Art is a subject that is taken by many GCSE students, both in and out of The Tiffin Girls’ School. It is generally seen as a ‘soft’ subject, but how ‘soft’ is it in reality? To find out, I sought the opinion of Yachen Zong, a Year 11 Art student within TGS.
What made you choose this subject?
To be frank, I chose art because I liked it and I thought I was pretty good at it. I was quite confident with my ability in it, and I knew that it wouldn’t be difficult to get a good grade, since all you really have to do is complete your coursework on time. I also knew that if I didn’t choose it, I’d regret my decision, and now I’m even considering choosing it as a university course later!
What kind of work do you have to do?
Well, we have three units; Natural Form, Pattern and Texture and Mood Portraits. For all three units we need to fill in three books of coursework, which basically involves researching other artists and analysing their work, along with reproducing an example of their work or doing a painting or a drawing in a similar style. It’s really tiring, but we also get to experiment with different drawing techniques and produce our own work, which is fun! Once we’ve designed and produced a final piece, we have to write evaluations talking about it, for example whether it’s a success or a failure, how we developed our idea, and who our influences were. We also have to prepare for ‘exams’, but in reality they’re really similar to coursework, since we’re researching and developing ideas, with the key difference being that we have to finish our final piece in ten hours.
Do you think it’s a lot of work? Is it difficult coping with it?
Art really is a lot of work because of the coursework which you have to continuously work on. However, it isn't more difficult to cope with compared to other subjects; Art means a small workload every week, whereas subjects like science and humanities have all the work crammed into the pre-exam period. Overall the amount of work is the same - it's only the distribution that's different. Having said that, you might naturally struggle with art if you’re not that good at it, or if you’re just too much of a perfectionist, which’ll make you slow!
Do you think it’s important to be good at art to do it?
Well, I suppose your art skills do develop as you do more and more coursework, but unfortunately unlike subjects like science, art isn’t something you can improve on overnight, and improving will really be hard if you’re not already good at it, since the teachers don’t actually teach you much in the lessons. They only tell us what to do and set research homework.
Do you enjoy the subject?
Yes, I do! I’ve developed my skills through the intensive practice every week, and I’ve also become more aware of my stylistic tendency through research, meaning that I’ve started to develop my own style. I’m looking quite forward to doing art at A-Level to get even better at it!
If you hadn’t taken art, what subject do you think you’d have taken?
I would have taken Spanish, because I like learning different languages. I actually resented the fact that I had to drop it, especially since in the first week of Art I was a little overwhelmed by the idea of coursework. I even thought of taking Spanish instead, but then I got over it and started to like Art.
So, what do you think? Is Art as easy as it might appear to be?
