Art and Design (Fine Art)

Course summary

This course can enlighten your perspective on the changing face of art in this new millennium and give you insight into the powers of your daydreaming mind. It equips you with a creative armoury of visual arts skills, harnesses your imagination and enables you to communicate your personal ideas through a dynamic visual language. This largely practical course allows you to explore not only why and how art is made but also shapes your style as a potential artist. You will be asked to produce a portfolio of work from given starting points, topics or themes. In this sense the term portfolio refers to a set of work that shows exploration, research, technique and skill. This may be presented in a portfolio of some kind, involving working in and out of sketchbooks. Art is often about creative discovery so although you will improve your direct observation skills with drawing traditional media and tools you will also experiment with some unusual and unexpected techniques, discovering new directions to make progress. You will also learn to analyse your work and the work of others. You will look at contemporary and historical artists and how they might relate to your own work. There will be a mock exam at the end of the year which may be an observational piece of work or a response to an artist.