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AS Level Fine art, Personal Study?
Well i am going to start my personal study, but dont know how to start it. If anyone has even done it can you give me some tips please?
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Have you chosen an idea yet? Usually it's best to pick a theme, or someone who has a local exhibition on that you can use for AO2. Otherwise, just pick an artist or theme that you like. Make a list of things such as copies/ "in the style of"/etc. that are quite easy to include and work around the assessment objectives.
Reply 2
can i ask where you found these A02, things from ?
They're the marking criteria of OCR's Art course, and these are explained on the Bitesize site (it might be for GCSE, but it outlines everything quite well, just don't read too much into it).
I can dig out some of my stuff from last year if it'd help. AFAIK, I think it's weighted 20:30:30:20 between the assessment objectives for the Personal study.
Have you chosen a topic yet?
I can dig out some of my stuff from last year if it'd help. AFAIK, I think it's weighted 20:30:30:20 between the assessment objectives for the Personal study.
Have you chosen a topic yet?
Reply 4
yes, i am doing it on a piece of art, its a painting
Reply 5
Have you chosen your comparison pieces yet?
Plus, by 'topic' I think mailmerge means what you're looking for - for instance I did "Is art a conveyor of emotion?" or something along those lines..my main pierce of work was Rafters by Tony Bevan and my comparison was a piece by Kathe Kollwtiz, though obviously I used a lot of other work alongside those two, but they were my focus.
When you've got your pieces and theme, think of the main points which relate, then start thinking of visual analyses that you can do, and how you want your layout to be and just work from there
Plus, by 'topic' I think mailmerge means what you're looking for - for instance I did "Is art a conveyor of emotion?" or something along those lines..my main pierce of work was Rafters by Tony Bevan and my comparison was a piece by Kathe Kollwtiz, though obviously I used a lot of other work alongside those two, but they were my focus.
When you've got your pieces and theme, think of the main points which relate, then start thinking of visual analyses that you can do, and how you want your layout to be and just work from there
yeah i'm doing AS Art at the moment, but i have a theme, which is 'Transformation' and i'm focusing on how civilization is dominating nature and so on. ive chosen a few artists that i'll be basing my work on when experimenting. but when choosing you have to be careful and think through things carefully and i think its better if everything links back to eachother including the artists, your theme, and your expimentation. well it has to if you want to score top marks over the criterions. by the way this is only your coursework right?
Reply 7
A personal study requires in depth research into the chosen topic. First do that - then you'd be able to find out which bits are important and you can expand on.
Always try to use good sources - and I don't mean the internet, as a bibliography (for Edexcel) was included through recommendation of my teacher as a means of showing the examinor that you HAVE gone through the research part well.
Always try to use good sources - and I don't mean the internet, as a bibliography (for Edexcel) was included through recommendation of my teacher as a means of showing the examinor that you HAVE gone through the research part well.
Reply 8
Hey just finished by AS fine art, and got 80 out of 80 for both units, now i'm starting my A2 Personal Studies, advice i can give you :
1. Choose something broad, if you have an inkling of what you want to do... e.g. dogs, choose something broader which incorperates this, e.g. nature or Natural forms. This leaves you open to explore as you have a long time to do your personal study and you DO NOT want to get bored!! There's nothing worse for your art!
2. Try and get lots and lots of artist research, go to galleries, if an artist is doing a talk or a workshop - try and go! Take lots of pictures, buy little postcards which are relevent then email the artist afterwards asking a few questions about their work. Don't be shy! Most of them are lovely! Save the tickets and stick them in your sketchbook. Get as many artists as you can in many different styles.
3. Have a sketchbook purely for your ideas, do zillions of little thumbnail sketches, and experiment! Decide, for the next 5 pieces you do or 5 pages in your sketchbook, use a medium you are not confident in and try different techniques with it, ask your teacher to show you different ways of using them. Hate oil pastels? (i do!!!) try cross hatching them, rubbing them on thickly and then etching in them... all sorts! Then write about it. Tell your sketchbook what you're trying to do and why you don't like this medium but why you tried again
It's all this stuff that will get you marks for technique.
4. Got an idea? Great! Now try drawing it again and again in different styles, different colour schemes and different compositions. You never know you might find a completely different idea you love, but if you decide to go with one and like it, you can always look back and do another one towards the end to boost your marks.
5. always try and have a camera or sketchbook with you! You never know where inspiration will strike!!
6. Try drawing and painting from life as much as possible, nothing is better for your work! It helps you look at your subject more closely and think about your colour choices Teachers really love this, remember to explain and date it, where you were and what you are drawing (especially if they are really quick sketches and not quite finished! 
)
7. Write, write, write! You'd think fine art would be all about the art right? Wrong!! Always tell the examiner what you're doing and why, little thoughts that pop into your head about your work, what you like about other artists work, what you don't, what you think of the colour scheme, why you used certain colours, certain techniques and when things go wrong. You want a sketchbook that flows and when you 'read' it you can clearly see how you got from A to B to C
8. Do transcriptions! You may not think copying is very artistic or orgional, but it can help you work along and teach you different techniques.
I hope i helped It can be really hard to hit the nail on the head in art and know what the examiner wants, but do the steps above, repeat for each artist and try and go that extra mile, work a bit bigger, go to a gallery and you'll be well on your way to an A*!!
My art teacher says "An A grade student researches 20 artist and does 5 big pieces, an A* grade student researches 40, emails them, goes to their workshops and does 15 final pieces, some huge ones, just because they can and they wan't to go that little bit further."
just finished by AS fine art, and got 80 out of 80 for both units, now i'm starting my A2 Personal Studies, advice i can give you :1. Choose something broad, if you have an inkling of what you want to do... e.g. dogs, choose something broader which incorperates this, e.g. nature or Natural forms. This leaves you open to explore as you have a long time to do your personal study and you DO NOT want to get bored!! There's nothing worse for your art!
2. Try and get lots and lots of artist research, go to galleries, if an artist is doing a talk or a workshop - try and go! Take lots of pictures, buy little postcards which are relevent then email the artist afterwards asking a few questions about their work. Don't be shy! Most of them are lovely! Save the tickets and stick them in your sketchbook. Get as many artists as you can in many different styles.
3. Have a sketchbook purely for your ideas, do zillions of little thumbnail sketches, and experiment! Decide, for the next 5 pieces you do or 5 pages in your sketchbook, use a medium you are not confident in and try different techniques with it, ask your teacher to show you different ways of using them. Hate oil pastels? (i do!!!) try cross hatching them, rubbing them on thickly and then etching in them... all sorts! Then write about it. Tell your sketchbook what you're trying to do and why you don't like this medium but why you tried again
It's all this stuff that will get you marks for technique.4. Got an idea? Great! Now try drawing it again and again in different styles, different colour schemes and different compositions. You never know you might find a completely different idea you love, but if you decide to go with one and like it, you can always look back and do another one towards the end to boost your marks.
5. always try and have a camera or sketchbook with you! You never know where inspiration will strike!!
6. Try drawing and painting from life as much as possible, nothing is better for your work! It helps you look at your subject more closely and think about your colour choices
Teachers really love this, remember to explain and date it, where you were and what you are drawing (especially if they are really quick sketches and not quite finished! ) 7. Write, write, write! You'd think fine art would be all about the art right? Wrong!! Always tell the examiner what you're doing and why, little thoughts that pop into your head about your work, what you like about other artists work, what you don't, what you think of the colour scheme, why you used certain colours, certain techniques and when things go wrong. You want a sketchbook that flows and when you 'read' it you can clearly see how you got from A to B to C
8. Do transcriptions! You may not think copying is very artistic or orgional, but it can help you work along and teach you different techniques.
I hope i helped
It can be really hard to hit the nail on the head in art and know what the examiner wants, but do the steps above, repeat for each artist and try and go that extra mile, work a bit bigger, go to a gallery and you'll be well on your way to an A*!!My art teacher says "An A grade student researches 20 artist and does 5 big pieces, an A* grade student researches 40, emails them, goes to their workshops and does 15 final pieces, some huge ones, just because they can and they wan't to go that little bit further."
Reply 9
Original post by LemonCookie
My art teacher says "An A grade student researches 20 artist and does 5 big pieces, an A* grade student researches 40, emails them, goes to their workshops and does 15 final pieces, some huge ones, just because they can and they wan't to go that little bit further."
Not necessarily. Just finished A2, got an A overall. AS involved projects of 'Storms and Landscapes' and 'Skeletons' (My choice out of the set few) had about 4 artists in each sketchbook and got a bang tidy grade. A2 on the other hand with my personal study I did China. A fairly wide topic if you ask me. I think the title was 'Artistic perspectives in China'.. And all I really looked at was what I think could be seen under a creative/ artistic context. Architecture (buildings, temples etc.), Nature (Waterfalls, bamboo forests, rivers etc.), festivals, monuments, statues etc. etc. (Didn't use any artists)
I developed my final summary or 'conclusive piece' to the extreme though, as you should in every project. Overall grade was 75/80 .. Not full marks I know, but I believe 90%+ in both A2 projects will get you an A*, got 76/80 in the final btw with about 4 artists. I'm not disregarding what you said man, because alot of the time in this subject it IS quantity over quality, but evidence of a developed skill is also pretty useful I think, which you said this in someway or another (Draw things again, different medias etc.)
Just highlighting my expirience with this topic [Wish I was going into an art based degree -_-]
Finally @the creator of this thread, my advice to you is go with something massively open so you can analyse a crap load of aspects. In your annotations, don't forget to mention why you included this specific in your work also <- been told this is key... I mean it is quite obvious tbh if the project is called a personal investigation
Reply 10
Original post by Raguman
Not necessarily. Just finished A2, got an A overall. AS involved projects of 'Storms and Landscapes' and 'Skeletons' (My choice out of the set few) had about 4 artists in each sketchbook and got a bang tidy grade.
4?!?! Really??, ah, but how many sketchbooks did you do??
I think it was a slight exaggeration, he was just saying y'know put the extra effot in and it will pay off 
I also over heard him say "Even if they're crap at drawing, and the art is mediocre, if you can see where they've come from and development, they get the marks"
Reply 11
Original post by LemonCookie
4?!?! Really??, ah, but how many sketchbooks did you do?? I think it was a slight exaggeration, he was just saying y'know put the extra effot in and it will pay off
I think it was a slight exaggeration, he was just saying y'know put the extra effot in and it will pay off One per topic :P
Reply 12
One per topic?? I don't understand
Our A2 is 6 months of personal study, then the exam?? so you did 2 sketchbooks???
Our A2 is 6 months of personal study, then the exam?? so you did 2 sketchbooks???
Reply 13
Original post by LemonCookie
My art teacher says "An A grade student researches 20 artist and does 5 big pieces, an A* grade student researches 40, emails them, goes to their workshops and does 15 final pieces, some huge ones, just because they can and they wan't to go that little bit further."
Good advice =)
But 20 artists??! Thats insane! =p I've just finished my A2 Art and did 6 for my personal study and 6 for my exam =) 2 sketchbooks and 1 final piece for each project, as well as supporting work. Doing extra large scale drawings and lots of experimentation really gets you the higher marks I think.
But yeah, in terms of the essay, you have to choose a topic that really interests you as it lasts till February-ish and quite a few people in my year got bored halfway through theirs. I would choose a broad topic which has a lot you can explore and try and come up with a question and a list of about 3 aims that you want to investigate or learn about within your essay. I did a Comparative essay on an aspect of illustration and compared and contrasted artists work and general illustration through different ages.
Hope this helps a bit =)
Reply 14
Original post by LemonCookie
One per topic?? I don't understand
Our A2 is 6 months of personal study, then the exam?? so you did 2 sketchbooks???
Our A2 is 6 months of personal study, then the exam?? so you did 2 sketchbooks???
xD sorry man, one sketchbook per project. I did one A3 sketchbook for my China personal investigation project with a fairly big final piece. (75/80) and one sketchbook for my exam project, which was Changing Seasons, also A3 and four final pieces in my 15 hour exam
76/80. Wish I bossed it in the first year though, don't think the A* is possible with the EXTREMELY high B I got last year. 
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 15
Hi, thank you for all the advice, it's very useful
Im still unsure on my subject, do you have any advice on how to choose
or good places to find artists?
Thanks!
Im still unsure on my subject, do you have any advice on how to choose
or good places to find artists?
Thanks!
Reply 16
Whats the topics that are available to you?
Reply 17
Well my teacher said that we can pick any subject that we're interested in, I think i might go with landscapes... that gives quite a large amount of options within that subject... not sure what kind of re-search to do... any pointers? thanks
Reply 18
here's what i suggest you do:
- choose your topic and glue yourself to it without changing you mind half way through the project
- research a couple of artists (maybe 3 or 4) ...and suuper analyse them in as much detail as possible and do a couple of works in their style
- do some observational studies in different media and sizes..all related to your topic, even if vaguely
- do thumbnails throughout your journal to show the development of ideas and composition
- play around with ideas in photoshop (different colour variations/ style etc...)
- take a few photos and collage them
- decide on final piece
- evaluation
...and most importantly, dont be afraid to do something different!
that's all there is to it
i got 100% for my coursework at AS and 98% for the exam... i used one journal for each project (my exam one was only about 10 pages thick)) + one final piece each and larger studies...people might be telling you that you need to research hundreds of artists to get an A* and create 10 different sketchbooks stuffed with practically identical drawings accompanied by billions of sheets of pink tissue paper and meaningless written dribble... this may work for some people, but if you're genuinely talented then don't waste your time - quality is much better than quantity... work hard and show variety in style and ideas, don't try to create something just for the sake of filling space... and by no means assume that spending hours on colouring journal pages with solid blocks of colour as a background for writing is gonna get you any marks...
...sorry i'm just having a little rant regarding what annoys me about other art students at my school... some of whom still manage so get good grades... it amazes me..
- choose your topic and glue yourself to it without changing you mind half way through the project
- research a couple of artists (maybe 3 or 4) ...and suuper analyse them in as much detail as possible and do a couple of works in their style
- do some observational studies in different media and sizes..all related to your topic, even if vaguely
- do thumbnails throughout your journal to show the development of ideas and composition
- play around with ideas in photoshop (different colour variations/ style etc...)
- take a few photos and collage them
- decide on final piece
- evaluation
...and most importantly, dont be afraid to do something different!
that's all there is to it
i got 100% for my coursework at AS and 98% for the exam... i used one journal for each project (my exam one was only about 10 pages thick)) + one final piece each and larger studies...people might be telling you that you need to research hundreds of artists to get an A* and create 10 different sketchbooks stuffed with practically identical drawings accompanied by billions of sheets of pink tissue paper and meaningless written dribble... this may work for some people, but if you're genuinely talented then don't waste your time - quality is much better than quantity... work hard and show variety in style and ideas, don't try to create something just for the sake of filling space... and by no means assume that spending hours on colouring journal pages with solid blocks of colour as a background for writing is gonna get you any marks...
...sorry i'm just having a little rant regarding what annoys me about other art students at my school... some of whom still manage so get good grades... it amazes me..
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 19
Thanks, that's really useful, i've never been to sure on what exactly to re-search but thats a great guideline to follow I see what you mean about the quality, it's so much better than just doing alot of pieces.
no worries i know what you mean thanks for all the help
I see what you mean about the quality, it's so much better than just doing alot of pieces.no worries
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