The Truth About GCSE Art |Dreams That Glitter

Hello! Now, this could be an incredibly lengthy, boring post but I’m going to cut it down into 5 top tips if you do decide to take this option. I took Art & Design which is a double award meaning I get two GCSEs at the end, but the same kind of things apply for the single option I guess. Everything said in this post is purely from my own experiences and I just wanted to put it out there. So…

1. Before you finalise the decision to take Art, make sure it is something you definitely want to do. You have to be completely dedicated and committed to the course right from the start. If it’s definitely something you enjoy and are willing to put a lot of time into, then you’ll be fine. 

2. Do the work! It sounds simple, yet no one does it. Stick to the deadlines and put in that little bit of extra effort to make sure everything is completed in time. It sounds cliché but it’s worth following, if you actually stay focused in the lesson then you will get everything done and everything will come together in the end! 

3. Don’t panic. As soon as you enter panic mode about not having the work done, or having too much to do in too little time (this is often the case, it is a huge work load and is a squeeze to get it all done, so if you are someone who can stay on task and not get distracted too easily then you’ll definitely be ok) then that’s when you end up spending lesson after lesson sitting doing nothing, simply staring at the work load that is in front of you. If you keep a calm attitude towards the subject then you’ll be much more likely to finish it all. A little self belief could go a long way. 

4. Don’t think you can’t take art because you’re not amazing at drawing/painting/etc. If you have a creative mind then you can do the course. I would say that although the fine art aspect is obviously important, there’s a lot more to it than just being able to pick up a pencil and draw something. There are other alternatives than drawing free hand such as using a light box or graphite transfer methods as a good base to aid your drawing skills. This way, anyone can do it! 

5. Manage your time effectively and plan your work. Make a timetable of slots you’re going to give yourself to do the work, and assign yourself deadlines for each bit of the course being completed. Your teacher may do this for you but some let the students be much more independent, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on how much motivation you can provide yourself with. If you’re passionate about the project then this is 100% easier. 

I think that’s it for now… Just know that the course is not just drawing and painting, it’s also a lot of writing about your ideas and thought processes, as well as artist research and analysing other people’s work. If you write annotations as you go through the course rather than leaving it all until the end, or at least write notes at each stage of your project then that helps too. you have to be able to think quickly and come up with a range of ideas within the first week or so of starting a project, otherwise the whole thing gets slowed down and it’s hard to catch up again. Having said that, the themes for exam projects are generally very open (Force, Order and/or Disorder, Fragments, Reflection, Disguise) and lots of topics/areas/interests can some how be fitted in to those titles, so it is quite free reign on what you can do. 

So that was my procrastination and anger over my art course transferred into a possibly helpful blog post… now I need to get my act together, take my own advice and go and get some work done! My exam is Tuesday – Friday and I have piles of work to do, mainly because I’ve done the complete opposite of what I’ve suggested above for the past two years. 

Anyone else taking/having taken/thinking about taking Art please comment below and let me know how you feel about it! 

Lauren x 

It’s a Dance Life |Dreams That Glitter

 

Happy Friday everyone!

Thought I’d post a little update on everything dance related I’m doing at the moment. I’d like to start off by saying I don’t think I could be doing much more dance if I tried right now, the amount of choreography in my head is insane, I’m afraid it might explode if much more has to go in there. I’m doing dance on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and some Saturdays extra practice… That includes three different dance clubs at school including dance company which I think I like the most. We’ve pretty much finished our first piece for the show in December based on The Matrix. That’s another thing, I’m currently working towards three different shows at the moment too…There’s the one at school that has a movie theme, which I’m in like half of because of all the clubs I’m doing…

I went to sixth form opportunities evening last night because we have to submit our provisional choices forms so they can make the timetable (I’m going to sixth form at the school I’m at already). Beforehand I knew I was definitely going to take Dance but I went into the department anyway even though I had no questions, and my dance teacher saw me and was like ‘Lauren, I have a question for you!’  and she asked me to do a solo for the christmas show and after a bit of persuasion I agreed, so that’s something else I have to choreograph. It can be anything, but it has to be to a song from a movie. So far my best suggestions seem to be Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Flashdance, but if anyone would like to suggest something else that’s not The Matrix, James Bond or Jai Ho, I’d very much like some more options! 

Then there’s another show which I’m doing and did last year because I’m helping my friend choreograph a contemporary piece for the street dance club which is all good fun. We taught the chorus of the song ‘Two Pieces’ by Demi Lovato last week and it seemed to go down pretty well, and hopefully we’ll have it all choreographed and taught and perfected in time (we haven’t actually finished choreographing yet). 

Finally there’s ballet, but that show isn’t until February so I don’t need to stress about that just yet. I have trouble remembering the choreography for a whole week though so… I’m in two dances at the moment but I think that’s going to go up because I’m in some of the highest level, and the fact we’ve already finished a dance in October, I doubt that’s all we’re going to be doing until February. I’m quite anxious to see whether a pointe dance gets put in, we’ve been doing pointe over a year now… 

This week I had my GCSE set study ‘Find It’ mock exam, and got a B (23-4/30) which I’m okay with but I’m hoping to bump it up to an A for the final exam which I have next Tuesday. I have a video recording of the mock, so I’m tempted to post it on here and see if anyone can give me some constructive criticism to help me improve for next week 🙂 

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend, I’m going to be quite busy, I’m off to London tomorrow to meet up with some friends and then on Sunday I’m going to an Armageddon fitness event with my mum, which includes me doing about 6 hours exercise and then struggling to walk for the rest of the week. Fun! Somewhere in there I have to make time for art, science and textiles homework as well as learning a 300 word spanish piece for my writing exam on Tuesday… There’s not enough hours in the day!

X

Dance is painful! My bruises from ‘Find It’

Ballet Results |Dreams That Glitter

So I had my first ballet class after summer tonight, which was Grade 7. I’ve completed my Grade 8 results (which I’m about to post) and because I didn’t get the chance to take my Grade 7 exam last year I’ve decided to go back and do it now, so hopefully it won’t take too long to get through considering I’ve already learnt the syllabus once, and then I can move onto Intermediate Work. I’m still doing Inter Foundation and Pointe Class on a Friday too so I’m happy about that. We started doing show work tonight too, for our show in February. We’re doing a native american indian ballet called Silver Cloud and we’re Indians, with full feather headdresses and fringing and boots apparently… It shall be interesting, at least I’m not a gypsy again like usual! 

Anyway…

 

I got a Merit! I’m quite happy with that, because I think my teacher was expecting me to scrape a pass so ha. 

 

Here are the results! I’m not two happy with the 5’s for the Valtz Printemps but I do know that was my worst dance even though it’s one of my favourites to perform, I know my technique isn’t great on it so I’m not surprised it’s lower than the others. I’m disappointed that I didn’t get higher in the Dramatique though because that’s my best one… Oh well. What’s done is done. I feel I could have done better but chances are I’ll never be 100% happy with myself so this is good enough. The grade boundary for a Merit is 55% so I was 10% over and 10% away from a distinction. 

 

Now this must be a fairly new thing RAD have decided to do, because I’ve never had a medal before! I want all the others now though….

To Be A Dancer|Dreams That Glitter

So, I’ve always loved dancing, I’ve done ballet for ten years now, that’s a long time, the majority of my life, in fact. Although I’ve never quit or given up with it, it’s always been in phases – phases where I drift in and out of having my entire life taken over by dancing. Up until late last year, when I decided I wanted to be a dancer. I didn’t admit it to anyone for a while, but then I thought, well if I don’t, how am I going to do it? I can’t work my way there by myself. This year I’ve really focussed in ballet classes (I’ve been doing Grade 8, Inter foundation and started pointe work last September – with a few problems along the way) and I think I have improved quite a lot, because I’m putting more into it.

For about three years prior to that, although I rarely miss a class, I’ve just been there, I haven’t really been there. I’ve just got my way through the class, without taking everything in. I’ve found that I don’t actually have that bad a dance movement memory and actually I can remember syllabus. The whole pointe thing was a bit of a disaster at first, but I’m getting there now, slowly but surely. I still have a lot of work to do on that side of things.

Now I think I know I’m never going to be a prima ballerina, but why not give it my all anyway? Why not give it my best shot and see what happens, with lots of extra stretching and strengthening between classes there could be a big improvement. Realistically I know that to be a dancer I need to be fitter and probably lose weight too to where I’m at now, but I can do that. I’m willing to work for this because I love it, and I know it takes a lot of input to get anything out, and I know it’s a competitive industry and I know it’s not going to be a piece of cake to get where I want to be, but this is my dream, and why shouldn’t I have a good go at it?

I had a careers appointment at school on the last week, and I’m still decided if it was helpful or not, which I guess it wasn’t too much. The lady was lovely but she didn’t really seem to know much about what I was talking about, I’m probably better talking to my dance teacher at school because she’ll know what she’s talking about more. I’ll go see her when we go back. She told me a lot of what I already knew beforehand, like after GCSE’s I basically have three options: college/specialist College, sixth form or an apprenticeship (which isn’t really appropriate for this). What I’ll do is apply for sixth form at my school (here I’d do Dance A level and a dance leaders qualification, and Fashion and Clothing BTEC course which is the only other thing I really want to do there, which is good for a back-up plan if the whole dancer thing doesn’t work out for whatever reason). I looked through all the leaflets I got from Move It back in March, and put aside all the ones that might be of use to me. Much as I’d love to go to a ballet school I’m not sure on my chances about getting in are, I’m short, I don’t have the body (now at least) and I don’t have the best technique in the world, I’m just not sure I have what it takes to be a ballerina, much as I’d love to, and I am prepared to work on that and I will. I think I might be better suited to go more in the direction of contemporary dance, but then in most dance schools both of these styles are compulsory classes, and many schools train their dancers in a variety of different styles.

When I go to Move It next year, I’ll go around and ask about the different colleges and what’s available to me post 16 and post 18 and see what the better route to take is. I have to consider which is going to need more qualifications to get into, but also all the different courses on offer, funding and transport/accommodation. It’s a lot to think about so it’s probably a good thing that I’m starting to think about it now, so I have a while to sort everything out, rather than leaving it all last minute…

So yeah, now I’ve put all that out here, I feel like I have all the more reason to work as hard as I can in dance and try and get into a dance school next year maybe. Or stay on and do A level dance and do as well as I can in that, whatever it is I decide to pick in the end. Either way, I’ll update this blog with everything. If anyone has any advice or experience they’d like to share please do comment and get in touch! 🙂