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- Ryan, M. & Healy, A. (2008). ‘Art’efacts of knowing : multiliteracies and the arts. In A. Healy (Ed.), Multiliteracies and diversity in education : new pedagogies for expanding landscapes (pp. 82-125). South Melbourne, Vic. : Oxford University Press.

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I was lucky enough to be involved with music from a young age, first joining the school band at the age of 7 in year 2 and since then having the privilege of being able to apply the skills I was taught to increase my abilities in reading and composing music, as well as becoming a proficient clarinet player. The first image shows the award I received for my role as band captain during year 6 and was awarded to the captain that showed great instrumental skills as well as demonstrating citizenship values. In my adult life I have stopped actively participating in bands due to time restraints, and instead turn to music in my everyday life for inspiration, an outlet for emotions and a source of entertainment, for example I really enjoy singing in the shower and whilst I am driving as a form of stress release at the end of the day. I believe that children who are capable of appreciating music are benefited by their ability to apply this skill throughout their lives as a way of expressing their emotions.

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Through participating in competitive dance groups throughout primary school, one example being represented above from my Year 4 ‘Steps’ dance group photo, I was able experience rhythms and tempos, as well as how various styles can be explored depending upon the message or feeling that is trying to be conceptualized by the individual or group performing the dance. Although I no longer competitively dance, my appreciation for the multi-faceted nature of the art form's ability to teach children both structure, when choreography is introduced, and freedom of movement, when freestyle is encouraged,  is strongly supported by the fact that I now turn to dance as a form of entertainment and a way of relaxing. This relates to the way the diversity of dance enables children to experience expressing themselves throughout the creative process by differing techniques. This is a skill that they will be able to apply to the art form for the rest of their lives whenever dance is involved, be it in a competitive scenario, at a function or during a social activity.

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The popularity of social media and technology advances during the 21st century has resulted in media arts having a strong influence on the lives of a large majority of the worlds population. Because of this, children growing up in societies full of this art form need to understand its purpose and the basic principles of how it works which is why is it still a core element in the creative processes taught to children. I had my first experience with photoshop during art class in Year 8 when we were assigned the task of merging two different animals together to create digitally imposed hybrids. I thoroughly enjoyed the task, and whilst I did not continue to study art into my later years of high school I have continued to apply skills I learnt to enhance photos that I post on social media, and edit photos that were otherwise compromised. This is shown clearly in my visual example where the bottom image shows the original picture of me riding one of my horses and the top image shows the work that I have done on the picture using photoshop to remove shadowing elements and increase the clarity of the image.

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The second example is myself working on a painting during an EMA117 workshop; although I do not consider visual arts to be one of my strong suits the development of my ability to functionally analyse throughout the process of creating an artwork is demonstrated by the paintings use of realistic form, shape, line and perspective (Ryan & Healy, 2008). Through using techniques such as scratching and wet colour fading the painting is more appealing to the eye and able to adequately represent the model that was being replicated. Visual arts is a key learning area for children in learning environments because it encourages them to discover their own creative processes without being particular restrictive on the materials, techniques of finishing products.

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Although throughout school I never felt inspired to participate in a musical or performance due to my interests lying in other activities, I always enjoyed drama class and the opportunity to learn about different ways of expressing human emotions through various mediums such as voice, space and mime. In 2013 I was lucky enough to see ‘The Lion King: The Musical” in Sydney, which was a new experience for me having never attended a musical prior to that. The entire performance was an incredible spectacle and the use of light costuming to personify the animals being imitated by the actors was a tremendous example of an idea being conceptualised for an audience. The idea of applying different mediums to create drama that can be analysed by another person is what I am most comfortable with relating too, as demonstrated in the voice memo linked in which shows how voice can be used to translate emotions when reading a story to a child, and is a real life recording of me reading to one of the girls I babysit. Children’s abilities to read body language and interpret tones is a serious life skill that can be enhanced through the creative processes that they are encouraged to explore during drama classes at school, and what I believe is a skill they will continue to need and build on as they grow up.

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Because of the large diversity involved in the creation of visual art pieces, though my educational years I have been provided with many opportunities to experience new art forms. The journey that I have taken through experimenting with these various forms is demonstrated by the two images below. The first example is a finger painting that I completed during Kindergarten that demonstrates my young self-experiencing the new as I experimented with the texture of the material, being paint, and the different patterns that could be created using splattering and finger shading.