Experimenting With Media, Materials and Techniques

Refine by experimenting

AO2 asks you to refine your ideas by experimenting with media, materials, techniques and processes. Read that again, because it does not say make a good final piece. A sketchbook of tested, annotated trials outscores a single polished outcome with nothing behind it, and it does so even when some of the trials failed. The examiner is marking your thinking, and a trial is only evidence of thinking if you wrote down what it taught you.

The words AO2 uses

The assessment objective is written in these terms, so your annotations should be too:

What does each medium do?

Choose against a constraint

Your intention is a harsh, industrial feel, and the final work will be photocopied in black and white for a zine. Which medium best serves both, and why?

• Pen and ink, because hard edges and high contrast suit the intention and are the marks most likely to survive being photocopied
• Charcoal, because it gives the darkest tones available
• Watercolour, because layering washes builds up depth
• Collage, because the torn edges would feel raw and industrial

What an annotation has to do

Nearly every AO2 mark a candidate misses is missed here. Both of these sit beside the same trial:

Which annotation scores highest?

Four students annotate the same lino print, which came out patchy. Which annotation would earn the most credit?

• "The ink sat unevenly, and the gaps line up with where I cut deepest, so I think the block is not meeting the paper flat. Next print I will use a softer backing sheet to let the paper press into the cuts."
• "This print did not work as well as I hoped and I am disappointed with it."
• "This is a lino print of a building, printed in black ink on cartridge paper."
• "I will improve this next time by being more careful and taking more time over it."

Keep the failures

The strongest instinct when a sketchbook is being marked is to tidy it: remove the trials that went wrong, keep the ones that look good. Do not. A failed experiment with a good annotation is worth more than a successful one with none, because AO2 credits the reasoning rather than the result. The failure is where the reasoning is most visible: something surprised you, and you had to work out why. Two practical consequences. Keep the trials in sequence, so the development reads in the order it happened, and date them. And when a later trial contradicts an earlier conclusion, say so on the page rather than quietly dropping it. Changing your mind with a reason attached is exactly the behaviour being marked.

What actually earns AO2 marks?

Select the THREE that genuinely earn AO2 credit.

• A media choice justified against what you want the work to feel like
• A second trial that changes one thing because of what the first trial showed
• A trial that did not work, annotated with what went wrong and what you concluded
• Using as many different media as possible, to show the widest range
• A highly finished, technically accomplished final piece
• A neatly presented sketchbook with the weaker pages removed

The refining cycle

Put one turn of the refining cycle into order.

• Decide what you want this trial to find out
• Run the trial, changing one variable at a time
• Record what actually happened, including anything that surprised you
• Decide the next change, and say what makes it the right next change
• Carry the conclusion into the developing work, then start the cycle again

What a development looks like

One student, four pages, on a project about a derelict factory: Page 1. Charcoal studies of the rusted stair. Annotation: the smudging suits the decay, but the fine bolts disappear whenever I try to blend the surrounding tone. Page 2. The same stair in graphite, testing whether the precision comes back. It does, and the page now looks too clean and too calm for the subject. Page 3. Both together: graphite for the ironwork, charcoal dragged around it. Annotation: this works, but the join between them is visible and reads as two drawings sharing a page. Page 4. Graphite worked over a charcoal ground, so the two are in the same layer rather than side by side. Annotation: this is the one. Taking it to the final piece at scale.

Match each technique to what it does

Refine a trial

Your first watercolour trial for a stormy sky has dried far paler than you wanted. Work through it.

• You have time for two more trials. What is the better second trial?
• The stronger mix holds its depth but bleeds badly at the edges. What goes in the annotation?
• The first, pale trial is still in the sketchbook. What do you do with it?

AO2 frame

AO2 rewards refining work through _____. Media should be chosen to suit your _____, and the reason should be written down rather than left implied. A trial that failed is still worth keeping, because the objective credits the _____ rather than the result. And when you change something, change _____ thing at a time, or you will not know which change did the work.

Plan an experiment

Plan a real trial for a project you are working on now. Follow the annotation model from the comparison card: say what you want to find out, not just what you will do, and commit to a next step before you have run it.

• State your intention: what do you want the work to feel like?
• Name the medium or technique, and say why it suits that intention
• Say what question this trial is asking, and what result would answer it
• Name the ONE variable you will change from your last attempt
• Say what you would do next if it works, and what you would do next if it does not