NCAT CREATE SECOND (VIRTUAL) INFO SESSION

Due to popular demand, NCAT Create is hosting a second online information session for its wonderful part-time Diploma of Visual Arts on Tuesday the 15th of September at 7pm. 

Contact us at NCATcreate@gmail.com or register at ncat.vic.edu.au and we will send you out a link to join us via Zoom. 

NCAT Create is a renowned Melbourne-based art course specially designed for adults who are looking to study visual art part-time. 

Tune in virtually to hear what it is all about with the Create Program Leader Tracy Paterson @lacontrapposto 






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WELCOME TO A NEW NCAT CREATE GROUP

It is a brand new year and with it comes a brand new cohort of Create students, eager to immerse themselves into a big dose of creativity! Welcome on board everyone!

NCAT CREATE'S COUCHFEST COLLABORATIVE PROJECT

This year's Create students played a pivotal part in NCAT's premier annual event, Couchfest, a collaboration of music, visual arts and performing arts with key values centred around diversity and sustainability. 

The Create students were given the brief to work collaboratively to repurpose curb-side couches as art installations for the music and arts festival. Each group was given a couch or arm chair and a very short time line. They had to negotiate through inspiration, ideas, processes, obstacles and personal preferences to find a shared and sustainable vision for each couch.

The couches ranged from:

• The Silent Reviewer: a movie couch, replete with popcorn, videos and remote 
• A boat like couch called Imagination where children's stories come to life and wishes come true
• The Couch as nest: Branches, twigs, feathers and leaves formed around this snug couch
• The Deconstructed Armchair: An old armchair is completely dismantled and rebuilt into a sculpture
• The Love Hotel Couch: Based on Japanese Love Hotels, this couch investigates ideas around intimacy in our crowded world
• The Ai Wei Wei Column: Inspired by the installation work of Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, three plastic Bunnings chairs in faux marble sit precariously atop a roman column
• The Desert Armchair: Eroding in the desert winds, this chair and side lamp are slowly disappearing

Initially the student's were unsure about working together, but they threw themselves into the project and discovered the joys of collaborative art installations.

One group decorated a tiny house, built by the college's Building pre-apprentices, as a very old school comfy lounge room! The Tiny House was used as a stage on the day for acoustic acts.

Special mention also goes to one student who went off on a side track to investigate emoticons and why there is never the right one for your mood. She explored as an interactive piece the possibilities of a series of NCAT emoticons.

All images ©NCAT

STAFF PROFILE: NCAT CREATE'S TRACY PATERSON

Tracy Paterson, artist and art educator, NCAT. ©Image Tracy Paterson

Tracy Paterson has been heading up the NCAT Create course, a part time visual art course for adults, at The Northern College of the Arts & Technology, since the course's inception in 2014.

For Tracy, designing the Create program came out of a desire to give adults an opportunity to learn to build art into their everyday lives. "Practising art is a discipline and as such needs to be learnt. There are so many people out there who dream of being an artist but simply don't know where to start nor how to make art fit into their life. We work with them to build their creative confidence as emerging artists." she says. Students also build a substantial body of work which can be used as a portfolio for entry into further education.

Tracy, who has been an art educator for over 25 years, is a practising artist herself. Her main discipline is Life Drawing. "I have had an ongoing love affair with life drawing for many years. For me the human form provides constant challenges and is as much about a celebration of difference as a drawing style. Life drawing is about a dialogue between myself and the model; It is collaborative. I love that when I draw I am so totally in the moment. It is about the process and as such, the output is of far less significance to me than the doing."

Life Drawing Pastel on paper ©Tracy Paterson

Life Drawing Charcoal on paper ©Tracy Paterson

Life Drawing Charcoal and Pitt Crayon on Paper
©Tracy Paterson

Life Drawing Charcoal and Pitt Crayon on Paper 
©Tracy Paterson

21 Landscapes Watercolour on individual wood panels
©Tracy Paterson

In addition to life drawing, Tracy is also a painter - previously specialising in portraiture - but now exploring landscape. She grew up in outback New South Wales where the landscape of the flat Hay Plain has a low horizon and huge skies. These brooding and potent skies appear as a regular force in her art. "The landscape of my childhood has informed much of my work and is something I am continually drawn to."

As an art educator, Tracy has built wide ranging skills in drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, illustration, photography and graphic design. She has worked as a freelance photographer and is rarely without a camera in hand. "At NCAT and in my life generally, I am the documenter. I am comfortable behind a camera and I enjoy searching for that elusive moment."

The Create staff skill their students in three broad subjects. Studio, taught by Tracy and Ali McCann, explores art practises such as drawing, painting, mixed media and printmaking, and pushes students to think conceptually and thematically. Digital Media, taught by Mark Russell and Bei Janetzki, focusses on digital photography and the Adobe Suite's Photoshop and Illustrator. Life Drawing, tutored by Tracy, gives the students valuable underpinning drawing and observation skills. Students also explore the creative arts industries, delving into social media and possible future creative pathways. They also learn how to write an effective artist's statement and art based resume.

5 fast Life Drawings. Willow Charcoal on Paper
©Tracy Paterson

Over the years Tracy has supported many ex Folio Preparation students as they have transitioned into the creative industries. An avid social networker, she has enjoyed helping them build and publicise businesses, find jobs, advertise exhibitions and welcome new websites. Tracy sees herself as having a responsibility to support these upcoming generations of talent long after their time at NCAT is over.

More recently, the Create students have gone on to Fine Art, Visual Arts, Illustration, Textile Design, Creative Arts Industries and Graphic Design courses (Post Graduate, Degree and Diploma). Others have moved into studio spaces together, applied for and attained arts grants, exhibited and built freelance businesses. For Tracy and her staff it is thrilling to see their dreams begin to take shape. 

The popular NCAT Create course runs on Thursdays and Fridays with a single intake per year. Applications are now open for next year.

All images: 

© Copyright Tracy Paterson

@lacontrapposto

NCAT CREATE COLLAGE WORKSHOP WITH LOCAL ARTIST ANNE WARREN

We have been very lucky to have the opportunity to team up with Anne Warren, a local Melbourne artist who helped us take our NCAT Create students through the finer intricacies of collage. Anne is a highly skilled Dada inspired Collage artist with an extraordinary ability to cut the finest of details with a tiny pair of embroidery scissors! 

"From a photo I have taken or from a found image in a book, I respond to the visual images that are around me. I will juxtapose an image or part of into a new environment to allow the viewer to interpret as they wish".

- Anne Warren

Kindly reproduced from her excellent wordpress blog: http://annewarren.wordpress.com/

Anne has a Diploma in Visual Art as well as a Bachelor in Fine Art (Drawing) from RMIT University (2009). She is currently exhibiting, is an active member of Alphington Open Studios, the Out of the Box group of artists and is teaching mixed media, digital, collage, assemblage, drawing workshops from her studio.

Anne worked with our students to create small collages on water-coloured backgrounds which were all about placement and finding the right image. The workshop coincided with a copyright unit and as a result, the students sourced their images from appropriate copyright free books and magazines, found in op shops and dusty bookshelves!

The Create students got so much out of Anne's workshop. The following week many came in with new collages and began to branch into varying styles. We went on to do mixed media with a big conceptual push based on birds and memory as themes and they just blossomed. The Create students went on to make a piece based on tags, taking ideas in all sorts of directions. We have seen a real change in confidence and output through the collage workshops which has been wonderful to watch. Anne's introductory workshop was a real turning point. There is nothing like some success to ignite a creative spark!

*All NCAT Create images are © Northern College of the Arts & Technology 2014. All Create student artworks are reproduced with permission.

Anne (right) demonstrating collage techniques in the Create Studio above

All images ©NCAT Create