Art and Design

Course summary

A Level Art is about developing your creativity and the way you express ideas about the world around you, very much as a practicing artist would. The purpose of this course is to develop your ability to appreciate the visual world, respond in a personal and creative way and perhaps even contribute for the benefit of everyone. The skills you will develop will be varied. Among them, you will develop a working knowledge of materials, practices and technology within art; develop the skills to interpret and convey your ideas and feelings using art, craft and design; develop your imaginative and creative powers and your experimental, analytical and documenting skills, and do these in increasingly independent ways What will I be studying on the course and what will I do in lessons? During the course you will explore ways of working and ideas within a given theme. There will be an experiment and exploration phase where you will be taught different techniques by your teachers. You will expand on existing skills such as painting and drawing and will also explore new techniques such as etching and screen printing. Beyond this you will be expected to progress ideas and techniques in an independent way aiming to achieve a personal style and approach to your work. Lessons are largely practical based and once in the independent development phase are tutorial based with one to one and small group discussions about your work. The A-Level course is intended to be very self directed; the theme and ideas are to be generated by the students informed by discussions with teachers, in addition there is an essay (1000 words min) that needs to be submitted as part of the project. Both the AS and A Level courses have a second unit where a broad theme is set by the exam board and will result in a piece of work completed in exam conditions.