My name is Annie and I am currently in Year 10 studying Art GCSE. From a young age, art was introduced to me through visiting galleries to observe the work of others and participating in art classes outside of school. This helped me to admire and appreciate many different styles of art and discover my passion for creativity. As a little child, I drew many still-life arrangements, made paintings and applied any artistic ideas I had into my sketchbook, which greatly helped me build confidence and originality.  

During my journey throughout Blackheath High School, I have always felt supported and provided with amazing opportunities in Art, particularly through the 11+ Art Scholarship, which has introduced me to an amazing community of young artists at Blackheath High School and enabled me to be part of some special projects where we are able to share and explore our creative interests. 

Recently, I really enjoyed a ceramic sculpture workshop, where a professional artist, Rebecca Griffiths, taught us about different ways to use clay to create a successful ceramic sculpture. This workshop helped me to be bolder, more confident and more spontaneous, which has really expanded my abilities to brainstorm and ideate. I was also fascinated by Rebecca’s very personal and moving ideas for her sculptures and I’m grateful for all her useful advice! 

At the start of Year 10, I participated in a project entitled ‘Book Art Book’ (July 2023), where we were challenged to choose an existing book from which to create an original art piece. My stimulus came from an old book which my grandma had passed down to me, about all kinds of unknown, troubling, and frightening sea-life. ‘The Story of the Pacific’ by Hendrik Willem van Loon, first published in 1940, is a factual history of the exploration of the Pacific which includes mysterious depths of the oceans – in places where we can’t rely on our sense of sight, our imaginations can be fuelled with feelings of wonder, awe, and curiosity – often inspiring far-fetched beliefs. I wanted to mix historical fact with superstitious fiction; illustrating the margins of the page with treasure maps, shipwrecks and brave seafarers, these vignettes form a border around the central motif of a Kraken, a mythical squid-like sea monster from Norse folklore that aggressively attacked ships by crushing, capsizing or pulling them down into the dark depths of the ocean. I chose watercolour as my medium to complement the pencil illustrations. The book is intended to be viewed in an open position, so that the deep-sea monster contained inside can leap out from the page. 

Lastly, my GCSE Art coursework theme for this year is ‘Decay’. We looked at many detailed and textured natural forms, including mushrooms, skulls, acorns, poppyseeds and decaying pomegranates. From these forms, we created various botanical studies, including biro drawings, embroidered mushroom patterns, watercolour paintings, pencil drawings and sublimation ink collages. I really enjoyed the biro drawing task, inspired by Henry Moore’s ‘Elephant Skull’ etchings, because the cross-hatching techniques created a fun, dimensional and abstract outcome. In the future, I really hope to continuously improve my knowledge and skills in Art and achieve all my goals with the continuing support and help from the Blackheath High School Art department. 

Read more about our Art & Textiles GCSE + A-level Exhibition 2024.

Written by Annie, Art Scholar, Year 10