Visual Arts (ATAR): should I choose it?

What will I learn?

How will I be assessed?

Progression and companion subjects

No complete companion or exclusion review is attached to this profile. Check the official course-entry conditions, language eligibility and your school’s sequence before enrolling. Links between resource hubs show related learning; they do not establish a compulsory prerequisite.

Will I find it hard?

Difficulty depends on your experience, interests, teaching and assessment. These are our reflection prompts, not an official difficulty rating.

• Do you enjoy practising, making or performing and responding to feedback?
• Think about sustained work on a creative project and documenting how your ideas develop.

Does it scale up or down?

Visual Arts, 2025. TISC’s mean scaled scores summarise all students with a scaled score in the published course. The mean describes a cohort and gives no individual raw-to-scaled conversion. A scaled mean alone cannot establish whether this subject scaled up or down. Historical cohort data cannot predict your result or a future scaling direction.

Scaling is not a measure of difficulty or a guaranteed bonus. Prioritise content you can engage with and required subjects for courses you are considering.

Try a little of the subject

Differences: art making

Unit 1 asks you to make art about differences . The syllabus names differences that arise from cultural diversity, place, gender, class and historical period, and also differences between art forms, media and conventions. A difference is useful in the studio because it creates a question: why does my grandmother’s kitchen look so unlike mine, why is one suburb fenced and another open, why does a portrait in oil paint feel more formal than the same face drawn on a phone? Inquiry begins when you turn a noticed difference into a question that can be investigated visually. The contexts suggested in the syllabus, such as tradition and innovation, reality and illusion, or realism and abstraction, are examples only; your teacher may set others. Drawing is the main engine of inquiry. Four approaches are named for this unit; the syllabus does not define them, so the descriptions below are working definitions. A representational drawing records how something looks, using observation, proportion and tone. An expressive drawing uses the speed, pressure and direction of marks to carry feeling. A decorative drawing uses pattern, repetition and ornament to enrich a surface. A symbolic drawing uses signs or images that stand for ideas, such as a key for belonging or a broken fence for division. Trying more than one approach on the same subject shows you which one carries your idea best. Every artist develops a particular way of making marks, and that mark-making conveys a personal vision. A hesitant, broken contour suggests uncertainty; a fast, continuous line suggests confidence. When you study other artists’ practice you can adopt, extend or reject what you see. To develop and refine work, change one variable at a time: viewpoint, scale, crop, medium, or the combination of sources. W

Original practice question: A student fills a border with a repeated motif taken from her family’s embroidered tablecloth to enrich the surface of her drawing. Which drawing approach is she mainly using?

This is ATARMAxxing’s original sample learning material. It is not an official assessment task or a prediction of your school’s workload.

Explore the resources

Open the Visual Arts (ATAR) subject hub and free preview (opens in a new tab)

• Visual Arts — WACE Year 12 ATAR (opens in a new tab)

Core subject information and planning are free. Full study resources are optional.