the Teacher: Marie Louise Egar

After spending three decades working as a classroom and visual arts teacher in Adelaide schools, I made the decision to return fully to my primary passion: art. Red Gate Art Studio was founded eighteen years ago in order to combine my passion for art with my experience in teaching.  This began as a part time venture, whilst I was still in main stream teaching, however, for some years now, it is my full time business.   

I believe that skills and knowledge are acquired through both:

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Explicit teaching and

creative thinking.

In my roles as both a teacher and an artist, I understand that learning is an ongoing process. Like my students, I continue to build my skills and develop greater confidence in all areas of visual arts. Through practice, classes and mentoring with peers who share my commitment to the art learning process, I nurture my own learning in order to nurture that of my students. I have taken several online International Art Courses and now also coach and mentor on a couple of these programs. I believe learning is constant and life-long. It is important that students who attend art classes at Red Gate Art Studio are exposed to this thinking and know that the challenges they face are the same challenges faced by us all! 

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I believe that students must be given the opportunity to:

  • Explore new skills and techniques.

  • Use quality materials.

  • Express personal ideas and feelings through art.

  • Select, plan and construct art by combining skills, techniques and processes.

  • Use sources of information beyond personal experience as starting points and inspiration.

  • Be exposed to specific art terminology.

  • Take risks, make changes, and experiment with art making.

  • Have time to complete works of art to a level of personal satisfaction.

  • Understand that creating a piece of artwork is a process.

  • Discover delight in the creative process of art making.

  • Build confidence and learn to say, “I can do it.”

  • View the artwork of a diverse range of past and present artists, and discriminate between different features, characteristics and styles of these artists' work.

  • Recognise that art making creates challenges, sometimes failures, but more often than not great successes.

  • Appreciate that the process of art making involves persistence, risk taking, experimenting, problem solving, flexibility and resilience.

  • Develop new ways of ‘seeing’ and ‘interpreting’ the world.