Friday 17 December 2021

Artist of the Month | December 2021

 And just like that we've arrived at the end of our first term and it's time to break up for Christmas! A huge well done from all of us here in the department for all the hard work you have all done since we came back in September. Our A2 students have handed in their Major Coursework Project ready to start a brand new one after the holidays, and our A1 students are also coming to the end of their Exploring Media projects, with their final outcome to start after Christmas and work on until February. 

We hope you all have a wonderful, well deserved break however you are spending it, and hope you all stay safe and enjoy yourselves! 

We are finishing off with our final Artist of the Month of 2021, and we will see you in 2022!

Merry Christmas!

 A1 Fine Art - Elise Berry

 A2 Fine Art - Darcie Joy Burgin

 A1 Graphics - Sarah Carver


 A2 Graphics - Elizabeth Stewart

A1 Photography - Evie Matthews

 A2 Photography - Sophie Henshaw


Thursday 2 December 2021

Artist of the Month | November 2021

Congratulations to our November Artists of the Month!

 A1 Fine Art - Chloe Jolley

A2 Fine Art - Alexandria Bird

A2 Fine Art - Tilly Downing

 A1 Graphics - Evie James


 A2 Graphics - Sydney Bradford


A1 Photography - Emily Bath


 A2 Photography - Jess Barber

Friday 5 November 2021

Artist of the Month | October 2021

And just like that, our first half term has been and gone! Well done to all our students for such a fantastic start to the year, we're so impressed with the work you have produced so far.

Here are just a handful of students in particular who have really impressed us this month - so congratulations to our October Artists of the Month!

 A1 Fine Art - Emma Bond

 A2 Fine Art - Lily Unwin

A2 Fine Art - April Butler

 A1 Graphics - Alliah Connell

 A2 Graphics - Amy Langan

A1 Photography - Isobel MacBeath-Singer

 A2 Photography - Isla Wooley

Monday 1 November 2021

A1 Learner Voice | October 2021

As always, we ran our Learner Voice survey on the coach back from our YSP trip with first year students. Here is what they said, and our responses!  


What do you love about the art department at Thomas Rotherham College?

Facilities and Techniques – 50%

Our facilities and techniques were rated highest in our learner voice for what our students love about the art department, in particular an overwhelming response for the darkroom! Other facilities mentioned were our new photography studio and cameras, as well as techniques we have introduced students to in these first few weeks such as screen printing and intaglio.

We are always so pleased to hear that so many students have enjoyed the workshops we have run so far and love all the equipment we have available to use both in and out of lessons.

 

Teachers and Support – 25%

It’s great to hear that so many of you love and appreciate the support given by staff in the department. This is mentioned by students in learner voice every year and it is always so lovely to know that students are enjoying their time in the department, feel comfortable with staff, and that their lessons are productive working environments. We always make sure to put support in place for those who need it, and continually give feedback to every student to make sure they all achieve the best grade they possibly can. So thank you as always for mentioning this, we really appreciate it 😊

 

Finding the course interesting/Learning a lot – 14%

This is not something usually brought up on our learner voice, not for the reason that students don’t find our courses interesting (or at least we hope not!), but perhaps because this is usually taken for granted. The enjoyment of learning new skills and being in the classroom environment will most likely have been emphasised this year by the lack of that very environment over the last two years, where the majority of learning will have been done online. We always hope that students leave us after the two years with much more understanding, knowledge and skills than when they arrived, but this feels even more important this year given the experience of the last two years. So for students to feel like this before we even reach October half term is amazing to hear!


A few honourable mentions….

·         Trips (12%)

·         Freedom and Independence (12%)

·         Open Door (10%)

·         Photoshoots (3%)

 

What do you wish for in the art department at Thomas Rotherham College?

More time for deadlines – 22%

Unfortunately, the structure of our courses mean classwork and homework deadlines are really important. We have a lot of ground to cover and everything you do needs to be presented in your sketchbook in order to get you marks. The amount of time we have to produce work is limited, so by extending deadlines would mean cutting out other aspects of the course, which would mean missing out on a lot of content.

It is college policy that you complete 4 and a half hours of work outside of lessons for each of your subjects. This is what we base our homework deadlines on. Allowing extensions to these deadlines means you will inevitably get more and more behind and have more to catch up on. So keeping at these deadlines every week is much better for you in the long run!

Another printer/More printing credits – 16%

This would be amazing! We understand there are often queues at the printer, and that our courses require a lot of printing and therefore printing credits, which is not ideal. We have campaigned before in the past to increase printer credits for students who study our subjects, and this is now higher than other college students. However, this is not always enough, and we know that. We will put this plea forward again, as we always do, and see what we can do!

Nothing! – 16%

It is incredible that this is our number 3 ‘wish’. Thank you, this is much appreciated!

More available/easier to find materials – 10%

This is a new one! This was mentioned in Art, so I will take this as the upstairs classroom. All materials that are available for students to use for free are almost all located in the material drawers at the back of the room by the sinks. These include scissors and tape, brushes, paints, pastels and printmaking materials (and more!). Scrap paper is all stored under the whiteboard at the front of the class. Any other materials will need to be bought from the shop, such as paper, brushes (to keep), glue sticks, pens etc. We can only supply so much for free, as we are on a budget and can’t afford to unfortunately. Anything we do sell is at cost price and we do not make a profit on this.

If you are ever in doubt as to wear something is located in the rooms, don’t be afraid to ask a member of staff or another student.

More trips (and nicer weather!) – 8%

We absolutely love trips! Pre-covid we did two trips a year – YSP with first years and Manchester with second years. We are so happy to be doing trips again, so this years YSP was a real treat! (even though the rain did cut it a bit short!) We are hoping to plan some more smaller trips with first year students later on in the academic year…so watch this space!

More freedom/flexibility – 3%

This is coming! Your first project, called ‘Exploring Media’, allows to you literally, explore media! You try out all the techniques your subject has to offer, as well as get used to using sketchbooks and the facilities in the department. We run this quite prescriptively so that everyone starts off on the same foot when we start your coursework. This will begin after you hand in your Exploring Media in January, and here you will be able to start exploring your own themes and concepts!


A few honourable mentions….

More time learning Photoshop

As both Graphics and Photography as so fast paced at the start of the year, it can be tricky to fit time in solely to spend learning how to use Photoshop, and we generally rely on students picking this up through various computer tasks. However, it is interesting to hear that a few of you would prefer more focus on learning techniques before jumping in at the deep end, so we will bare this in mind for next year!

More table space downstairs

Unfortunately we can only fit so many tables in the classroom downstairs as it is a small space, so I’m not sure how we’d achieve this! Our advice is that if you are working on sketchbook work during an open door, book the upstairs room instead as this has much more room and table space for you to work on.

Opportunities like work experience/placement

This is a request we have never had before! We would love to be able to offer placements on our course, but this is something we have never looked in to. We will see what we can do!


Tuesday 19 October 2021

Yorkshire Sculpture Park | October 2021

On a somewhat miserable October day, our staff and first year students braced the weather and had a superb day out visiting the Yorkshire Sculpture Park; an annual tradition which we missed out on last year due to Covid, and were therefore so excited to bring back this year. 

After so long without a trip for us as staff, as well as so many of the students who came along with us, it was a great day all round and such an enjoyable and valuable experience. 

As we visited Damien Hirst, Sean Scully, Ai Weiwei, Barbara Hepworth and Joana Vasconcelos (currently exhibiting in Underground Gallery), our students studiously produced work in the form of drawings and photographs, and conducted research to understand more in depth the concepts and ideas of the artists. 

Fine Art created some stunning expressive and formal drawings of the work along with Graphics, who also visited the shop to research existing product and graphic design, and Photography students conducted planned photoshoots of the park and sculptures. 

While the rain may have cut our trip a bit shorter than we had planned, we were so impressed by how much good quality work our students did while on the trip, as well as how engaged and enthusiastic they were.

Thank you for a lovely day out folks, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!