Alton College A Level Art Blog: A Level Art and Design Pre-Course Work (for new 1st Years)

AS Art and Design

Coursework Part I – “Journey”

Outline: Over the first few weeks of the course we will explore a range of approaches, producing a series of images around the theme of “Journey”.

Through this project we hope to build on your existing skills and introduce new ways of working, the techniques you will learn will also set you up to succeed with the second part of the AS Coursework which starts in November.

The images we create in this project will explore different aspects of a journey – this could be something simple like a shopping trip into town or a visit to a friend or you might choose to explore a more complex journey such as a trip overseas. Access to a camera/decent cameraphone will be essential.

Pre-Course Preparation Work

In order to prepare for your first project entitled “JOURNEY” you will need to take some photographs to provide visual stimulus for your project. To gather your photographs you will need to take a journey. You can record any aspects of your journey you feel are significant/appropriate, but ensure you cover all the categories outlined below.

DO:

Try to take visually interesting images.
Consider camera angle/viewpoint (high angle/low angle can give striking shots).
Consider composition/cropping - zooming in on details can give strong imagery.
Try to take the photos in good light – look at the weather forecast and plan accordingly if you are shooting outside.
Try to arrange your light sources in front of your subjects (rather than behind, which creates silhouettes and loses detail).
Read the brief carefully and plan your journey so it offers good opportunities to capture all the required images.

DON’T

Use secondary imagery from the internet – this is your project, own it!
Use old photos you have saved, take new images with the project in mind.
Leave the task to the last minute and rush it.

These photos are important and thoughtful completion of this task is essential to making a good start to the course. The quality of the imagery you work from has a significant effect on the quality of the work you produce! A few example images are included in the brief to hopefully inspire your own explorations of the theme. Take several photos of each of the following:

· Where you start your journey from (your point of departure).

· Images of people you encounter on your journey (these could be a friends, relatives, or someone unfamiliar like a bus driver or shopkeeper).

· A group of objects that symbolise your journey, the contents of your bag/pockets might be a good starting point for this (e.g. bags, keys, tickets, phone, watch, cash, bank cards, make up, hats/gloves/scarves, receipts, newspapers/books/magazines, snacks/drinks/packaging, pens/pencils, found objects such as pebbles, feathers or leaves). Given thought to how you arrange and light the objects and consider cropping and camera angle carefully.