A Level Art

Hey, I was just wanting to know how difficult others find A Level art? Because before I started art at A Level, I enjoyed it as a hobby and absolutely loved art. However, I'm now in Year 13 and find myself absolutely hating art, due to the fact that it's ridiculous at A Level.

This year, we started off planning for our theme and everyone starts off all enthusiastic. Then came the gallery trip, art history task of about 6 artists and 8 images for each, consisting of about 300 words for each image and a biography on each artist. Then at the same time, there was 100+ photographs to take and then came the 10+ drawings of those. At this time, we were then asked to do artist transcriptions, by this point I had completely lost all interest and felt overwhelmed. This is all within about the first month and remember that there are other A Levels as well. Then came pages and pages of ideas and development, 2 large final pieces, a 3000 word study and then start the whole thing over again with the exam book.

I don't know if this is just my school, but I absolutely hate the course. There is no freedom, because everything has to relate back to your artists somehow and you have to explain every single thing you do even if you just make up a load of bull about the lines representing feeling trapped or some **** and the teacher always gets people to change their work all the time.

Anyone feeling almost like they're ready to give up with it? I've isolated myself all half term trying to get on with it and even if you get what feels like loads done, you never actually finish. I have at least 10,000 words to do right now and could scream.

Reply 1

hlking

Original post by strobe

Hey, I was just wanting to know how difficult others find A Level art? Because before I started art at A Level, I enjoyed it as a hobby and absolutely loved art. However, I'm now in Year 13 and find myself absolutely hating art, due to the fact that it's ridiculous at A Level.

This year, we started off planning for our theme and everyone starts off all enthusiastic. Then came the gallery trip, art history task of about 6 artists and 8 images for each, consisting of about 300 words for each image and a biography on each artist. Then at the same time, there was 100+ photographs to take and then came the 10+ drawings of those. At this time, we were then asked to do artist transcriptions, by this point I had completely lost all interest and felt overwhelmed. This is all within about the first month and remember that there are other A Levels as well. Then came pages and pages of ideas and development, 2 large final pieces, a 3000 word study and then start the whole thing over again with the exam book.

I don't know if this is just my school, but I absolutely hate the course. There is no freedom, because everything has to relate back to your artists somehow and you have to explain every single thing you do even if you just make up a load of bull about the lines representing feeling trapped or some **** and the teacher always gets people to change their work all the time.

Anyone feeling almost like they're ready to give up with it? I've isolated myself all half term trying to get on with it and even if you get what feels like loads done, you never actually finish. I have at least 10,000 words to do right now and could scream.

I don't know which exam board you're on but I'm also studying A-Level Art and it is nothing like this. We wrote a compulsory 2000 word coursework study on an artist of our choosing and, apart from odd comments and recordings, that is the only writing we have had to do!

Reply 2

Sammydemon

18

Obviously the work load is high. They have to do something to make up for the fact that the content and overall knowledge/skill you gain from the A-level is utterly minimal.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 3

strobe

OP

6

Original post by Sammydemon

Obviously the work load is high. They have to do something to make up for the fact that the content and overall knowledge/skill you gain from the A-level is utterly minumal.

True, I really regret taking it.

Reply 4

Kai Hiwatari

12

Really? I really like my A-level art course. The teachers really encourage us to be ambitious and experiment. I know what you mean about the workload though, its hard especially with other subjects. I was doing art all half term too! And now my back is dead from leaning over my book xD Also I agree about how you can spend ages doing art and it looks like you haven't done anything but I think its rewarding at the end of it when you get a good mark for putting in the effort =) I really love art though, I found AS harder than i'm finding A2 atm and its mainly because its freer and i'm staying up to date with the work. Its really hard when you get behind! =p A lot of people were getting bored with their personal studies towards the end though because it has been a few months =p Yeah we also have to explain about everything, do artist transcriptions and relate ideas to artists. But they don't have to be related as in being in the artists style, like we could take the lighting or colours used in their work as inspiration for our ideas.

Stay positive though =) hopefully this exam will be good! And then its basically the end of 6th form =)

Reply 5

cocacola123

I think A level art is absolutely ridiculous! They really need to update the course cause the top univercitys seems to really hate A level art work so its really annoying if you want to do art as a career. The A level takes up soooo much time that you get no time to do your own art work outside of school and all the unis i've applied to seem to be only really interested in the independant stuff. It also really doesn't train you to be an artist and be creative because you have to meet all the criteria to get an A and some of the stuff is so pointless.. I also hate how everything has to relate to an artist too! Like fair enough that you need to do some artist research but the course really doesn't allow you to be an artists and let your ideas kind of flow! I'm really considering dropping it and just doing my own work outside of school because I feel the course restricts me so much and i'm not really progressing as I have no interest in my theme what so ever. Thought I was the only one who felt like this!

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 6

Lylat

I found A level art quite tedious.
I have to thank my tutor for pushing me hard to actually do work to add to my portfolio.
I however, liked the choice I got with various aspects of the course, such as optical illusions as an exam piece, and recreating Japanese ukiyo-e art for the 'Japan' theme for either a mock or proper exam (I can't remember) the same as I did at GCSE.
I was though the only boy doing A level art (this included both AS and A2) which took its toll later on in the course (Lol @ one of my exes being on my course) but that doesn't matter.

Original post by hlking

I don't know which exam board you're on but I'm also studying A-Level Art and it is nothing like this. We wrote a compulsory 2000 word coursework study on an artist of our choosing and, apart from odd comments and recordings, that is the only writing we have had to do!

Same here, but I had to compare Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture and my work (I had produced various drawings of buildings, and also acrylic versions of paintings in ukiyo-e style). However, I felt there was little communication and clarification of what we actually had to produce, as I had to redo a large chunk because of doing the essay wrong.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 7

emeleh

13

Original post by strobe

I don't know if this is just my school, but I absolutely hate the course. There is no freedom, because everything has to relate back to your artists somehow and you have to explain every single thing you do even if you just make up a load of bull about the lines representing feeling trapped or some **** .

I felt exactly like this when I did A level art too.
In the end I just gave up, ignored my teacher and linked back to really vague things about artists e.g. this guy used red, so did I, therefore he influence me, and then did something from that which I wanted to do.
My teacher wasn't happy but it can't have been that bad as I ended up with A* overall :smile:

Id recommend trying to find artists you genuinely like too, it makes it so much better!

Reply 8

strobe

OP

6

Original post by emeleh

I felt exactly like this when I did A level art too.
In the end I just gave up, ignored my teacher and linked back to really vague things about artists e.g. this guy used red, so did I, therefore he influence me, and then did something from that which I wanted to do.
My teacher wasn't happy but it can't have been that bad as I ended up with A* overall :smile:

Id recommend trying to find artists you genuinely like too, it makes it so much better!

I feel like this too with my teacher. I have one who is really lovely and laid back yet helpful, but we only have her once and week, but the main tutor is awful. I think the only reason he has kept his job is because he's so knowledgeable with art, otherwise he would've been sacked. So many people have complained including myself, because he never encourages and only says negatives and forgets anything he tells you, so you end up doing something he tells you to do then he claims he never told you to do that and tells you to scrap it. Happens every few lessons. He is also inappropriate at times, like taking hold of my hand and caressing it when I was tlaking to him about work in private.
But it's good you ended up with A* :smile:

I never listen to what the teachers tell me anymore, I'm going to do it my own way whilst ticking all the boxes and hopefully do well. He hates all my ideas but at the end of the day I want to focus on a topic I enjoy, instead of not doing the work because I dislike the theme.

Reply 9

emeleh

13

Original post by strobe

I never listen to what the teachers tell me anymore, I'm going to do it my own way whilst ticking all the boxes and hopefully do well. He hates all my ideas but at the end of the day I want to focus on a topic I enjoy, instead of not doing the work because I dislike the theme.

Go for it

as long as what your doing still fits into your exam spec theres no reason why you can't do really well, regardless of what comments your teachers make :smile:

Reply 10

lenalouiseh

I totally know what you mean. I'm in year 13 doing four A levels - art amongst them. I love art as a hobby, but I think that the conceptualization of everything you do is ridiculous. It seems like the actual art doesn't matter, just the crippling amount of documentation of your ideas. I know loads of people who take art and love it though :smile:

Reply 11

dowan1993

I took it for AS im doing it now... I took Bio, Chem, Maths and Further Maths and it was either physics or art. I thought physics would make me sound like a boring person and plus I wanted to take a creative subject so I took art and now.... THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE... it is extremely time-consuming you literally have to be bloody amazing at it or just very dedicated.