Delivered during one day per week throughout Semester one. Problem solving and visual investigative briefs are set to engage, visual research, visual experiments, personal reflection, recording & collecting as well as visual & analytical aids to developing ideas, investigation and curiosity. Idea storming, mind maps and café style group discussion are used to support the development of the student’s creative practice. Students present their research notebooks with examples of artist’s and designer’s work with personal notes accompanying their research visual experiments.

DURATION: 3 WEEKS; ASSESSMENT: SUMMATIVE; In this first notebook project supported by slide talk and introduction, students are asked to use their notebooks as a tool in developing ideas. Students are asked to produce multiple pages in their notebooks in response to: 5 words associated with Memory. 5 images of objects that evoke happy or sad memories for you. 5 lines from 5 different poems associated with memory. 5 photographic images and / or drawings of environments that evoke happy memories for you. 5 colour / black and white sketches of objects you or someone you know likes to collect. 5 objects you remember using that changed your life. 5 current fashion statements that are retro, 5 words associated with Memory including how it is expressed in other languages, Look up the term nostalgia and create 5 different works of collage that are nostalgic.

DURATION: 3 WEEKS; ASSESSMENT: SUMMATIVE; Students are introduced to a key work, for example: The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. They are asked to research and respond to multiple questions including why people seem to be having such good fun in it. What are they doing with the fruit? Why are some people being eaten by animals? What are cross- fertilization of Old World and New World mythologies. Why are there 3 panels? What do they mean? Enlarge a section and make a sketch, make another sketch add something ,Research the meanings of associated words and phrases,
Research books and films that look at the idea of Otherworlds, Make a list of films and books and add images of these in their notebook.

DURATION: 3 WEEKS; ASSESSMENT: SUMMATIVE; Following an introduction and presentation, students are asked to research and design a book cover comprising of text and images. They are asked multiple questions and prompts including researching 6 examples of book covers that inspire them. To think about a novel, poetry book, or text book that you really like and develop a layout for its cover using a template Make sketches in your notebook of how you might draw, illustrate or type the title of the book and the authors name and develop an image for the front of the book. Use a variety of media to make experiments and reference designers and artists that have inspired them.

DURATION 3 WEEKS; ASSESSMENT: SUMMATIVE; Create notebook pages rich with small drawings, tiny paintings, collages, found objects and photographs of the things you encounter in your daily life. Look closely at your immediate environment and document it in your notebook. This is to amplify your perception, to encourage you to notice and find new things in your familiar environment etc. Each page of your notebook should be organised according to colour. For example, in week 1 try to document all the red objects you come across in your home/room/garden/locale. Fill a double page spread in your notebook with depictions of these objects. At the end of this project, you should have multiple, double page spreads in your notebook of small drawings / paintings / collage / photographs / found objects

Where possible during the VISUAL STUDIES blocks, the history of art and design and cultural studies courses will compliment the studio briefs, relating each studio project to an historical and critical discussion. Suggested topics: • The invention of perspective. • The role of the European Avant Garde. • Modernism and Modernity. • Image and Text • The Bauhaus • Semiotics