The visual arts are an essential form of
communication, indispensable to inquiry and expression. From an early age, children draw, paint, build, and model in order to interact with their environment and create images that express their understanding of the world. Visual arts education builds on these experiences, providing opportunities for all students to perceive, respond to, and create images, and to communicate through them. Through these processes--perceiving/responding and creating/communicating--students become aware of the ideas and emotions expressed in visual images and gain the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to engage in and appreciate the visual arts throughout their lives.
Images are central to the visual arts. The term image encompasses almost all visual information, ranging from simple marks on paper to elaborate 3-D designs or architectural forms. Through visual arts education, students develop understanding of the personal, social, cultural, and historical contexts in which images are viewed and created.
Visual arts education also involves students in image-development and design processes. They engage in purposeful and inventive activities-using a variety of materials, technologies, and processes-to organize visual elements according to the principles of art and design.
The Visual Arts K to 7 curriculum develops and extends the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that form the basis for visual arts education from Kindergarten to Grade 12. This IRP has been designed to make visual arts accessible to all students while encouraging the aesthetic, physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and career development of each individual.
Curriculum Organizers
The prescribed learning outcomes for Visual Arts K to 7 are grouped under the following curriculum organizers:
- Image-Development and Design Strategies
- Visual Elements and Principles of Art and Design
- Context
- Materials, Technologies, and Processes
Image-Development and Design Strategies
Image-development and design strategies are the key processes used to develop visual images. Images can be derived from a variety of sources, including emotions and feelings, ideas and concepts, imagination, memories, observation, and other sensory experiences. Image-development strategies (e.g., distortion, elaboration, rotation, reversal, simplification) are the processes used to transform these ideas and experiences into visual images. Design strategies are forms of problem solving used to develop and organize one or more images for a specific purpose.
At the elementary level, students learn to create images and solve problems using image-development and design strategies. These become increasingly complex as they gain proficiency and confidence. The problems to be solved may be identified and defined by the student or by others.
Context
Images are created, communicated, responded to, and perceived within personal, social, cultural, and historical contexts. The visual arts have been integral to cultures throughout history, serving as dynamic individual and social forms of expression. The visual arts express and are influenced by:
- personal contexts such as gender, age, life experience, beliefs, and values
- social and cultural contexts such as religion, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and aesthetics
- historical contexts such as time, place, and point of view
- evolving technologies in all contexts
All of these contexts are interconnected. The visual arts are also subject to ethical, economic, and legal considerations that vary according to context.
In the elementary years, students need a variety of opportunities to view examples of historical and contemporary artworks from diverse cultures. As students increase their understanding of the relationships between art and context, they develop their abilities to critically examine artworks and create personally meaningful images.
Visual Elements and the Principles of Art and Design
Using the visual elements and organizing them according to the principles of art and design are the basic components of image making. Visual elements include colour, form, line, shape, space, texture, value, and tone. The principles of art and design include pattern, repetition, rhythm, balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, unity, and harmony.
At the elementary level, students develop a growing awareness of the visual elements and principles of art and design in their own work, in that of others, and in their environment. Students at all grade levels, from Kindergarten to Grade 12, use the elements and principles with increasing degrees of refinement and complexity as they gain experience and maturity.
Materials, Technologies, and Processes
To create visual images, students require materials (e.g., clay, ink, paint, paper, film, video), technologies (e.g., brayers, computers and peripherals, kilns, paintbrushes, pencils, sewing needles), and knowledge of processes (e.g., painting, drawing, sculpting, printmaking).
As they progress from Kindergarten to Grade 12, students need opportunities to experience using a variety of materials, technologies, and processes. This wide-ranging approach is balanced by each student's need to develop competency and a sense of accomplishment in aspects of these areas.
Process Organizers
Each of the four content organizers includes outcomes focussed on the two areas of process that are essential for the development of students' visual arts skills:
- Perceiving/Responding
- Creating/Communicating
Perceiving/responding and creating/communicating are interrelated processes in the visual arts. Although there is overlap, the prescribed learning outcomes are organized separately under these processes to ensure that both are addressed.
Perceiving/Responding
In the visual arts, perceiving refers to exploring the world through the senses; responding includes observing, reflecting on, describing, analysing, interpreting, and evaluating images through discussion, writing, research, and studio activities. Perceiving and responding to images are personal and social activities that develop sensory awareness and aesthetic appreciation of the environment. An informed and sensitive response takes into account the contexts of the artist and the viewer and may involve the artist in self-evaluation.
Creating/Communicating
In the visual arts, creating is a personally and culturally meaningful act of making a unique image; communicating through images provides students with a unique way of expressing what they see, think, and feel. Displaying images is an important part of communication.
© Copyright 1998 All Rights Reserved. Curriculum Branch.
Maintained by: Fine Arts Coordinator
Revised: July 8, 1998
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