Influences and Reflection in Making

The Contribution of Influences, Exploration, Responses and Reflection in Planning and Making Artworks

In Unit 3 AoS 2, art making becomes more purposeful as students translate experimentation into resolved artworks. The planning and making process is understood as a cycle involving four interconnected contributions: influences, exploration, responses and reflection.

The Four Contributions

1. Influences
Influences include the three researched artists and any additional inspirations from personal experience, culture, environment or other sources. In the planning stage, influences operate as:

• sources of compositional strategies to test
• examples of how specific materials and techniques can achieve aesthetic effects
• conceptual frameworks that can be adopted, adapted or deliberately rejected
• touchstones for evaluating aesthetic quality

The key is that influence is active, not passive — students should be asking “how does this artist’s approach help me solve my problem?” rather than simply admiring or copying.

2. Exploration
Exploration is the experimental work documented in the Visual Arts journal: material tests, compositional studies, technique variations. In the planning and making context, exploration:

• generates options from which to select
• reveals unexpected possibilities not anticipated at the conceptualisation stage
• builds technical confidence and knowledge
• produces evidence of genuine inquiry visible to assessors

3. Responses
Responses are the student’s reactions — both emotional and critical — to what exploration produces. A response might be:

• recognising that a material experiment succeeded and deciding to develop it further
• noticing that an influence’s technique does not suit your subject matter and redirecting
• receiving peer feedback and deciding what to act on

Responses are documented in written reflections and annotations in the journal.

4. Reflection
Reflection is the evaluative process through which responses are analysed and decisions are made. Effective reflection:

• moves beyond description (“I tried X”) to evaluation (“X produced Y effect, which worked because…”)
• connects current making to earlier decisions and broader intentions
• informs the next step in the cycle

The Iterative Cycle

These four contributions do not occur in a linear sequence — they form a continuous, iterative cycle throughout the planning and making of artworks:

Influences → Exploration → Response → Reflection → (back to) Exploration

A resolved, finished artwork is the product of many passes through this cycle.

Documenting the Cycle

The Visual Arts journal should make the cycle visible:

• Research annotations showing how influence prompted a specific experiment
• Experimental pages with responses recorded as annotations
• Reflective writing at key decision points
• Planning notes showing how reflection led to revised direction

APPLICATION: A student influenced by Tracey Emin’s confessional subject matter might explore autobiographical imagery in drawing experiments. The response to those experiments (“these feel too literal”) prompts reflection that leads to a more abstracted approach — which becomes the basis for the finished work.

VCAA FOCUS: VCAA wants to see that all four contributions are present and connected. A journal full of experiments with no reflection, or reflection without documented exploration, signals an incomplete process.

EXAM TIP: If asked to “describe the contribution of influences, exploration, responses and reflection in the planning of your artworks,” structure your response around each of the four terms with a specific example for each.