Advice from Art &Design teachers

[gillybeanz]

Hi, my dd is going to take GCSE Art (AQA), presently doing a first Diploma, and is a weekly boarder.
So, some of her homework and portfolio she'll be doing at home.
After finding her some space to work and storage for materials I'm starting to find her the essentials but have no idea what to buy.

Any suggestions as the type of materials I should be looking at will be very much appreciated.

[cantkeepawayforever]

DD's school put together a basic 'art pack' sold to us at wholesale prices. They are the same brand as are used at school so e.g. the exact paint / pastel shades match, so a picture started at school can be carried on at home.

Trying to remember what was in it...

• Sketching pencils and good rubbers
  
• Charcoal
  
• Good paintbrushes
  
• Sketchbook (source of good quality paper, mostly)
  
• Basic set of watercolours (tubes)
  
• Basic set of acrylics (tubes)
  
• Basic set of oil pastels
  

A big set of decent coloured pencils has also proved really useful for artist studies, and she makes constant use of a craft knife, cutting board, metal ruler and white / black heavy paper (in our case, supplied by school) for mounting work. She has also used different coloured ballpoint pens for one sketching project ..who knew?

DD has always been an 'arty' type, so we already had things like mixing palettes (though tbh she tends just to use dinner plates), coloured inks, chalk pastels, coloured paper, and a set of drawers to keep all the stuff in, but I would say none of these have been in use more than occasionally. Decent glue stick and PVA glue is handy.

[cantkeepawayforever]

(Thinking about it, the most critical thing for us seems to be having the same brands / shades of paint / pastels, so that it's easy to start a piece at home / at school and finish it seamlessly in the other setting. I would also suggest that it can be very helpful for you to have, or to have access to, a good quality colour printer, to print out e.g. originals for artist studies, materials for collage or mood boards etc. However, DD is at a day school, so it may be that your DD will be able to do all such printing at school)

[BubblesBuddy]

My DD boarded and did Art and Photography A levels. They had lots of exeats but she didn’t do any work at home. If she carries on to A level, you may need to discuss time in school with her. I don’t think DD would have worked in two Art spaces.

[gillybeanz]

Oh thanks very much, for the sensible replies.
I might hold off a bit and wait and see if a pack is offered.
She only had one choice and she chose Art out of all the others, including any humanity subject.
Maybe some basics and then she can do some when she's at home.
We've loads of half used sketch pads of various sizes, not sure about the quality though.
Are any of the brands at The Works any good, sometimes they seem ok, others they are rubbish.
Oh, idea for the long summer holiday too.

[cantkeepawayforever]

Bubbles, I should imagine that a weekly boarder is half way between a day pupil (as DD is) and a full boarder(as your child was) - and I also seem to recall that gilly's child is at a specialist school, so much of her time in school is likely to be taken up with that specialism. [Excuse me if I've got muddled up]

DD is somewhat similar, in that she dances (at a non-vocational but serious local dance school) for 10+ hours every week. She could not maintain her Art GCSE work without at least some work at the weekends (she also plays for her school 1st team in 2 sports & does DofE), and i presumed that gilly's DD would be similar due to similar or nigher non-GCSE commitments.

DD could not manage her homework for all other subjects AND both Art & a coursework-heavy Design, as well as her other commitments, without working both in school art lessons and at home on the same pieces, with similar equipment. Some of her less busy friends do e.g. use lunchtime and after school hours in the school art studio, as well as weekday homework time, to complete their Art, but DD - and her friends who dance / do music /gymnastics / swimming / county sport for similar hours - has to work at weekends.

[gillybeanz]

Yes, totally right, her time is taken up with so much that she won't mind doing it at home because it makes more time for friends at school, which i try to keep a good balance.
There's prep at school a few nights too, on top of musical commitments, they don't get much free time.
She's a dooer and although loves coming home at the weekend to supposedly charge batteries, she has to do something

[Unescorted]

It will depend on what she wants to do. DD has slowly moved from the school basic pack to artist quality, it makes a difference to her work but is not cheap. It is her ambition to do Fine Art at university so it is an investment. If she was only doing Art to GCSE level we would have limited expenditure. Having said that she sells her work to pay for the materials.

She carries her materials to and from school