approaching deadline has certainly been stressful!

For Visual Communication and Design, I’ve been experimenting with different digital materials, as the focus is more oriented towards the creation of digital products, like what is involved product design for a client presentations. VisComm differs to Art, as we’ve been focussing on one presentation throughout the whole year, following a design brief, whereas for Art we create two final pieces, one for each semester. Our final artworks and folios are due in the second week of next term and the public can see them at the end of Week 3, at the opening of our VCE Exhibition.   Jasmine Hogbin

During the length of Year 12, I have been in the process of making a 3D animated short film for my final 12 Media product. The process relied on me learning how to use the animation software “Blender”, having never used it before. The experience was extremely challenging, as learning this software was lengthy, time consuming and tedious. Over the time of the project, I have spent 150+ hours on “Blender”, alone, not including editing and pre-production. I overcame many challenges and learned how to use the software reasonably well and I have ended up with a product that I am quite happy with.   Jonah Halvarsson