Art and Design

This course will interest you if you are applying to art school or college from sixth year and would like to supplement your advanced higher portfolio with Life Drawing, Printmaking, and Sketchbook Development Skills. You should be comfortable discussing your ideas with other students and lecturers and working with unclothed life models.

The course is about broadening your artistic skills by providing you with an opportunity to develop key life drawing skills, to experiment with printing in a range of media including textiles and to learn how to use a sketchbook to develop your ideas and concepts.  

The Printmaking Unit will introduce you to printmaking skills by allowing you to experiment with different methods. You will produce a portfolio of experimental prints, and plan, produce and present finished prints. This unit will be delivered along with a Design for Print unit, where you will develop skills and techniques which will allow you to investigate the commercial print process. You will research, develop, produce and present a design for print to a given brief.  

The Life Drawing unit is centred around drawing the naked human form and the models may be male or female. You should come prepared to think differently about how you see and to leave with some great work for your portfolio. We will focus on drawing the human form and take you from the fundamentals of drawing through a variety of linear and tonal exercises to experimenting with media and reacting to shifting poses and movement. You will accumulate a large body of experimental and resolved work, through which you will flex your creative muscle and become confident in drawing the human body.  

Sketchbooks are a vital component of the creative process, enabling students to visualise emerging and evolving ideas. In the sketchbook unit, students will have the opportunity to expand on themes and concepts arising in their portfolio and, through practical workshops and demonstrations, they will develop a substantial body of sketchbook work.  

You should already have achieved a Higher Art. Within your personal statement please tell us in in a couple of paragraphs about your career plans which should include applying to art school or to study art at college. Once your application has been approved by your school, we will contact you to ask you to email us between 6 and 10 jpeg's showcasing a variety of your recent work which, along with your personal statement, which will form the basis of our selection process for the course.

The life drawing unit will be assessed on the overall success of your folio of life drawings, which will include a range of durations, experiments, partial studies, full studies and resolved final drawings. The sketchbook unit will be assessed on the thorough creative expansion of your chosen theme and the range of creative ideas explored throughout the sketchbook. The Design and Printmaking units require you to produce a folio of work which includes annotated research and development of ideas, a series of experimental prints using a variety of techniques and a minimum of two finished prints.

The life drawing unit is entirely practical, while the sketchbook unit may ask you to carry out visual research to form a contemporary context around your artwork. Many of the basic materials and costs will be covered but you may be required to bring a toolkit of materials and tools, and we will advise you before the start of the course on what you will be asked to provide. 

Successful completion of this course may allow you to progress onto our level 6 or HNC Art & Design full time course, as well as supporting any application you make to Art School.