Fine Art

Painting, Drawing

Drawing is fundamental to all areas of fine art but may also be offered as a specialism. Students need to explore the basic elements of drawing with an emphasis on the use of line and tone. You should work initially from direct observation. As you build up your portfolio, you are expected to demonstrate a more mature understanding of how drawing can be used expressively in its own right, as well as a means of recording and documentation. Students are expected to explore a wide variety of media, wet and dry, for example pastels, inks and charcoal on a range of different surfaces.

Painting is traditionally the act of making a two-dimensional artwork with pigments. It differs from drawing in that it is more concerned with the use of tone and colour to convey form, light and space. Paintings are likely to be concerned with overall composition, recognising the context and genre of their work. Students will interpret and communicate their understanding of the world through the expression of their personal concerns and emotions. In offering this specialism, you explore a wide variety of materials; these may include watercolour, acrylic, oil, inks and pastels. An informed and sensitive understanding of colour should be shown. All painting should be preceded by investigative drawings, whether observational or analytical.

Printmaking

In this specialism, students are expected to understand the specialist requirements of the discipline, exploiting those innate characteristics – layering, working in multiples or a series of related images.

Students are expected to demonstrate high levels of technical competence as well as being experimental in their use of techniques and processes, manual or photographic. You should work with at least one of the following methods:

• relief - lino, woodcut, card

• intaglio - etching, collograph

• silk-screen

• monoprinting

Sculpture, Land Art, Installation

In this specialism, students are expected to demonstrate high levels of technical competence in the formal elements and techniques related
to this area, for instance form, space, mass and volume whilst also demonstrating an experimental approach.

You are also expected to demonstrate how position, manipulation and interaction within space can be physically manifested through a whole range of differing forms.

You will be provided with a range of materials and processes to select from:

• carving – cutting and shaping;

• modelling – forming, moulding and bending;

• casting – clay and plaster;

• constructing – welding, soldering, joining, gluing, stitching;

• site specific – produced and designed for a particular place;

• installation – the designing and construction of specific installations, which may be temporary in nature, exploring one or more of the following: film, video, photography, sound, sculpture.

Alternative Media

The primary concern in this specialism is in making Art which communicates ideas, or interprets contemporary issues, and which is enhanced or extended through an appropriate combination of media or processes.

Within such practice, the notion of boundaries has been removed and many artists explore ideas, issues and concepts through an interdisciplinary manner. Students are free to adopt such an openended approach and explore whatever process they feel is applicable to the realisation of their piece of work. Personal aims and objectives, however, should be firmly located within a Fine Art discipline and not in any other art form.

• Mixed media including collage and assemblage

This specialism enables students to produce innovative work in twodimensions, which transcends the boundaries of either skills or materials based processes. You may explore more orthodox forms such as collage or montage, as well as considering the interaction of  seemingly unrelated areas such as printmaking and computer imaging, or combining photographic imagery with painting or drawing.

• Photography, film, television, animation and video

Students have control of the processes connected with black and white photography to enable them to produce a body of work exploring and articulating their ideas. You are expected to demonstrate an understanding of how photographic images are located both in a fine art and a social context, for instance concerning issues of gender and representation.

Students also consider alternative methods of presentation. Finished work may be printed (on a variety of alternative surfaces) or projected.

A piece may be seen as a single image or as part of a sequential development.

• Fibre arts

Firmly located within Fine Arts, students are expected to use some of the traditional materials and processes of fashion and textiles, but in an explorative manner which questions the role of fabric and craft within contemporary society.

You may work with stitch, weave or surface decoration to develop work, which is expressive, and dealing with personal issues and context, for instance representation, the body or gender.