How to Avoid the Cliché in a High School Art Project

Final Updated on February eight, 2017

Starting a new unit of work or responding to an exam question tin be a daunting prospect for even the virtually confident of loftier schoolhouse Art students. Information technology is oft difficult to ensure your work is totally original, especially if y'all have picked a theme that may already have been responded to lots of times earlier. It should be an exciting challenge to try and make piece of work that is innovative and individual, but sometimes avoiding cliché can be difficult.

When your work is assessed, there isn't a box to tick that says you need to avoid the cliche in order to be successful. However, arts-based students should be aware that markers, assessors and university/college interviewers are probable to accept seen countless portfolios containing similarly themed work. Those assessing your portfolio often become oversaturated seeing huge amounts of piece of work, so it is important to stand out from the oversupply. Your portfolio has to testify that you are skilled, aslope showing that you are an originator and innovator of ideas.

To help you avert making cliché responses to a theme or examination question, this article looks at the artwork of A Level Photography student Ella Kasperowicz from Thomas Alleyne'south Loftier School. Her response to the 'Built Surroundings' question from the A2 AQA A Level exam paper was innovative, creative and meaningful. Ella was awarded full marks (100%) for both AS and A2 Photography and gained an A* grade overall.

The Congenital Environment is a theme that has been used exhaustively in the by. Students oft remember they have to interpret a theme in a one thousand thousand different ways and draw / photo one unrelated thing after another, however this can result in disconnected and incoherent outcomes. The key to success in responding to whatever theme/question is to ensure that you experiment in lots of different ways, but spend time making important, discernible decisions about which ideas and techniques will be the best to develop into successful and meaningful outcomes. Ella'southward piece of work has a lot of experimentation and, crucially, a confident and articulate progression of development that answers the examination question while creating a personal response. Ella'south work is made more than individual through her incorporation and evolution of textiles with photography.The combination of creative disciplines enables Ella to make unusual responses to her ideas and convey meanings and letters that are sophisticated and individual.

Ella's initial photographs taken in response to the Congenital Environment (examples shown below) were shot in New York. The photographs, which were a logical and conventional start to the unit, changed entirely by the end of her projection and were used as a ways to carry challenging ideas and meanings concerning the changes in the built environment in New York mail nine/11.

It tin can exist hard to create piece of work that references serious global issues without beingness too blatant. Ella's headscarf/hijab and patchwork quilt (shown below) create a subtle and intriguing manner of challenging the viewer to reply to the varying views surrounding 9/eleven without direct using images that are too suggestive or offensive.

The images above prove how textile techniques have been mixed with photography to create innovative and meaningful outcomes in response to an thought / theme.

The patchwork quilt wasn't merely selected equally a means to incorporate textiles – it was relevant for its cultural significance. In many cultures, a patchwork quilt is used every bit an object/device for sharing stories and social history. By using the thought and symbol of the quilt, Ella was able to create an object of greater context and interest that was every bit much a certificate of social history as information technology was a piece of artwork to resolve her ideas.

The prototype above is a large stitched piece containing printed images of New York`due south built environs. The piece was photographed on the ground and intended to human activity every bit a fallen flag to symbolise the destruction of the twin towers.

These 'handscapes' mix landmarks from both the Great britain and U.s.a. into rebuilt images from different urban environments.

In the images higher up and below, Ella recreated images of built environments out of photographs of hands layered into different positions. The handscapes form new environments which create a new potential and possibility for the viewer.

These images are both of reassembled landscapes which have been built upwards from different images throughout investigations that are relevant to her ideas/ examination question theme.

If you lot are starting a new high schoolhouse Fine art project or want to avoid the cliche in your own artwork, the 9 steps below may assistance you avert the obvious and create something original.

ix steps for avoiding the cliché in an Fine art projection

1. Research common and platitude responses to the theme yous intend to explore, and then you know what to avoid in your own work.
2. Create an extensive moodboard and plan of different creative person ideas and imagery to refer to as you develop your ideas. This is an essential office of the planning process and allows you lot to creatively combine inquiry, inspiration images and annotated ideas together. Your moodboard and initial plan are also an effective way of showing examiners your initial ideas and thoughts.
3. Make the fourth dimension to explore current artist work besides as traditional artist responses to a theme.
4. Have a broad inquiry base and look on sites other than relying on Google to be your sole source of influence. Sites like Behance, Flickr and Carbonmade, Talenthouse, ArtServed etc are all continually updated and full of creative inspiration to get you inspired.
5. Look for successes in places that might be overlooked. Take the time to review your work by yourself and with others to target areas of development that y'all may have missed.
6. Don't but stop at one outcome. Think nigh how you tin can redevelop your work in other ways, which could push your ideas further and create a more individual response.
7. Keep an open mind when you develop your piece of work – don`t try to force yourself too much in i management. Exist open-minded to new ideas and exploit these in your piece of work. You lot will always be more personal and innovative if you lot can be free to develop your ideas on other tangents.
8. Retrieve that you can develop ideas in many different ways using unexpected mediums and processes. For example, photography students may approach image-making without a camera and think beyond the conventional photography. In Ella's case, textiles and craft skills were simply as essential to the development of ideas as her initial photographs.
9. Be experimental… only always take the fourth dimension to select the best media and techniques to further develop your work into the most meaningful outcomes.

The piece above was made using the technique of wax-teabag trapping. A large epitome is cut into many smaller images and then placed into individual tea bags. The teabags are and then glued together earlier an iron is used to melt wax onto the teabags to permanently seal them within. This creates a fragmented image that has an unusual fragile and distressed quality to it.

An Interview with Ella Kasperowicz about her A Level Photography work

Were you concerned about making platitude work?

Ella: In a way yes; I similar to exist original and combine different elements of design in each project I do. Often I aim for my outcomes to be quirky and alternative so that there is petty to compare them to, which I hope makes my work more interesting to look at.

What steps did you have to avert making work on a theme that had already been washed?

Ella: I was initially worried that the New York and 9/11 theme for my photography piece of work had been overused, then instead of just focussing on the study trip I looked at how information technology affected me, linking my experience in America to abode. My project thus is a reflection of my journey, making it personal to me. I also wanted to address how the 9/11 disaster predominantly led to unity of cultures, using Islamic, Japanese and Western components in my collage piece of work. It was inspiring to me how people managed to still discover promise in a fourth dimension where a nation was cleaved. As well every bit conceptual originality, a combination of materials and unusual processes like waxed teabags, fabric printing and origami fabricated my piece of work a completely fresh interpretation of the theme.

What were you most pleased with?

Ella: Overall I was pleased with the connections that make seemingly completely different images fit together in the aforementioned theme – ideas similar hope, repetition, architecture and comfort. Specifically I enjoyed the collage work and invention of the 'handscape' the most, and the way I was able to combine photography with applied art.

What did you lot do to finalise your projection?

Ella: At the end of the project, I swapped all of the images and artist research in my mood board for my own images and analysis. It felt an adequate way to conclude the journey past showing the start point and terminate point in the same form.

This is an case of a recreated moodboard made past Ella, post-obit the same format as her original moodboard. This was great for the examiner to see from a creative indicate of view and shows a refined visual summary of her piece of work made in response to the examination question.

What tips would you give to students earlier they respond to a unit of piece of work?

Ella: I would say that yous should get into a projection with an open listen. If you lot know exactly what you want the consequence to look like earlier you start, then you don't requite yourself the chance to explore and experiment with lots of dissimilar materials and techniques. I would also suggest them to stock up on double sided sticky record and befriend the suppliers of it!

Would you change annihilation differently if you had the chance to respond to the theme again?

Ella: In an platonic world I would have loved to have gone back to New York to take more photos! I used the trip as inspiration for the projection and if I would take known I was going to take the arroyo I did I would accept photographed newspaper cranes effectually the memorial, visited the memorial at nighttime and asked people's opinions on the disaster whilst I was there.

A talented and driven student, Ella's portfolio was strong enough to permit her to gain straight entry to university, rather than taking a Foundation form first (this is a i yr course taken by nearly Art students in the Great britain, prior to first a university degree). Ella is now studying an Illustration caste at one of the top universities in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland for Photography and Illustration.

George has been a teacher of GCSE Fine art & Design and A Level Fine Fine art and Photography for nine years at Alleyne's Thomas High School in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, Britain. George has a Foundation and College National Diploma in Fine Art, a Bachelor of Fine Art and a Mail service Graduate Document in Education (PGCE). He is an experienced teacher of the AQA Fine art and Design curriculum.

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Source: https://www.studentartguide.com/articles/avoiding-cliche-art

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