Visual Arts study guides

A complete OCR GCSE Art and Design guide to contextual and critical studies: analysing an artwork, art movements and periods, studying named artists, gathering contextual sources, and writing critically about art, the investigation that drives AO1.

A complete OCR GCSE Art and Design guide to media, techniques and processes: drawing and painting media, printmaking, three-dimensional work, photography, textiles, and digital and mixed media, and how choosing and refining appropriate media evidences AO2.

A complete OCR GCSE Art and Design guide to the creative process and Portfolio (Component 01): what the 60 percent Portfolio is, generating and developing ideas, structuring a sustained project across all four objectives, selecting and presenting work, and evaluating and annotating critically.

A complete OCR GCSE Art and Design guide to the Externally Set Task (Component 02): the 40 percent set task, the question paper released 1 January, the preparatory period, the 10-hour supervised exam, planning and pacing the final piece, and connecting the outcome to the preparation.

A complete OCR GCSE Art and Design guide to the four assessment objectives in practice: AO1 develop, AO2 refine, AO3 record and AO4 present, each a quarter of the marks, plus how the 120 plus 80 marks, banded marking, moderation and 9 to 1 grades work.

A complete OCR GCSE Art and Design guide to visual language and the formal elements: line and mark-making, tone and form, colour and its effects, shape, form, texture and pattern, and composition, the building blocks of communicating images across the objectives.