Students Can Take 2 IBDP Arts Subjects!

February 13, 2019

It’s February, and grade 10 students in my school are starting to consider and possibly start selecting the subjects they would like to study in grade 11 as part of their Diploma Programme courses. My school is a ‘full’ IB school: we offer all four IB...

Exploring the World Around You

January 30, 2019

The senior examining and assessment teams have been looking through examples of work submitted in the recent visual arts examination sessions (May and November 2017 and 2018) in order to find helpful samples for teachers. It has become clear that occasionally art...

The Best Primary Source – Talk to the Artist!

January 2, 2019

Research into art The Comparative Study and the Process Portfolio both involve some level of research into and review of artworks. Inevitably, for many students a lot of this research is ‘second-hand’, e.g. looking for information on the Internet. There is nothing...

I Know about Assessment…But What’s ‘Best Fit’?

November 19, 2018

Assessment At the time of writing this, I’m moderating some work uploaded for the IA (visual arts exhibition) component for the November examination session, which means spending a lot of time scrutinizing artworks on multiple large screen monitors and also...

The Visual Arts Exhibition: Is Contemporary Art Penalized?

October 15, 2018

Conceptual Qualities? I was recently in conversation with the DP Visual Arts Chief Examiner, Subject Manager and Principal Examiner for Exhibition SL. The Subject Manager was interested in particular in our interpretation of the ‘Conceptual Qualities’...

Life Drawing: Is Nudity a Problem?

August 27, 2018

Does your school offer life-drawing? By this I mean do you, as a visual arts student, have the opportunity to spend time drawing and/or painting a naked human being who is posing so that you can make these artworks while he/she stands (or sits etc) in front of you?...