Authentic Visual Art

Leanne McKenzie

Eloise Cole

This workshop is designed to engage and empower teachers to confidently implement authentic visual art tasks in the primary classroom whilst nurturing students’ creativity. Participants will be involved in the set- up, art task, pack up and clean up. Following the task will be an opportunity for substantive conversation about the creative process experienced in this session.

Linking to the Australian Curriculum, participants will experience how to engage children in building visual art skills and knowledge from Foundation to Year 6 and what this looks like in practice.

The session will also include an opportunity to participate in analysing an art work and discovering deeper ways to personally interpret and discuss its meaning.

Participants will be able to take the experience of this session straight back to their class and kick start their Visual Art programs.

More about Leanne and Eloise

Leanne McKenzie is an experienced Early Childhood educator, with a passion for the Visual Arts. She was awarded a scholarship by her school, Burgmann Anglican School, in 2017 to investigate how the Visual Arts can enrich integration across curriculum areas. This involved Leanne, travelling to the United Kingdom and France to spend time with other schools, galleries and authors. Leanne is partnering with the National Portrait Gallery in learning and gaining skills in Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). VTS is an inquiry-based approach to viewing art through careful, detailed looking and questioning, empowering students to discuss art based on what they can see in an artwork. In 2016, Leanne co-founded the Early Childhood and Primary Visual Art Network with colleague, Eloise Cole to bring together a community of teachers who share a common belief in the value of working towards excellence in Visual Arts. She is passionate about engaging children in the creative process, learning language and aesthetic skills, and how Visual Art can contribute to wellbeing, and the development of critical and creative thinking skills.

Eloise Cole has extensive experience teaching across the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors and most recently worked as a Visual and Performing Art teacher in a primary school. She has developed and curated several school art exhibitions, initiated school community art projects and established links with local artists to collaborate with students. Eloise has worked with students to exhibit their art works in the community including at the Royal Canberra Show and Sculptures in the Paddock student exhibition. She has worked with students to contribute to the Worldwide Kid’s Guernica Project to produce a mural and has developed and delivered an accredited professional development course for primary school teachers titled, ‘More than Drawing - Authentic Engagement with Visual Art’. In 2016, Eloise co-founded the Early Childhood and Primary Visual Art Network with her colleague, Leanne McKenzie, to bring together a community of teachers who share a common belief in the value of working towards excellence in Visual Arts. She is passionate about engaging children in the creative process and how visual art can positively transform people and communities.