IB Visual Arts (HL) (1st Year) (Period 3)

The IB Visual Arts course emphasizes both students' creative process and their final artistic product in 2-D or 3-D arts forms. Students will produce investigation workbooks (Journals) to support, inform, develop and refine studio work through sustained contextual, visual and critical investigation. A multicultural understanding of the moral, social, and economic values of art will be developed.  IB Visual Arts students will actively pursue the questions “What is art?”, “Why do people create art?”, and” What makes art valuable?”  This will enable the student to develop critical thinking and to form their own perceptions. Last but not least, students will learn how to connect their research to their own work, creating art that expresses personal meaning within a cultural, historical and discipline-based context. Throughout the course, students will be expected to be self-driven and are given the opportunity to determine their individual course of study. This includes content, media, and subject matter. The nature of the course changes over the two year period.  It begins primarily teacher-directed, with students following assignments and instructions which are designed to get them working in their Investigation Workbooks (Journals) and developing ideas for the course of inquiry they will follow in their studio work.  This course will culminate in an individual exhibition of studio work at the end of the second year. A specific and clearly defined criterion is set for both the studio component of the course as well as the Investigation Workbook (Journal).