EXAM SEASON

Exam season is upon us again, for all Year 11, 12 & 13 students it's time to get busy! You all have between 4 - 6 weeks of school to prepare for the actual exam, so it's important to work in a very concentrated and specific fashion. 

TOP TIPS for EXAM SUCCESS

1. Communicate with your teacher/s! We are here to guide you towards success. 

2. Plan your time. You will need to, at very least, fill a sketchbook full of preparation work BEFORE the exam. 

3. Follow this basic working structure: 

- select a question / starting point

- record and observe

- analyse the theme 

- research artist references 

- experiment with materials and processes 

- develop and review your ideas 

- personalise your work 

- complete and present your final piece 

- evaluate

4. Your work has to fit into the ASSESSMENT OBJECTIVES. No matter how interesting and creative your work is, and no matter how many compliments you get for it, you won't get the marks if it doesn't fit within the 4 objectives. Each of these objectives is worth 25%, and so you need to spend approximately 25% of your time on each one. 

5. Attend the after-school lessons. Wednesdays 3 - 4pm for GCSE; Thursdays 3 - 4.30pm for AS/A2 Level. Also, use your "free" time to do some extra work. GCSE students should be using some of their lunch times to complete extra work; AS/A2 students should be setting aside a minimum of two "free" periods a week to work in the art rooms. 

6. Use the following websites to help you get inspired: 

- the William de Ferrers School in Essex has kept an excellent online gallery of all exam classes work over the last six years. As the work is categorised by grades, and includes the candidates prep' work at the bottom of the page, it is an excellent facility for you to understand the scope and ambition needed in order to reach a particular grade in a specific examination. I can't recommend this site enough - GCSE Fine Art ; AS Fine Art ; A2 Fine Art.

- GCSE bitesize has really good information regarding the assessment objectives, together with visual examples of student's work and suggested artist references. 

- The Tate Gallery has an extensive 'search' function, and will give you much relevant contextual information on just about every established artist you can think of. 

- The Young Tate section of the website has an exam help feature, which will guide you towards relevant IDEAS and ARTIST REFERENCES. 

- The American equivalents of the Tate, MOMA in New York, and the NGA in Washington are also excellent resources when researching artists and developing ideas. 

Art exam season can be overwhelming, but remember that it can be a really rewarding time too. This is when YOU SHOW US your ideas, your artistic skills and your creative flair. This is your time to shine, and to raise your grade as high as possible. 

Best of luck to you all.

R Davies

Year 7 Landscape

Make your own Henri Rousseau style landscape by using Jungle a brilliant interactive website. When you are finished print out and put in your art folder.

Extension work (year 7)

Artists use their imaginations to create scenes and places that are not real and that might never exist

Visit the Tate Kids webpage, and play the
 'My Imaginary City' game You will be able to create your own imaginary city. What would it be like? When you are finished print out your city and describe what it is like to live there.

C Ball

'still life' extension work (year 9)

TASK 1: Create your own traditional-style still life painting by using the NGA interactive painting webpage. Add, move, and re-size objects, change tables and fabrics, use digital paintbrushes, and much more! print out your concluding image and put in your art folder. 

TASK 2: Visit the excellent Tate Kids webpage, and play the 'Memento Mori' game. It will teach you about the symbols and meanings behind 'still life' artworks. When you've played the game, write a short description about the ideas explored in still life art. 

R Davies

'changing style' extension work (year 8)

TASK 1: visit this blog about EXPERIMENTAL ALPHABETS where you will see a huge variety of hand-drawn lettering and experimental typography. Now, using the influence of what you see there, design your own alphabet!

TASK 2: Alter a page of text from a magazine or newspaper, in the style of artist TOM PHILLIPS. Experiment with making a totally new meaning as you cover and alter the words on the page. 

TASK 3: Select one of the abstract close-up images from the animation sets from the online GALLERY (don't worry if it's not your own photograph). Print out and, cover with big lettering from your poem (you could use your own alphabet from Task 1).  

R Davies

Identity in location (yr 12 photography)

"Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn't attending to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don't see." Emmet Gowin

Photographers often construct realities, or dream-like spaces for their figurative subjects to inhabit. Such contemporary photographers are responding to the notion that photography is always a fiction, and not the documentary truth it was once considered to be. Your task is to construct your dreams, memories or histories, thereby expressing something of your identity. The following photographers will help you to generate ideas and techniques - 

Mari Mahr constructs half-remembered and half-invented narrative images of her memories and cultural past. Her work combines objects and photographs, public and private, past and present. 

Architect CJ Lim is inspired by authors such as Jules Verne, Lewis Carroll, and Illustrator Heath Robinson. He creates intricate architectural "drawings" out of photographic fragments.

David Levinthal's photography is at once nostalgic, voyeuristic and poignant. He uses childhood toys to stage events of historical and cultural importance, travelling precariously between imagination and reality. 

Duane Michals tried to blur the boundaries between philosophy and photography through his art. He delved into the unconscious mind and asked, what is real and what is imagined? He often grouped his photographs into a narrative structure, the logical nature of which belied his surreal and dreamlike subject matter. 

Slinkachu places "little people" around the streets of London, and photographs the glaring scale differential. Although initially comical, his work evokes feelings of alienation, suffering and survival. The figures, so distorted by scale, are inevitably childlike in both their otherworldly and playful qualities. 

Happy Researching, Photog Squad! 

R Davies

exhibition success - WOO HOO!

Nailsea students achieved many successes at this year's North Somerset Art Exhibition, featuring the best art work from all North Somerset schools. Both the Art staff and exhibiting students attended a private view on Friday 28th November, during which we collected two awards, out of a possible three, for the best work on show. 

Amy Terrell won the 2D Art cup for her powerful panorama of a London scene. Her experimental use of inks together with expressive communication of the manic nature of a metropolis impressed the judges. 

Harriet Farren won the 3D Art cup for her wonderful rendering of a musical instrument. The sculpture comments on the changing face of musical expression, from traditional wooden forms to contemporary digital and electric devises. 

Congratulations to all the exhibiting students, and a special "woo hoo!" to Amy and Harriet for their prize-winning. 

The exhibition is on at the North Somerset Museum until the 10th of January, and is well worth a visit. 

R Davies