Art

The study of Art can refresh our vision and help us to look at the world in a variety of ways. Students learn to give tangible form to their feelings and their imagination, record and commemorate and create extraordinary versions of ordinary things.

Clifton has always had a strong tradition in art and former students have included the Bloomsbury art critic and artist Roger Fry, the artist Henry Tonks, who became professor of Fine Art at the Slade School in London, and the landscape and abstract artist Peter Lanyon, a famous member of the St Ives School.

Course content and assessment

We follow the OCR Fine Art syllabus. Students follow a linear A Level course spending the first four terms working on coursework which carries 60% of their overall marks. They commence work on their externally-set assignment at the beginning of the Lent Term in the Upper Sixth, with a 15-hour examination in the Summer Term, and this carries the remaining 40% of their overall marks.

Our students tend to study either fine art drawing and painting or fine art sculpture/ceramics. Our fine art painting students are given an excellent grounding in the fundamentals of draughtsmanship, oil painting, composition and colour theory as well as the use of the other formal elements in art.

Painting and drawing from life is very important and students will work from still life arrangements in the studio as well as from live models during life drawing sessions, which take place in the evenings from time to time. They are also allowed to work from their own reference photographs and we encourage them to purchase their own camera for this purpose.

All students are expected to work using a range of media throughout the course and they are issued with an art kit containing oil paints, acrylics, chalk pastels, tonal chalks, oil pastels, watercolours, acrylics and colouring pencils.

The critical studies element of the course is very important and students critically evaluate and make transcriptions of the work of artists who are considered to be exemplars of particular schools of thought, which should enrich and inform their own work as well as show that what they do has some basis in the world of art.

Facilities and staff

We are fortunate to count among our staff a fine art painter and etcher, a ceramicist/sculptor, a photographer and an art historian. The department is equipped with a lower school and GCSE art studio, one larger Sixth Form studio with an etching press, two photography rooms with a darkroom, a ceramics/ sculpture studio and a History of Art room for essential research.

Potential careers

Artist, illustrator, conservator, art valuer, auctioneer, art gallery curator, art teacher, lecturer, graphic designer, interior designer, fashion designer and a range of other professions.

Entry Requirements

Grade 7 (or A) in GCSE Art.

Course Offered

A Level Edexcel Fine Art