Summer Courses?

Having looked at a2 fine art portfolios at school, the students in my class who intend to go onto a foundation course were recommended to do a summer or evening course to show more creativity/freedom.

I was wonderng if the same applied to architecture students? would there be a great advantage as to doing an arts summer course, or (if there are any) an architecture based one? i could imagine the bartlett welcoming very "arty"/experimental portfolios, but would anyone know the general view?

any advice would be much appreciated - my school has very few architecture students and dont have much advice :P

thanks!

Reply 1

singsongballadsmiles

The majority of my art class are going on to do a foundation (they will be taking art for their degrees), whereas I'm going to do architecture and I am not going take a foundation. You should be able to build up a creative portfolio within your art A-Level course, but more importantly you should have an on-going sketchbook outside of your A-Level course. It may be worthwhile to do some life-drawing if you don't do that in your art A-Level already :biggrin:

So yeah... it's not compulsory to take a foundation. IIRC, Gormless Wonder (on TSR) did a foundation and he's now at Westminster, so it may be useful to talk to him :biggrin:

Hope this helps!

Reply 2

quertylondon

hello,

the AA has some summer course, so does CSM in london and as far as i know the Bartlett is starting one as well. Have a look here:

http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture/programmes/short-courses

There is a Summer School and a Summer Foundation on there. Check as well the AA and the CSM website.

good luck!

Reply 3

ContemporaryTales

My AS and A2 Art work will probably make up the bulk of my portfolio too, I'm just slightly unsure about how experimental it is. I think the life drawing stuff might be some of the most experimental stuff in terms of medium, although I really don't have much 3D/sculpture work apart from GCSE pottery and Resistant Materials. Definitely helps, thank you so much :smile:

Thanks so much - I'll definitely take a look :smile:

Summer Schools have a tendancy to be somewhat pricey but I'll have dig around.

Reply 4

poparch

Original post by ContemporaryTales

Thanks so much - I'll definitely take a look :smile:

Summer Schools have a tendancy to be somewhat pricey but I'll have dig around.

CSM, has good architectural drawing and model making week long summer and easter courses. they are pretty good value for money

Reply 5

GormlessWonder

You'd submit your portfolio most likely in Jan-March so obviously this summer course would have to be taken between ASs and A2s, it's a good thing to do I suppose, but far from necessary.
Portfolio reviewers are mostly interested in self-directed developed work, if the AS and A2 work covers the usual bases like showing painting and drawing skill, imagine how impressed they'd be if you spent summer doing a travel sketch diary, or outdoor sculptures that engaged with your local community, or lots of conceptual collages representing places and spaces. It is difficult to concieve such things from scratch, and foundations give you freedom and starting points to go from, but try to think instead that you need to produce about 15 distinct pieces, so over summer just start to develop a lot of stuff for it.