Techniques and Processes

Techniques and Processes Used in Art Making in Specific Art Forms

Techniques and processes are the practical methods artists use to transform materials into artworks. In VCE AME, students must demonstrate specific technical knowledge within their chosen art form(s) and connect those techniques to their aesthetic and conceptual intentions.

Defining Technique and Process

• Technique: A specific method or skill applied to a material (e.g., dry-brush, burnishing, slab-building)
• Process: A sequence of steps or actions that transforms a material from one state to another (e.g., the etching process; the glazing and firing sequence in ceramics)

Techniques are often discrete actions; processes are more extended sequences.

Techniques and Processes Across Art Forms

Drawing
- Contour drawing, gesture drawing, blind contour
- Hatching, cross-hatching, stippling (tonal techniques)
- Blending with stump, erasing as mark-making
- Mixed media layering

Painting
- Alla prima (wet-into-wet), glazing, scumbling
- Impasto (thick paint application using palette knife or brush)
- Dry-brush, wash, resist techniques
- Underpainting (grisaille, tonal block-in)
- Collage integration

Printmaking
- Relief: woodcut, linocut — cutting away the non-printing areas
- Intaglio: etching, engraving, drypoint — incising into a plate
- Planographic: lithography — oil/water resistance principle
- Screen printing: stencil-based ink transfer through mesh
- Registration: aligning multiple layers/colours precisely

Ceramics/Sculpture
- Hand-building: pinch, coil, slab
- Wheel-throwing
- Slip casting
- Bisque firing, glaze application, glost firing
- Surface decoration: sgraffito, slip trailing, underglaze painting

Photography/Digital
- Exposure control (aperture, shutter speed, ISO)
- Darkroom processes: developing, fixing, printing
- Digital editing: layers, masking, colour grading
- Camera angles and framing as compositional technique

Connecting Technique to Intention

Every technical choice should serve aesthetic and conceptual purposes. Students need to be able to articulate:

1. What technique they used
2. How they applied it (the specific method)
3. Why they chose it (the intended effect)
4. What aesthetic quality it produced

APPLICATION: “I used a dry-brush technique across the surface of the painted canvas because the broken, irregular mark-making would leave areas of white showing through, creating a sense of fragmentation and incompleteness that reflected my ideas about memory’s unreliability.”

Experimentation and Process Documentation

In Unit 3, students are expected to experiment widely — testing techniques without committing to outcomes. This is distinct from the refined application in Unit 4. The Visual Arts journal documents both:

• failed experiments (which are valuable evidence of learning)
• successful techniques that are carried forward
• variations and combinations of techniques

KEY TAKEAWAY: Technical skill in AME is always in service of meaning. Demonstrate not only that you can execute a technique but that you chose it deliberately for aesthetic and conceptual reasons.

VCAA FOCUS: VCAA distinguishes between students who use techniques and those who understand and manipulate them. Be specific: name the technique, describe the exact method, and explain the visual/conceptual outcome.

COMMON MISTAKE: Students list techniques without describing how they were applied. “I used etching” is insufficient — describe the steps (applying ground, drawing through ground, acid bath duration, inking, wiping, printing) and what the resulting marks look like.