This case study examined four New South Wales (NSW) Australian Year 12 visual arts students' use of visual literacy to create bodies of artwork. They used the NSW visual arts literacy constructs, the frames -- subjective, structural, cultural, and postmodern, and the conceptual framework -- artwork, artist, world, and audience, to inform their thinking. Following the art teacher's graphic and writing prompts, the students used visual literacy differently to read/decode/interpret visual statements and write/encode/create visual statements. Students thought visually and deliberately planned artwork to speak to an audience, using visual process diaries (VPDs) and artists' statements that combined images and texts. The study concluded that (1) Teaching visual literacy skills is essential. (2) Visual literacy skills take time to develop. (3) Visual literacy skills involve metacognition. (4) Conveying visual messages through art forms is best accomplished with developed skills in the medium or art form. (5) Visual literacy skills benefit from students' research, analysis, and interpretation of artworks to increase critical understanding. Visual literacy is culturally situated. (6) Visual literacy skills involve an awareness of audiences and a need to communicate ideas. (7) The conceptual framework, rather than the frames, provided a point of dialogue and focus within VPDs, artwork, and writing.