FROM COUCH TO ARTIST: A 9-STEP PROGRAMME FOR GCSE AND A LEVEL STUDENTS
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Apologies, the title might be unfair. For art students everywhere this year has been totally disrupted. 'Lockdown' has been a significant challenge for many. Precious studio time has been stolen and squeezed. So what's with 'Couch to Artist? ' Well, let's be honest still, some students (not you, obviously) have openly admitted to 10 hours-a-day binge-watching Netflix and trawling Tik Tok, and it turns out this doesn't get the doodling done. Home-learning might not be ideal, but whether you are approaching Year 11 or 13, there's something to be said for short-term goals and timely deadlines. And if I've learnt anything from Joe Wicks over lockdown it's the appeal of a structured work-out. So, for art students everywhere - and hopefully of benefit for teachers too - what follows is a 9-step programme to help you get positively ripped for Art lessons to come. |
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Each week a task will be added below for you to complete. Over 9 tasks, with reference to our Threshold Concepts (9 'big art ideas'), you will be challenged to produce new work - all potentially submittable as coursework. Most importantly, the knowledge and experiences gained should help you grow as an authentic and informed artist, setting you up for future creative challenges.
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WEEKLY TASKS
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Week 1: Marks; Words An opportunity to consider the type of art you want to produce AND the words that might help you to understand and articulate this in more depth. Consider a range of approaches (and reasons) for making art and produce an experimental text-inspired response. |
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Week 2: Vibrations; sensations An opportunity to consider how artworks communicate with us and each other, across time and space - but not always through language or logic. Explore a 'chance' process to generate a starting point for an imaginative practical response. |
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Week 3: Taking shape An opportunity to consider the 'vocabulary' and 'grammar' of an artwork - how the elements of artworks combine and conspire to communicate in different ways. Use a playful photography exercise as a starting point for an experimental practical response. |
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Week 4: Public Interventions An opportunity to consider how artists have challenged expectations of how and where art might be created, and encountered by others. Take a walk as a performative act and create artful public display in response to the experience. |
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Week 5: Play; time An opportunity to consider how artists 'play' with ideas, materials, memories and experiences - and mistakes and failure. Complete a creative writing exercise and develop a personal response influenced by a childhood memory of art, or of making art. |
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Week 6: Head, hands, heart An opportunity to consider how artists use their heads, hands and hearts to varying degrees throughout the creative process, and how art appeals not just to the eyeballs, but to the body and mind. Complete a triptych - an intellectual, physical and emotional response. |
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Week 7: Art, words; meanings, contexts An opportunity to explore the relationships between words and images via instruction-based art. Complete a text-based artwork in response to personal research and writing - to be presented, displayed or documented in a public location. |
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Week 8: Values & measures An opportunity to consider how art and artists are valued, and how time, events, individuals and institutions shape art histories (and futures) in ways that are not always fair or equal. Complete a playful experiment inspired by a 'famous' artwork; research and make personal art in response to powerful inspirations. |
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Week 9: |