Video: Evaluating

﻿And welcome to your art lessons. This is lesson five of five art theory. My name is Mrs. Davies and today I'm going to be talking to you about how to evaluate your own work. Okay, so today we're going to be writing an evaluation. And the first thing I'd like you to do fairly straightforward is to listen to the worked example. And then you're going to be producing your own evaluation, following a three step process, starting with describing content, moving on to describing connections and finally commenting. This is a very clear framework to allow you to access those top grades because you're writing a really thorough evaluation that covers everything that an examiner wants to see when you are talking about and evaluating your own work. This is a lesson that I would usually go through with my GCSE groups at the end of the project. So when they have completed their final piece, they'll then go on to write an evaluation of their own final piece. However, an evaluation framework can be used to help you evaluate any piece of work at any stage of the project and actually, if you've already done the analysis lesson, you will know that it's following the same work as the analysis, because essentially these are the things that you should be talking about when you are analysing any piece of work, whether it's your own or somebody else's. And it's one of the skills that the examiners look for. Are you able to analyse your own work and other people's work? Okay, let's go. Right, so the only thing you need to do right now is listen. The work that I'm going to show you is a piece of work that I have drawn myself and evaluated myself. So I'm going to be reading you out the worked examples that I've written, but it was inspired by this guy here on the left and the artwork is typical of William Morris's style. It may look even vaguely familiar to you because a lot of his work has been reproduced is still being reproduced for very popular fabrics and wallpapers and in fact, I'm pretty sure it was Liberty that reproduce a lot of his lovely designs. Okay, so the first thing that we are going to be talking about is content. So I'm just going to literally read through what I've written here. This is a colour drawing of interlocking hands repeated and embellished with natural forms. The materials used are waterproof fineline pens and watercolour paint. The hands have been repeated and flipped to create a repeat design. The overall appearance is of a mirror image. The colours used are realistic and because of the subject naturalistic. Parts of the drawing have not been finished and your eye is drawn towards the bottom half of the composition where the drawing has been completed. I've used straight long leaves to create complementary vertical lines, mirroring the lines of the fingers. I always think the description is one of the less exciting elements of a drawing of an analysis or evaluation. But it's so important because it shows the examiner that you can identify these things in an artwork, whether you're talking about your own or somebody else's work, you can talk about the subject. So I have mentioned this before in previous lessons, but this subject is either going to be landscaped still like a portrait or essentially people, places or things, so looking at this piece of work, you can see that it's a combination of people and things. But it doesn't naturally fall into any of the categories, so I have just literally given a more specific description. So the first thing I've highlighted there is the description of the subject. The second thing I've talked about where I've talked about repeated and flipped design is the way that I altered it or changed it or added my own approach to it. The third thing there, I'm talking about the colours. I've also talked about the fact that it's not finished. And then finally I talked about the long straight leaves, which embellish the work and compliment the fingers because fingers are on straight lines and the leaves are on straight lines, okay. So that is a description of the content. Actually, I haven't mentioned everything, I haven't talked about tone, which I should have done because there is tone there and that is one of the formal elements. So, even better if I should have referred to that, but anyway, sometimes I think it's quite good to look at other people's work and realise where they've gone wrong. Okay, the second thing that I'm talking about then is the connections. The artwork is inspired by the artist William Morris, working around the mid to late 1800s, this Victorian artist was a member of the Arts and Crafts movement, formed as a reaction against the relentless progress of the industrial revolution, this group reacted by deliberately returning to a more traditional arts and crafts, returning to more traditional arts and crafts practise and a focus on natural more traditional themes. In this artwork I tried to reflect the influence of the artist. Key features inspired by Morris are the use of repetition as he did in his fabric and wallpaper designs. The use of black outlines and simplified detail and texture to use the use of nature to embellish the work. Sorry, not very good reading that, but anyway. So what I'm talking about there are the connections to the artist and then the key features, the key stylistic features. So, there I'm showing the examiner, yes, I did do a bit of research actually. I didn't just look at this on Google and think that looks like something I might be able to do or that looks easy, even worse. And also I have identified, I can look at somebody else's work and identify what the features are. So I've just highlighted here, the things that make this a good comment on connections. So, the artist and when he was working, the movement that he was part of, and how that influenced the work, and the features that I've picked up on. So, the repetition, black outlines, simplified detail and texture and the use of nature, okay. And finally, and this is the good bit, this is a bit, when I'm reading a student's a bit of evaluation, the thing that I always really enjoy reading is the comment. Yes, okay, you know, there are clever students, they've done their research, they understand art materials and techniques, but actually what about them? Because this is art, this is a creative subject. I want to see that they've engaged with the theme and that they've got opinions and that they are actually expressing themselves not just following instructions or copying, which obviously is not how you access the high grades. So, I'm just reading through. I've used straight long leaves to create complementary vertical lines, mirroring the line of the fingers. When planning this artwork, I linked to my initial photography inspired by hands and anatomy. I'm interested in the ways that hands are such a sensitive part of our bodies and I use to guide us through the world. We reach out and touch with our hands and they're often one of the first ways that we experienced something after looking at it. Hands connect with each other and other people, both physically and symbolically. We hold hands with people that we love, we signal, greet and communicate with hands when meeting and talking to people. I chose the image of the two hands interlocking as it could be interpreted as a connection between two people. So, I've had to make choices that that's something the examiner wants to see that you are making judgements and choices. The leaves that I have included in my final piece remind me of walks in the countryside where absentmindedly I reach out and let the long grass pass through my fingers. I'm happy with this piece of work but moving forward, I want to explore scale, working with mixed media, but perhaps considering different combinations of materials. Okay, so I'll just highlighted here the kind of things that we expect to see in the comment part of your evaluation. So, first of all, my starting point, so I talked there about how I looked at anatomy and made a particular focus on hands and why I particularly focused on hands. I talked about the symbolism, that's good, isn't it?. If you can have a little bit of metaphor, symbolism as a great artistic tradition the examiners would love to see. We're not just doing things to please the examiners by the way, it's a really good habit to get into, to start thinking about art in this way. I've mentioned the leaves and the fact that they also have symbolism. Here's a bit of a secret, so their hands did have symbolism, all of that was true, the leaves I added in, 'cause I was looking at William Morris. and then as I was writing this, I thought, well, actually they do remind me that connection between hands and leaves, does remind me of walks I've been on where the grass is really long and you can let it run through your hands. But I didn't necessarily have that thought before I produced a piece of work. That's okay, I think that's absolutely fine. Don't go crazy with it, don't stop crow barring loads of other random things like, oh, the nails look a bit bitten because I was nervous about meeting my boyfriend or whatever. You don't need to put a thing like that. You don't need to go over the top with this, but if something else does occur to you, there's nothing to stop you. Continuing with that kind of thought process and thinking about other ways that your final piece is personal and meaningful because that really is the key to accessing those very top grades. Personal and meaningful, how does it relate to you? And what is the meaning behind it? Please, please let that be a meaning. Please let it not just be that you have taken a photo, thought it looked quite good and decided to draw it. And at the end of the day, anything that you've photographed is going to be personal, so please don't get anxious about the personal thing. Don't feel that you've got to go ahead and start revealing your innermost secrets to the examiner. That's absolutely not what's needed. I mean, it's lovely if people do reveal a bit of themselves but it's not what's needed, what's needed is just to show that this is something that you have observed and experienced, which you will have done if you worked from a photograph and that's why photography is important. Okay, so I've talked about all of these things already. I think I've said quite a lot of detail, but the first thing we're going to be doing is talking about content. The second thing is connection. So remember the artist and also how the features of their work, how it links to your work, what you've adopted, what you didn't use, can also be a feature. When you do your final comment by the way, I didn't mention that I did the even better if I talked about it, it would be quite nice to make this bigger. It would be quite nice to use different materials. By the way, don't say bigger, say it would be nice to work on a larger scale. So, we'll go through these one step at a time. So, if you could please go and get yourself a pen and paper, I recommend lined paper or do I? Do you know you're art students? so, it's absolutely fine to work on blank paper or maybe think about some kind of creative presentation idea. Maybe you could draw your own lines in that aren't straight. I mean, don't go too crazy with it. Not all examiners have great eyesight. Sometimes they struggle to read if it's too difficult. Okay, so if you can hit pause and go and get those things please. Okay, so the first thing that you're going to be doing then is talking about content, just a reminder, this is the description just purely, what is the picture about subject? So, it's lovely to start with a sentence. The subject of this piece is, a composition, is it top in the top, orientated towards the top? I mentioned that mine was orientated towards the bottom. Left, right? Where are things arranged? Is there something in the centre? Hopefully there is. Line, tone, shape, form, colour, texture, pattern. Remember use that as a checklist mentally but don't necessarily write it as a checklist. In fact, please don't write it as a checklist. It doesn't read well. Okay, so there's the reminders on the slide. If you can pause the video to complete this and resume when you're finished. Okay, how did you get on? Fingers crossed you got on right with that bit. That hopefully it's fairly straightforward. Well done, you're one third of the way through. we can do this guys, let's go for the next one. So this is connections where you're talking about the links to artists, by the way, it can be more than one artist. If you've looked at more than one artist, well done, that is better. Any features that you've picked up along the way, if it's the evaluation of a whole project, maybe at the end of an exam, then it would be good if you've linked to more than one artist, talked about different things you took from different artists. Okay, so there are the reminder points on the poor slide. Now is your opportunity to pause the video and have a go at writing it, let's see how you get on. Okay, you can pause now and resume when you finished. Okay, how do you do? Okay, that is a bit of a trickier exercise. Maybe you went on Google and did a little bit of research. Maybe it took a little bit longer. It would be lovely if you could keep going. I'll be very proud of you can keep going. The next bit is my favourite bit, is always the fun bit, and it's so important to the examiner to see that you have made personal and meaningful connections. So the final thing, if you can comment. So writing in full sentences please, thinking about how do the artist inform your work? How is it personal? How is it meaningful? Talk about your experiences and inspiration and don't forget it would be great if you could also add in a bit of WWWEBI, what went well even better if. Okay, so I'm just going to go into the poor slide, which has got prompts there. And when you've done that, you will finished your evaluation and you can be really proud of yourself, it will be a good day and a good lesson. Okay, so here's the poor slide, pause video to complete the task and resume when you finished, nearly there. Hey, well done, you've done it. That's fantastic, I'm so proud of you. It is a bit of a slog and potentially this has taken you a little bit of a longer than an hour. If it hasn't, you can always come back and have another look and if you didn't manage to get it all done, don't worry, there's always another time. And obviously if you're working to one hour targets, then potentially you will need to come back to it. But at least you've had to go and at least you know what the main aims are of that. And if you have done it all really well done. Okay, there is a quiz, so please take time to complete the lesson quiz. I think you'll do very well, if you actually sat through and listened to the whole lesson and finally share your work with Oak National. If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak. Okay, lovely to see you, can't wait to see you again. Have a good day, bye.

Exit Quiz: Evaluating

Completed: Evaluating

In this lesson we are going to learn about the process of evaluating work: What to write, how to organise it and how to make sure you are providing all the crucial evidence for the exam board.

Art

Evaluating

Video

Final Quiz

Lesson Complete