Materials and processes
Art & Design · Key Stage 3 · The School
Choosing a medium
Graphite: controlled, correctable, tonal. Charcoal: fast, dark, physical, messy. Ink: committed, no undo, superb for line. Watercolour: transparent, layers build up, white is the paper. Acrylic: opaque, quick-drying, forgiving. The medium is a decision, not what happened to be in the drawer.
Printmaking
MONOPRINT: one impression from an inked plate. RELIEF (lino, wood): cut away what stays white, ink the surface, print — and remember it comes out MIRRORED. SCREEN PRINT: ink pushed through a stencilled mesh. Printmaking teaches planning, because the cut is irreversible.
Testing first
Professionals test. A colour on scrap of the same paper, a lino offcut, a small maquette before a large sculpture. Sketchbook tests take minutes and save hours, and at GCSE the tests themselves carry marks under refinement — the finished piece alone never scores as well as the finished piece plus the evidence of how it was arrived at.
Draw a stormy sea three times. CHARCOAL: broad, dark, smudgeable — the mass and drama come easily and detail is impossible. FINE PEN: every line deliberate, so you get texture and precision, and no atmosphere. WATERCOLOUR: light, bleeding edges, unpredictable — good for spray and distance, hopeless for a sharp edge. The subject suits one of the three, and knowing which is the choice you are being marked on.
Mixed media fails on sequence more than on taste. Wax or oil pastel goes down BEFORE a watercolour wash, because it resists the water — do it after and nothing happens. Ink goes over watercolour once it is DRY; on a wet wash it bleeds into a grey haze. Watercolour will not sit on acrylic at all, because acrylic dries to a plastic film and the water beads off it. Test the order on scrap, not on the piece.