On 4^th March, Year 10 GCSE Art students and some Year 9 students who have shown an interest in studying GCSE Art next year, were given the amazing opportunity to meet and work with World-renowned artist Ian Murphy.

Students were able to see first-hand some of Ian’s sketchbooks and paintings, as he explained to them how he works and where his ideas come from. They were able to flick through his fascinating sketchbooks and ask questions in a lovely relaxed environment at the start of the workshop day. Later, students watched live demonstrations form Ian as he talked them through his chosen materials and processes, before they were able to trial the same techniques themselves.

The atmosphere throughout the day was fabulous, with students all engaged and inspired. Ian encouraged student’s to ‘have a go’ and not be too worried about producing the ‘perfect’ piece as they created a series of samples using layering, texture, mixed-media and inks.

The emphasis was on risk taking and embracing ’happy accidents’ to learn from, inform creative outcomes and open-minded experimentation. As an Art Department, we are delighted with this as we aim to harvest this mindset in all our students within their Art education here at PGHS.

Students gained a unique insight into Ian’s creative thought process from initial small pen sketches gathered on his worldwide travels to final canvas outcomes on a very large scale. Ian had brought a sample of these large pieces of work with him for us to view, one of which being approximately 10ft long!

Feedback from the workshop was incredibly positive and students involved were very enthusiastic about what they had learned and experienced.

As an Art department, we were incredibly proud of all who took part, allowing themselves to step out of their drawing comfort zone.

All students were impeccably behaved and were a credit to our school.

Mrs Gerrard

Art Department

Year 8 have been working on their Wayne Thiebaud artist copies, focusing on colour mixing and blending. I’m sure you’ll agree, they’ve made a smashing start! Year 8 textiles have used the heat press and the sewing machines to make a bag fit for a festival.

Mrs Mitchell

Head of Art and Design

Year 10 have created cyanotypes which is a traditional method of photography and takes inspiration from Anna Atkins, English botanical artist, collector and photographer and the first person to illustrate a book with photographic images.

Her nineteenth-century cyanotypes used light exposure and a simple chemical process to create impressively detailed blueprints of botanical specimens. 

Anna’s innovative use of new photographic technologies merged art and science and exemplified the exceptional potential of photography in books.

Mrs Mitchell

Head of Art and Design

Year 11 have been working on their exam project and we have some really thought provoking work based on childhood memories and buildings.

Mrs Mitchell

Curriculum Leader for Art and Design

Every Friday, I host a Year 7 disco ball painting at lunchtime. The students get an early lunch pass and come up to the art room, eat their lunch, listen to Sophie Ellis Bextor Kitchen Disco sounds and paint their disco ball. It has been a real buzz of activity and has been great to get to know the new Year 7 students. This year, Booths Supermarket in Penwortham got in touch and asked for some festive artwork. We decided that these would make the perfect festive display. We added a topper, a ribbon and a little sparkle. They looked absolutely stunning and I am very proud of all of your hard work and dedication! Well done to everyone who attended every Friday lunchtime. Now to think of something new to do this term…

Mrs Mitchell

Head of Art & Photography

It has been an amazing term in Art and Photography. We are very proud of the work that all of our students have done, both KS3 and KS4 and would like to congratulate them all on a great term!

Year 7

Our year 7 classes have settled into KS3 Art and Photography very well.  Most recent work has been on the theme of The Great Barrier Reef with some very detailed studies involving careful observation of pattern and texture. Most recently they have enjoyed a very practical hands-on workshop during lessons trialling the technique of Press Printing. There have been some lovely results and students thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Year 9

Year 9 have worked extremely hard on their Architecture project, using inspiration from the artists Hundertwasswer, Gaudi and Hadid. They showed resilience when learning the technique of perspective drawing, and many showed skill and a clear understanding after lots of practice!

Please keep an eye out in Booths, Penwortham this Christmas for our brilliant disco balls that Year 7 have painted.

Emma Mitchell

Head of Art & Photography

Year 11 have been working independently on their Portraiture project. They are coming up with some really creative ideas that they are developing in Photoshop. 

Year 10 have made a brilliant start this year. They started off with their natural forms project photographing slices of fruit. In photoshop, they have learnt how to change the colours of the fruit, add layers and flip and rotate them to create these inspiring colourful patterns. They have played around with different filters and changing the opacity. 

Mrs Mitchell

Head of Art and Design

Joël Penkman is a New Zealand artist, living and working in Liverpool, England. She paints semi-photorealistic, contemporary still-life and a whole lot of food! 

Originally from the South Island of New Zealand, she studied Graphic Design at Canterbury University. After graduating, she moved to the UK and worked as a graphic designer for 7 years before making the move to painting in 2011.  

Most of her work is in egg tempera, a paint that is made by mixing egg yolk with powdered pigment and a little water. It was something that piqued her interest so she taught herself how to make and use this unusual paint and it turned out to be something wonderful.

A small group of Year 8 students got to meet Joël and see some examples of her work. They then got to mix their own paints using raw egg and pigment and created some fantastic paintings of some classic biscuits and sweets.

Well done, Year 8! 

Mrs Mitchell

Head of Art & Photography

Year 7

A very warm welcome to PGHS Art Department, Year 7! It has been a pleasure to meet you all. I hope you’ve all had a good few weeks settling in.

In Art lessons, we have got straight into painting. We have been learning about colour and the different colour groups such as complementary, analogous, warm and cold colours.

Year 8

Year 8 have been learning how to draw the features of the face as part of their Portraiture Project. As you can see, we have been practising using guidelines to help with the shape of our features.

Year 9

Year 9 have been learning how to draw using one-point perspective. I am blown away with their precision and ambition with choosing the challenge which was to draw boxes stacked and a hole in a box. Well done, Year 9!

Year 10

Year 10 had a wonderful start to Photography with creating food narratives – a little bit of fun to get us going with GCSE Photography.

Year 11

Year 11 have been creating some fantastic portraits inspired by famous artists. Can you guess any of these?

Mrs Mitchell

Curriculum Leader for Art and Design

Every year we hold a GCSE Art and Photography exhibition to celebrate the hard work that our students have put into their portfolios. This year certainly didn’t disappoint. We were blown away with the exceptionally high standard of work and creative thinking.

Thank you to everyone who came along to celebrate their success, we received many compliments. Many of our students are going on to college to study Art and Photography at A Level. We are immensely proud of you all and wish you all the best for the future.

Mrs Mitchell

Head of Art, Photography and Design