artist research page gcse

The Art Teacher

Art Lesson Ideas, Plans, Free Resources, Project Plans, and Schemes of Work. An 'outstanding' art teacher in Greater Manchester. Teaching KS3 and KS4 art and design.

Artist Ian Murphy creates drawings, paintings, prints and mixed-media pieces inspired by architecture and different textures. As well as using his sketchbook to draw and think about his ideas, he makes large-scale work and uses lots of materials to create distressed surfaces that he paints and draws over the top of.

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Ian Murphy is a British artist who travels the world to capture exquisite vistas and explore different architectural styles. After studying Fine Art and Art & Design at A-Level, Ian Murphy studied at university in Sheffield and gained his degree in Fine Art, Painting and Printmaking.

Ian Murphy often uses different types of papers to create layers in his backgrounds. What papers can you see in the pieces above? Why do you think this is? What effect do the layers of paper in the background have on the work?

If you look very carefully at Ian Murphy’s paintings, you will notice a lot of subtle, pastel colours on top of rich layers of textures. The use of a rough surface adds to the ‘aged’ effect, and gives us an impression of the location that inspired the artwork. It is very clear what the subject is, but sometimes Ian Murphy’s use of colour could be described as abstract. Although the colours have been exaggerated, the paintings still look realistic because of the artist’s use of tone. The very dark shadows next to the very light areas help to make the paintings look 3D.

What do you think Ian Murphy has used in the background of his paintings above? What materials, apart from the paint, have created the textures?

I have shared lessons and plans for a GCSE Art Landscape Project here – enjoy!

In his drawings, artist Ian Murphy is trying to capture a mood or atmosphere with his use of dark tones and gestural mark-making techniques. The soft, light grey tones in the water above have been created by rubbing into the graphite and removing it from the paper. This ‘fading’ reflects the title of the work. What other mark-making techniques can you see in his drawings?

What materials will you need to make artwork like Ian Murphy?

Here are the materials I recommend to make artwork like Ian Murphy. I generally suggest paying for quality products which will last longer and give you a better finish. Particularly with oil paints and brushes.

Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Paint Set

Hog Bristles Professional Paint Brush Set

Soft Chalk Pastel Set

Click here if you would like to see different landscape artists !

Ian Murphy has recently started to put excellent tutorial videos on his YouTube channel , I’ve found them really useful in lessons.

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Could you make a small donation to help cover the cost of keeping this site free? It’s getting more expensive to keep online. Thank you!

What do you think of Ian Murphy’s artwork? How could you describe it? Let me know in the comments! If you have found any of these resources useful please share this site on your networks / socials – thanks! 🙂

DOWNLOAD this page below, for free, as an Artist Research handout to use in your lesson. It includes all of the facts and images, and has questions for students to answer.

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5 thoughts on “ ian murphy ”.

His pieces “Three Kings In The Chasm” and “Heading East” are powerful!!! Great use of atmospheric perspective and strong focal point! Powerful!!!

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They are! I love the use of colour and how atmospheric his work is too.

Incredible! We’re blessed to have the gift to create! Couldn’t have asked for anything else…

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Hi, I loved this post. Can you do on just like this on frida kahlo

Hi, thanks 🙂 I have done a Frida Kahlo profile here: https://theartteacher.net/2019/02/27/frida-kahlo-artist-research-lesson

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Making and teaching art. Based in Manchester. View all posts by art_teacher_mcr

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Teaching Resource

Research skills and exam support

Designed to inspire ideas for research in the gallery, classroom and everyday life

About How to Research

Research brief, how do artists research, example discussion points and activities.

This resource was developed to offer creative research strategies to support a broad range of Art & Design curriculums for GCSE, BTech, and A-Level students.

How to Research models how artists can carry out research, with a specific focus on writing, drawing and looking. We invited three artists to respond to a project brief, providing prompts that encouraged them to draw connections between their particular thinking and approach to research, and their art-making practice.

The contents page of each booklet details this brief, encompassing methods of writing personal responses and collecting images and inspirations to compile research files; your students can discover new ways of approaching these tasks through the artists’ responses. We have also included discussion points and activities throughout the booklets, prompting students to further their research in their own ways.

Donald Rodney's sketchbook (Tate Archive ref: TGA 200321)

Used with permission

This activity invites your class to build research files of their own, gathering and developing their ideas to support their ongoing coursework. The prompts provide a framework that you can adapt in numerous ways, acknowledging your expertise in best supporting your pupils’ needs.

Ask your students to each find the following:

• An image of something they already have, that they currently use to made art
• An image of their own artwork
• An image of an artwork from the Tate collection that inspires them
• A quote or textual reference that inspires them

Then, challenge them to respond to the following questions, through writing, annotation, drawing, making, or more.

• What connections can they find between the images and texts they’ve chosen?
• Explain a process they use to help them process ideas and inspirations.
• What question would they ask an artist about their research? Which artist(s) would they ask it to?

Encourage your students to collect all the work they produce through this project in a sketchbook or folder. Where could they go next? How might this research influence their own artmaking?

Image from Drawing as Research  

© Sovay Berriman

Drawing As Research

Go for a walk. As you are walking, think of a question or a problem you are trying to resolve in your art and see if you can generate any new answers. Does the physical process of walking stimulate your thought process in the same way it does Berriman’s?

Make a drawing that explores your original question or problem, and any new ideas generated. Think about how you might relate this drawing to any other drawing, or artwork, you have made previously. Use this connection to make a new work, and so on. Record the connection between the works as you go.

By walking to produce ideas, Berriman might be considered to be engaging with a ‘non-art’ process to generate art. Are there any non-art processes that help you think through ideas, and if a non-art process generates ideas for artworks, is it still a non-art process?

Looking As Research

Take a photograph of a photograph, either on a screen or a printed picture. What do you see now that you couldn’t see in the original image? What happens if you repeat this process – how does the actual photograph itself (not what it is picturing) start to become visible, and is this interesting to you? How do you identify what is of interest to you?

How quickly do your interests change? Can you map out your changing interests through artworks/artists you have been drawn do? What can you learn from your map about the way that you are currently looking at art and what questions does the map raise for you?

Writing As Research

Get a pile of Post-It notes, record cards or just small scraps of paper. On each separate Post-It, card or piece of paper write down one of the ideas that you are currently working with in an essay, an artwork you are making, or just things you are thinking about. These can be quotations, single words that come to mind, questions, names and anything else you can think of. Stick them up on the wall in a way that makes sense to you. What new relations have formed? Leave them up overnight, or for a longer period of time, and then come back and rearrange them. How does this reordering change the meaning of the words? What new relations have formed? Write down new words or ideas that come to mind and add them to the wall.

This can be repeated for a week, a month, a year…

Use your Post-It wall as a starting point for other forms of writing; poems, lists, stories, scripts, descriptions… Now use someone else’s Post-It wall to do the same.

How to Research booklets are also available to pick up at the Schools Desk at Tate Britain and Tate Modern.

To further support your students at exam time see our Exam Help pages for more ideas and inspiration.

Bring Your Class to Tate

School visits to tate britain, school visits to tate modern.

• Cover/sub lesson
• Women artists
• Contemporary artists
• Scheme of Work
• Literacy in art

‘How to do Artist Research’: new worksheet

• by AMIMAMIM
• November 6, 2019 April 8, 2020

I’ve created a straightforward guide to Artist Research aimed at KS4 students. It provides a clear template for presenting investigations into other artists work in an appropriate way, and to a high standard.

Using this worksheet frequently will get students in the habit of presenting excellent artist research. And you can use the handout at KS3 and KS5, depending on the ability of your groups.

On the first page of the worksheet, students fill-in the information they find from various sources. In addition to the boxes to complete, there are prompts to encourage relevant responses. The second page gives 20 questions to prompt thoughtful analysis.

I’ve avoided generic questions that tend to produce banal answers. Instead the second page of the worksheet provides thought provoking questions. For example: “What is the most important thing about the artwork? Why do you think this?” How big is the artwork? Does this effect the impact of the work on the viewer? How?” “Is there anything strange or shocking?” This resource is available through TES ( click here ) or TpT ( click here ), or you can download by clicking the image above, or visiting my resources shop .

I have plenty more resources available to download which support artist research: poster to widen and improve vocabulary artist research poster to display bookmark infographic with artist research steps

In addition, you may also be interested in my worksheets on various artists. These provide information as well as written and practical activities in response to their work; more about them here . They make great handouts for cover work, extension activities, whole class or homework…

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Artists Listed by Theme

Egyptian Hieroglyphics

Federico Babina

Fletcher Benton

Kate Greenaway

Altered Books

Alexander Korzer-Robinson

Alexi Francis

Brian Dettmer

Tom Phillips – A Humument

Betty Pepper

Anatomical Art

Damien Hirst

Gunther von Hagens

Leonardo Da Vinci

Lisa Nilsson

Animals in Art

Caroline Parrott

Caitlin Hackett

Elizabeth Frink (sculpture & drawings)

George Stubbs

Henri Rousseaux

Henry Moore (sheep sketchbook)

Kendra Haste

Konstantin Korobov

Manet’s Cat Drawings

Mark Powell

Mr Finch (textile insects and animals)

Nicola Henley

Nicola Hicks

Polly Morgan

Rosalind Monks

Thomas Hill (Wire Sculpture)

M. F. Husain

Satish Gujral

Dominique Fung

Cai Guo-Qiang

Art & Words

Adam Pendleton

Barbara Kruger

Bob and Roberta Smith

Cheryl Sorg

Caroline Dangerfield  (see beach work)

Christopher Wool

Kristy Patterson

Jenny Holzer

John Clarke

Mira Schendel

Peter Blake

Roy Lichtenstein

Shepard Fairey

Tom Phillips

Ismail Gulgee

Chen Shizeng

Artists with Autism

Beth Wilson

Gilles Tréhin

Hayden Gardner

Kamble Smith

Megan Rhiannon

Peter Howsen

Stephen Wiltshire

Artist Research

Research Task That Links to This Page.

Anselm Kiefer

Costa Magarakis

Jane Fairhurst

Jospeh Cornell

Kurt Schwitters

Louise Nevelson

Lloyd Wright

Rennie Mackintosh

Fortunato Depero

Linda Apple

Lisa Takahashi

Pablo Picasso

Taliah Lempert

Black Artists

Aaron Douglas

Alma Thomas

Amy Sherald

Augusta Savage

Carrie Mae Weems

Chris Ofili

Clementine Hunter

Corey Barksdale

Deborah Roberts

Delita Martin

Ebony Patterson

Elizabeth Catlett

Faith Ringgold

Henry Ossawa Tanner

Jacob Laurence

John Woodrow Wilson

Kadir Nelson

Kara Walker

Kehinde Wiley

Kerry James Marshall

Lois Maliou Jones

Mark Bradford

Minnie Evans

Najee Dorsey

Norman Lewis

Rashid Johnson

Reggie Laurent

Romare Bearden

Sam Gilliam

(See Also Cityscapes & Interiors)

Clare Caulfield

Daniela Gullotta

David Hepher

Hundertwasser

Kyle Henderson

Richard Wilson

Thomas Girtin

Vicky Ambery-Smith

Gordon Matta-Clark

Jon Measures

Nigel Peake

Rachel Whiteread

Cornelia Parker

Coastal Scenes

Frank Newbould

Maggie Hambling

Martin Parr (photography)

Churches & Graveyards

Casper David French

Cefyn Burgess

Dennis Creffield

Expressionist Church

John Sell Cotman

Marc Chagall

Robert Delaunay

Rob Pointon

Stanley Spencer

Benjamin Sack

Dario Moschetta

Paul Catherall

Gordon Chung

Bernie Hubert

Paul Kenton

Andy Singleton (papercuts)

Chiho Aoshima

Climate Change

See Climate change artists here

The Boyle Family

Domenico Gnoli

Sarah Graham

Georgia O’Keefe

Brian Scott

Anne Marie Grgich

Carl M Crawford

Derek Gores

Elizabeth Gower

Hannah Hoch

James Gleeson

John Stezaker

Mary McCleary

Raoul Hausmann

Richard Hamilton

Sidney Nolan

Teesha Moore

Tony Fitzpatrick

Rashid Rana

Collections

John Dilnot

Andrea Joseph

Lisa Milroy

Joel Penkman

Anthony Caro

David Batchelor

David Hockney

Jim Lambie (amazing flooring installations!)

Henri Matisse

Maximo Laura

Picasso – Blue Period

Piccaso – Rose Period

Van Gogh – Yellow!

Bashir Mirza

Ahmed Parvez

Bernice Bing

Tiffany Chung

Pacita Abad

Philemona Williamson

Bisa Butler

Compositions

Ben Nicholson

Fred Tomaselli

Ruby Silvious

Cultural Histories

Bandha Ali (Pakistan)

Frida Khalo (Mexico)

Lubaina Himid (Black British Representation)

Paul Gauguin (Tahiti)

Pema Rinzin (Tibet)

Sara Midda (South of France)

Stephanie Ledoux (Various)

Derek Overfield

Georg Meyer Wiel

Laura Knight

Lois Greenfield

Rosemary Butcher

Sally McKay

The Mirages

Toulouse Lautrec

Andrea Mantegna

Andy Warhol

Audrey Flack

Cezanne (Skulls)

The Chapman Brothers

Christian Boltanski

David Maisel – Library of Dust

Doris Salcedo

Edvard Munch

Kathe Kollowitz

Konrad Smolenski

Rankin (Photography)

Vanitas Paintings

Walter Schels & Beate Lakotta (photography)

Abigail Hutton

Kay Neilsen

Loretta Lux

Yayoi Kusama

Andreas Topfer

Annie Albers

Heath Robinson

Jane Lackey

Louise Bourgeois

Susan Hiller

Environmental Artists

Andy Goldworthy

Chris Jordan

David Buckland

Edith Meusnier

Jenny Kendler

Nnenna Okore

Richard Shilling

Antoine Stevens

Guy Denning

Kathe Kollwitz

Munch (The Scream)

Picasso (particularly blue period)

Every Day Objects

(See also Still Life)

Michael Craig Martin

Ulla Stina Wikander

Fairy Tales

Adrienne Segur

Arthur Rackham

Edmund Dulac

Warwick Goble

Chantal Joffe

Edward Henry Potthast

Frederick Cotman  (One of the Family)

Giovanni Battista Torriglia (A Happy Family)

Henry Moore

Keith Haring

Le Nain Brothers

Lisa Kokin  (see her family photo work)

Marjory Sarnat

Marta Gottfried  (We are sister)

Nicholas Nixon

Oldrich Kulhanek

Susan Ryder

Willian Hogarth (Tha Graham Children)

Zhang Xiaogang

Fantasy Landscapes

Bartholomew Beal

Carl Warner

Leonora Carrington

Raffi Kalenderian

Salvador Dali

Botanical Fish Illustration

Elaine Hahn

Gyotaku fish prints

Japanese Fish Art

Jeffery T. Larson (paintings)

Marcia Baldwin

Riusuke Fukahori (paintings on resin)

Fashion Designers

Betsey Johnson

Christian Siriano

Jean-Paul Gaultier

Matthew Williamson

Zandra Rhodes

Vivienne Westwood

Jack Tarpon

Leonardo da Vinci

Mathilde Nivet

Nicola Godden

Peter Lanyon

Yan Arthus-Bertrand

Etienne-Jules Marey

Angie Lewin

Beatriz Milhazes

Clarissa Hulse

Charles Ethan Porter

Deborah Harris

Georgia O’Keeffe

Irfan Cheema

Paul Morrison

Takashi Murakami

Vincent Keeling

William Morris

Muniba Mazari

Sarah Graham (sweets)

Elizabeth Kostojohn

Emma Dibben

Georgina Luck

Jason Mecier

Karen Appleton

Kate Brinkworth

Pamela Michelle Johnson

Peter Anton

Shawn Kenney

Susannah Blaxill

Wayne Thiebaud

Yayoi Kusama (Pumpkins!)

Yuni Yoshida

Annegret Soltau

Brno Del Zou

Antoni Gaudi Mosaics

David Hockeny Joiner Photographs

George Braque

Lucas Simoes

Michael Mapes

Nigel Henderson

Val Britton

Yeesookyung

Henri Moore

Michaelangelo

Albrecht Durer

Wan Jin Gim

For a Great Pinterest Board on Hands –  click here!

Hispanic Heritage Artists

Frida Khalo

Diego Rivera

Human Figure / Form

(see hands)

Anthony Gormley

Dimosthenis Prodromou

Jenny Saville

Mark Demsteader

Thomas Hart Benton

Abdur Rahman Chughtai

Bashir Ahmed

Hiroshi Sato

Yinka Shonibare

(See portrait artists)

Kristy Patterson (Flying Shoes Art Studio)

Tracey Emin

Ed Fairburn

Lubaina Himid

Yasumasa Morimura

Gillian Wearing

Tomoko Sawada  (Photography)

Cindy Sherman  (Photography)

Michael de Meng

Tazeen Qayyum

Illustration

Jillian Tamaki

Liselotte Watkins 

Maurice Sendak 

Quentin Blake

Raymond Briggs

Installations

Alan Kaprow

Annette Messager

Carsten Holler

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Judy Chicago

Marcel Duchamp

Olafur Eliasson

Abby Diamond

Anna Santos

Cornelia Hesse Honegger

Christopher Marley

Egyptian Scarab Beetle

Eugene Seguy

Fabian Pena

Jennifer Angus

Lucy Arnold

Steven Kutcher

Tessa Farmer

Anthony Green

Daniel De Blieck

Grace Cossington Smith

Howard Phipps

Andrew Wyeth

Chiharu Shiota

 Edvard Munch

Edward Hopper

 Gillian Wearing

 Ileana Hunter

 Jeffery Smart

 Jose Manuel Ballester

 Kathe Kollwitz

 Kelcy Taratoa

Markus Schinwald

Nidaa Badwan

 Paul Henry

 Phlegm on Instagram

Tehching Hsieh

Ai Weiwei ‘S.A.C.R.E.D.D’

Tracey Emin – ‘My Bed’

Van Gogh ‘At Eternity’s Gate’

(Personal Journeys and Geographical Journeys)

Andy Goldsworthy

Brett Whiteley

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

Hamish Fulton

Imants Tillers

Lubaina Hamid

Richard Long

Rosalie Gascoigne

For the theme of ‘Journeys’ you might also want to explore ‘Maps’ below.

(See Also Cityscape & Seascape)

Alfred Wallis

April Gornik

Bhavna Mistra

Heather Collins

Naomi Renouf

Patrick Heron

Rob Van Hoek

Suszi Corio

Tara Donovan

Terry Frost

Wong Chun Hei

Francis Newton Souza

Bhupen Khakhar

Brooks Shane Salzwedel

Catherine Yass

Deidre Adams

Kim McCormack

Lui Gonzales

Maud Vantours

Michael Murphy

Also consider the collage artists above.

Eduardo Paolozzi

Fernand Leger

Michael Lang

Shannon Rankin

Hennie Haworth

Tom Phillips (20 sites in 20 years)

Jennifer Collier

Mark Making

Jackson Pollock

Hans Hartung

Henry Moore (Sheep Sketchbook)

Mayan Art in The Met

Mayan Sculpture (Google Search)

Mayan Masks (Google Search)

Mental Health

Emily Coxhead

Gemma Correll

Peter Howson

Metamorphosis

Hugo D. Villa

M.C. Escher

Octavio Ocampo

Microbiology Art

Elin Thomas

Ernst Haeckel

Jason Hackenwerth

Klaris Reis

Laura McNamara

Rogan Brown

Seung-Hwan Oh

Dina Brodsky

Greg Gilbert

Hasan Kale 

khara Ledonne

Lorraine Loots 

Rosa de Jong

Salavat Fidai

Mixed Media

Nick Gentry

Lynne Whipple

Monoprinting Artists

Mosaic artists.

Anne Schwegmann-Fielding

Carrie Reichardt

Elaine M. Goodwin

Gary Drostle

Isaiah Zagar

Laurel True

Movement In Art

Degas (Ballet Dancers)

Georg Meyer-Wiel

Pema Rinzin

Umberto Boccioni

Adolf Wolfli

Archibald Motley

Idris Khan (Photography)

Timothy B Laydon

Narrative Art / Telling Stories

Grayson Perry

Julia Feld (Ceramics)

Paula Rego 

Shaun Tan (illustrator)

Su Blackwell

Nature/Natural Forms

Albertus Seba

Barbara Hepworth

Brett Weston (Photographer)

Cabinets of Curiosity

Georgia O Keeffe

Josef Frank

Juan Sanchez Cotan

Karl Blossfeldt

Kate Malone

Lisa Kokin (leaves)

Margaret Mee

Peter Randall Page

Rory McEwan

Rob Kesseler

Sandi Whetzel

Sarah Simblet

Sophie Munns

Thierry Despont

Yellena James

Grimanesa Amorós

Jeremy Mann

John Atkinson Grimshaw

Rene Magritte

Julie Arkle

Jasper Johns

Roman Opalka

Tatsue Miyajima

Artists who depict/communicate our changing world

See ‘Climate Change’ above.

See ‘Social Issues/Messages About Society’ below.

See ‘Recycling’ below.

Paper Artists 2D & 3D

Andy Singleton

Carrie Ann Schumacher

Julie Arkell

Lisa Neillson

Yulia Brodskaya

Bridget Riley

Emily Barletta

Evgeny Kiselev

Gustav Klimt

Michael Brennand Wood

Sarah Morris

Sonia and Robert Delaunay

People At Work

Anne Wallace

Breugel the Elder

Coit Tower Murals

Derek Slater

Egyptian Art

Evelyn Dunbar

Humphrey Spender

Joseph Herman

Judy Taylor

Richard Prince

Winold Reiss

(See Also Human Form)

Beverly McIver

Chuck Close

David Adey (collage)

Elizabeth Frink

Filipp Lippi

James Mylne

John Everett Millais

John William Waterhouse

Jordan Rhodes

Keemo (Grafitti style portraits)

Kris Trappeniers

Nestor Canavarro

Lisa Kokin (see button work)

Martina Shapiro

Max Beckman

Tom Philips

Raja Ravi Varma

Rabindranath Tagore

Anjolie Ela Menon

Li Shan Chong

Amy Sherald 

Print Makers

Andy Warhol (screen printing)

Angie Lewin (Line & Woodcut)

Deborah Harris  (Lino)

Kathe Kollwitz (woodcut)

Mark Hearld (lithography)

Neil Shigley (Lino portraits)

Robert Rauchenberg (screen printing)

Mr Brainwash (screen printing)

Sarah Yakawonis

Racial Issues

Michelle Stitzlein  (Butterflys)

Gordon Bennett (Robots)

Yuken Teruya

Reflections

Bing Wright

Daniel Fahlström (HugeArt)

Kate Bright

Margarethe Vanderpas

Nicola McBride

Samantha French

Steve Mills

Frank Stella

Lee Bontecou

Lorenzo Ghiberti

Ashley Wood

Clayton Bailey

Eric Joyner

Fabio Napoleoni

Fabric Lenny

Gordon Bennett

Jake Parker

John Lytle Wilson

Lauren Briére

Leonard Zimmerman

Mike Rivamonte

Mr Hooper Art

Nam June Paik

Peter Brown

Pixel Pancho

Robin Davis

Alexis Arnold

Cornelia Hesse-Honegger

Daisaku Kawada

Karen Kamenetzky

Luke Jerram

Mark Francis

Martin Creed

Roger Hiorns

Steffan Dam

Terry Winters

Self Portraits

Cindy Sherman

Francis Bacon

Lucian Freud

Yasumasa Moimura

Helen Siever

Henry Moore (underground)

Skulls Bones & Anatomical

Alexander McQueen

Damien Hirst (diamond encrusted skull)

Georgia O’ Keeffe (animal bones)

Pieter Claesz

Social /Political

James Mylne (Political)

Kara Walker (Slavery)

Michael Rovner

Neil Shigley (Homelessness)

Eliza Southwood

Florian Nicole

George Bellows

Maxine Dodds

Lawrence Toynbee

Robert Delauney

Sam Guillemot

Sybil Andrews

Charles Hardaker

Giorgio Morandi

Irving Penn

Jane Cruickshank

Michael Craig-Martin

Patrick Caulfield

(See also ‘Texture’)

Anish Kapoor

Fayum Mummy Portraits

Surroundings

Dimitri Desiron

George Shaw

Ian McDonald

Niki de Saint Phalle

Alexander Calder

Amanda McCavour

Dale Chihuly

Jorge Mayet

Juan Sánchez Cotán

Peter Gentenaar

Rebecca Horn

Sally Smart

Seon Ghi Bahk

Olafur Eliasson (Sight, sound, touch)

Olfactory Art

Yayoi Kusama (Sight, sound, touch)

Yoko Ono (Touch)

Eric Reiger (aka HOT TEA)

Isabel Dibden Wright

Jilly Edwards (weaving)

Susie Freeman

Richard Box

Nava Lubelski

Mr Finch  (insects and animals)

Sonia Delaunay

Eric Sloane

Frank Auerbach

Jan Van Eyck

Jane Puylagarde

John Muafangejo

Lauren Collin

Maya Rochat

Sandra Meech

Tania Taranto

Van Gogh – Drawings

Van Gogh – Painting

Yasmina Alaoui

(See Bicycles Above)

Charles Demuth

Edouard Martinet

Gail Brodholt

Jim Darling

Michael Wolf

Peter Black Dazzle Ship

Under the Sea

(See the category ‘Fish’ above)

Courtney Mattison

Jason deCaires Taylor

Jenny Berry

Jill Krutik

Laura Jones

Margaret Wertheim

Shayne Greco 

Julie Shackson

Maggi Hambling

Van Gogh  (Starry Night Over the Rhone)

Alyssa Monk

Naomi Renouf  (textiles)

Andy Behrle

Christopher Nevinson

Atkinson Grimshaw

Deborah Westmancoat

Don McCullin

Kurt Jackson

Monet Snow Paintings

Wire Artists

Candice Bees

Celia Smith

David Oliveira

Diane Komater

Elizabeth Berrien

Martin Senn

Roger Stevens

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GCSE Artist Research & Analysis Guide

Subject: Art and design

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

8 March 2024

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The ultimate GCSE artist research and Artwork analysis guide Formatted to a printable A3 PDF that includes.

• Template / layout example
• Key terms to use
• Detailed questions for students to answer on their page
• Critical questions broken down into Basic / intermediate / advanced levels for stretch and challenge
• Great opportunity for differentiation

Ideal handout / guide to start the externally set assignment in January. Designed to go hand in hand with the AQA GCSE Art/Craft/Design spec but will work across all specialisms.

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• Gcse Art Final Piece Resource

GCSE art final piece – Examples, guidance & advice

Word docs and PowerPoint

These five art GCSE final piece resources will support students to create an impressive project.

• FINE ART – Guidance on how to write effective contextual studies and critical responses to examples of fine art.
• ANALYSIS – A PowerPoint of good and excellent examples of AO1 critical understanding / artist analysis pages.
• GRAPHICS – Advice on how to present successful contextual studies and critical responses to examples of illustration and graphic design.
• PHOTOGRAPHY – Suggestions on what’s required to produce contextual studies and critical responses to photography, in a way that satisfies the GCSE art assessment criteria.
• BETTER WORDS – A list of suggested alternative words that will get students more points (eg ‘create/develop/produce’ instead of ‘do/doing’

GCSE art final piece advice for teachers

As art teachers, we’re all familiar with the arc of a project. More often than not, we start with artist research and finish with an artwork, or collection of pieces that show the student’s journey from initial investigation to a personal conclusion.

With these two elements regularly bookending a project, then, the pressure on them to hold the work together is paramount. Here are some ideas to make sure they do just that.

First, let’s get rid of the idea that students always need to look at ‘artists’. Yes, they normally do (it makes sense), but I prefer to use the term ‘influences’. For us, this switch in language led to a new openness in seeing how varied artistic traditions, not at first obviously related, could inform one another.

British artist Polly Morgan points out the need to not ‘restrict yourself to your own medium’. It’s just as possible to be inspired by a filmmaker, fashion designer, writer or friend than another artist.”

Her contemporary, Isaac Julien, has much the same idea: “I have a magpie attitude to inspiration. It’s about taking all the little everyday things and observing them with a critical eye; building up a scrapbook which you can draw on.”

To help our students develop an understanding of breadth, we have a 10-point independent learning list, into which we encourage them to dip each week. This may or may not feed back directly into their work, but helps them develop a much more rounded understanding of the arts.

GCSE art form and structure

Next, let’s consider structure. It’s important to understand that we’re not here to create historical documents. Biographical information is useful only if it informs our understanding.

For example, we don’t need to know how many children a person had, but we may want to know what their relationships were like if their work is directly related to the experience of family life. Added to that, the cost of artwork is irrelevant.

The fact that someone may have paid several millions for a piece is not an indicator of its value – not in artistic or cultural terms, anyway.

Each artist has a range of interests, experiences and perspectives. From this, we want to know the aim of their art practice. Let’s take for example Käthe Kollwitz, a German, born in Kaliningrad, who lived from 1867 to 1945. These are useful facts. They tell us she lived in a place and time when the world was at war.

Her city of birth was a strange geographical example of detachment; a part of Russia, separated from its motherland by Poland and Lithuania. As such, we can guess she was interested in the effects of war and in belonging. But can we find evidence?

Here is where quotes from the artist can be helpful. The MoMA website starts its section on Kollwitz with her quote “I felt that I have no right to withdraw from the responsibility of being an advocate. It is my duty to voice the sufferings of men.”

So now we know where and when she lived. We know what was happening socially and politically at the time, and that her aim for her work was to make clear the suffering experienced.

GCSE art themes

Research undertaken, let’s now start to observe. Here is where the formal elements come in.

Look at her colours, use of line, compositions. Do they, as she lays out they should, tell of man’s suffering? Do students believe she has achieved what she set out to do? Why? Is it through her use of visual isolation, the individual surrounded by the white space of the paper?

Perhaps the fracturedness with which she used a pencil; the intense focus on the human face?

Linking facts, quotes and observations steeped in an understanding of the formal elements is needed to ensure a written piece has the depth required to show true engagement with the work.

This understanding becomes the diving board for the student’s own work. Once they know ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’, they can apply this to their own piece.

What causes them anguish? What do they want to portray so others can see? Have they thought about what marks they will make to convey the urgency they feel?

This is why we research: not to copy, but to give ourselves an understanding and language for our own artwork’s aims.

In fact, the assessment objectives do not state that all research must be written. Any real investigation of an influence must be deeply practical, too. In order for students to develop ideas through investigation or show an understanding of critical sources, their creative response is central.

Sketchbook ideas

Yes, AO1 focuses on research, but this research should permeate all the way through to A04.

A GCSE art final piece on its own is worth nothing. It might feel like the Big Daddy; but we all know that the bulk of the marks come from AO1-3, and that unless the outcome sits firmly within the preceding investigations, it has little value.

The assessment criteria asks for a ‘purposeful and meaningful response’. In order for any pieces that come at the end to achieve this, they must be a response to the work in the sketchbook, showing development from initial ideas, and a refinement of both thought and practice.

One of the challenges I face is when students propose a GCSE art final piece, rather than an area of investigation right from the start. So, in order to keep projects open – to ensure experimentation and exploration is genuine – we remove any specific final piece planning.

Instead, we focus on an arena of interest, laying down specifics only when initial investigative and experimental work is complete.

In reality, the only difference between the GCSE art final piece and the rest of the submission is how it consolidates the journey. The body of work that precedes it is there to help students find interesting connections and surprising new pathways that can then be narrowed down. Any particular approaches used in a final piece need to be evidenced in that preceding work.

I will end with this: that while I believe, as do those I have spoken to, that exam boards and moderators have favourite styles or types of outcomes, the student’s strengths and interests must win out.

When I was once asked at interview to name a favourite artist, my answer was simple – that it didn’t matter. It was finding the creative influences that were right for the students that should be my aim.

I stand by that, and hope that all art teachers would, too.

Writing checklist

Five pointers for better-written analysis…

• Remove any biographical information that’s not relevant.
• Watch out for commonly used weak words and provide students with alternatives. The ‘Better Words’ sheet at the top of this page can help you get started.
• Find quotes from respected art critics. Include them and explain what they mean. Many media outlines charge for their online content, but The Guardian and the BBC’s arts coverage can be accessed for free.
• Make sure students explain any tricky terminology they use and any key ideas for art movements they mention.
• Consider adjusting writing guides for different art practices. Some points of focus will vary according to the medium.

Hannah Day is head of art, media and film at  Ludlow College . Lucy Wilding is head of art at Lacon Child School, Shropshire . Download a free GCSE art sketchbook resource .

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