Edexcel GCSE Art and Design working with media and techniques: a complete overview of painting, printmaking, 3D and photography

What this module covers

Working with media and techniques is the hands-on, material side of Edexcel GCSE Art and Design, and it is the substance of AO2. The specification asks you to experiment with and select appropriate media, materials, techniques and processes across two and three dimensions. This overview ties the four dot-point pages together: painting and colour media, printmaking, three-dimensional and sculptural work, and photography and lens-based media.

Painting and colour media

Painting media each behave differently: watercolour is transparent and worked light to dark, acrylic is opaque and fast-drying so it layers freely, gouache is opaque watercolour, oil pastel is waxy and good for resist, and ink is fluid for line and wash. Good paint handling controls consistency, layering and drying to avoid muddiness, and techniques like glazing, dry brush, wet-in-wet and impasto give different effects. Mixing from a limited palette gives harmony and teaches how colour behaves.

Printmaking

Printmaking makes and repeats imagery, and it is excellent for bold graphic marks, repetition and layering. Monoprint gives unique painterly prints; relief (lino, collagraph) gives repeatable editions of bold shapes; drypoint and screen printing give fine line and flat colour respectively. Because a block can produce many prints, you can try one image in different colours, papers and layers, and refine the block through proofing, which is rich AO2 experimentation.

Three-dimensional and sculptural work

Three-dimensional work gives an idea real mass, void and surface. The main processes are modelling (additive), carving (subtractive), construction, assemblage and casting, using clay, card, wire, plaster and found materials. You develop a 3D idea through maquettes (small trial models) viewed and photographed from several angles, considering the form in the round.

Photography and lens-based media

Photography is both a recording tool and a creative medium. A deliberate photograph controls light, focus, exposure, viewpoint and composition, and editing refines and transforms images. As primary recording it feeds AO1 and AO3; as a refined edited series it can be an AO4 outcome made through AO2 experimentation.

Check your knowledge

1. Name two differences between watercolour and acrylic. (2 marks)
2. What is the difference between relief printing and monoprinting? (1 mark)
3. Name four three-dimensional processes. (2 marks)
4. What two roles can photography play in a project? (2 marks)
5. What cycle does AO2 reward across every medium? (1 mark)