GCSE art sketchbook help

I'm right at the end of my GCSE art; my exam piece has started, but we are still working on our main project as well. I am still slightly confused as to the layout of art sketchbooks, I got a high A star in my first project, but I don't know whether my second will get the same. I have done A LOT of written analysis of artists, basically entire pages of writing; it's beginning to look more like an art history book than a GCSE sketchbook.
However I have still done a lot of sketching, development work and museum entries...should I be worrying about the amount of written work in my book?
Thank you for your help everyone!

I got full marks in my art GCSE, so hopefully I'll be of some help!

On the pages where it's fully writing, that's absolutely fine, but just make sure that they look artistic - do a watercolour wash for the background or something, and you could include some of the artists work there too, or your own interpretation of them. It's important to have artist appreciation, just make sure that the facts aren't simply about the artist's life, but about their work and your interpretation of it etc.

You can also use some pages to explain the different media you have used - eg how it works and stuff - in your final pieces, with any trials you did before you created the final piece.

If you got marked at an A* before then what are you worrying about? I had a teacher who was a very very harsh marker in all the projects leading up to the final ones which made me work my butt off to get the A*.

I don't think you have to do too much detail for analysing each artist. Obviously you have to do some but rather than writing pages and pages it's far better to use them as an influence in your own work; to write a bit about them and then begin relating their work to yours and then developing from it. If you feel you're writing an art history book then that is too much writing. Write a couple paragraphs about 1 or 2 specific pieces of work then write a bit (not a lot!!) as you go along, saying why you're doing certain things, where your thinking's coming from.

From what I remember, you have to just keep up the amount of work you're producing and show a development of skills. Take lots of your own images (that's very important) and use them to create pieces. It's great that you're going to gallerys - make sure you show how you're picking up on techniques you've seen used there and any new artists you might discover, use your visits to influence your work. Hope that was helpful

Thank you, this is very helpful! I had done backgrounds and nice titles for some of them but not all; I will do now!
unfortunately my only medium allowed is ceramics (according to my teacher) so I can only do pages about sculpture...I guess I could do different ceramics (limestone, clay etc)...Thank you again!

Try to BS as much as you can. Examiners love when you try to be pretentious. The fact that you've done a lot of writing is good.

-Don't leave too much of the page white - this means even filling them in with random colours where it looks dull.

-Try to document everything, including your progress from one idea to another. It needs to look like you're developing your ideas one step at a time.

-The work doesn't have to be spectacular although it will help if it is.

-the sketch pad honestly isn't THAT important. Mine wasn't amazing but I guess my other work made up for it.

-draw things even if they aren't related to your project. I drew a bunch of random things that I enjoyed drawing just for the sake of not dying of boredom. These also turned out better than my other sketches since I actually enjoyed doing them. You could always write about how you were trying new ideas but ey didn't work out and you didn't want em in your final piece, blah blah.

-Finally, if you can't finish your sketchbook, rip a couple of pages out - it worked for me

A lot of this has probably been mentioned in other posts but I haven't read through. Hope it helps.

whatever you do, do not do that