college art essays, projects, thesis

artieanna

hi am part time art and design student and am curious about other art courses we get two essays a year christmas and easter. Then we do our thesis in fourth year. The course is six years in length and is super i am currently in third year.
This year we have a project on limitation any ideas on this. we feel confused sometimes as to where we are going. Whats working and whats not. Just wnt to hear from others.
artieanna

Fajitas!

Hi!1st year in NCAD here, we get 4 2000 word essays a year (2 in for next week...And I still haven't started... erk!) Thesis in 4th year too.

Project on limitations? Sounds great! Try working things to the limit, whatever that might be...strenght, light, height, space in general... tolerances.

I'd most likely try work out the limitations of gravity or something...have you ever seen those wooden crane birds? The ones that balence on a 1mm squared piece of wood?

snorlax

just a random suggestion but try googling limitations on google.image to get some ideas.

what about something about limitations of the mind/ body. Maybe freedom/ or drugs or prison?
Fear is a self-imposed limitation too.

artieanna

thanks for the replies gosh i thought we had alot of essays sounds like ye have ye'r hands full in ncad..

well our project on limitations is really about selecting a subject and limiting the use of materials to one or two like charcoal + another also maybe limiting colours used, size, time to work everyday or time to produce work say i will have twenty pieces in two weeks also can limit shade and light say working on mid tones only. Its really interesting because all the works i have produced so far, are all related to each other through the limitations and subject. The work we have done on specific projects in the past lack these relationships. The past work we have done are mixed sizes using different materials and in comparison to the current project are kind of all over the place.

What are ye currently working on???
artieanna

Fajitas!

ATM, I'm doing a block based on shoes, not in the fashion sense though.

Just kinda exploring shoes etc, hopefully, by next week, I'll have an approx 2 metre by 1 metre ceramic high heel in bright pink!

artieanna

jeez like you can pick any object and you can do sooo much with it and as a subject it can go anywhere like when you mentioned shoes a load of ideas came to me you could do heaps on them. love the idea of making one what material are you making it in ceramics, plaster, clay......mmmm sounds great...

some old shoes you know thrown in hedges etc can be cool too. They can be twisted or flat and would be interestin to do a piece on. we spent ages doing dull still lifes with shoes and other shi* but it did help improve our drawing skills....

still have to start my essay on orientalism due apr 5...
i hate getting started thats the worst it gets easier after that....

Fajitas!

I'm the same...mine are in next Friday...Ugh...just so much effort...

Shoes are quite interesting alright, loads of messages in them!

artieanna

do ye put up arguments in the essays on subject so far we getting by just laying out the social happenings and active artists of the times. as long as tutor sees we understand what we have been taught so far that keeps him happy. I think he wants us to argue why we think some part of a movement is successful or not. like with only 1500 words in our essays not much space there for much of an argument. What do ye think??????

artieanna

Samhildanach

You think 2 or 4 essays are a lot - try doing the Joint Honours at NCAD - 6 essays a year x 2000 - 3000 words (and thats on top of weekly/forthnightly studio deadlines).:eek:

Samhildanach

artieanna wrote:

do ye put up arguments in the essays on subject so far we getting by just laying out the social happenings and active artists of the times. as long as tutor sees we understand what we have been taught so far that keeps him happy. I think he wants us to argue why we think some part of a movement is successful or not. like with only 1500 words in our essays not much space there for much of an argument. What do ye think??????

Artieanna hi! The idea behind essays are to push students to develop their critical thinking skills. You should try and look at the material objectively and use your own ideas/opinions as much as possible (not just agreeing with whatever the author's opinion are (from whatever source material you are reading for essays)). Don't be afraid to dislike something, be objective and give reasons as to why you like/dislike a particular artist/designer/movement etc.

snorlax

Samhildanach wrote:

You think 2 or 4 essays are a lot - try doing the Joint Honours at NCAD - 6 essays a year x 2000 - 3000 words (and thats on top of weekly/forthnightly studio deadlines).:eek:

ah here six essays in a year is hardly a lot , we had three of them for Christmas homework every week, another three due in at easter on top of exams..and then fieldwork starting at 8.30 every day-4.30 (1.40hours travel time for me in the morning so up at 6.or so !)....oh yeah and did I mention i had to do a thesis and track down subjects for it !

clodo

snorlax wrote:

ah here six essays in a year is hardly a lot , !

As a NCAD graduate I have to say that some my feel we don't have much to do in the form of essays. However we are expected to have reviews in course work weekly to fortnightly depending on your brief. What many other college students forget, or not know, is that we would have to have a large no. of research workbooks done for each finished piece, as well as having your essays in on time. While other universities may a few hours of lectures each week, NCAD courses start at nine and end at four thirty. however you are expected to stay longer to get your work done, you will often find lots of NCAD students still in the college at nine when the attendants go around to close the place down for the night. I believe that NCAD students who make it to graduation are some of the hardest working people in Ireland. It takes a lot to get through the tough work load, and the constant critiquing. It annoys me to hear the 'art college is easy' rubbish.

If you are ever invited to a NCAD party or ball go, they are the best you will ever be at!!!

snorlax

i went to the NCAD crafts exhibition that was on at Christmas and i have to say i was very impressed with some of the work the students had done...some of them we're definetly underselling their work considering how good it was..:)

artieanna

Firstly thanks samhildanach for the advice on essays appreciate it and i will be expressing my opnions from now on.
Snorlax we do 9.30-4pm on our course and takes me an hour to travel. Wow am amazed at the amount of essays for different colleges. I thought we were killed with the amount of work we get... not so it seems..
Clodo I totally agree on the amount of work involved when studying art alot of people say to me when i tell them i doing art 'ah sur its a nice passtime' I feel like losing the head with them and saying this is not a f***** passtime this is my career, life. I think because alot of people (inc my family members) don't understand it, its looked on as bit of fun but not to be taken seriously. The facilities in our college are terrible we are all the time lugging in our stuff and a sink nearby would be a luxury. most of our work is done at home. i find my concentration is better working alone and i love to work at night till 5 or 6am. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK GUYS

artieanna

whaa the hell are you studying anyway snorlax......

snorlax

ehh occupational therapy, and if i miss more then one lecture i get reported to my head of department and a letter sent home (we have to sign in for each lecture so no lie-ins after a night out!)..

Fajitas!

Wow, didn't realise there are so many other NCAD people here!

Yeah, it is pretty annoying when someone goes "Oh, art college, that must be fairly easy".

Oh, and absolute agreement with Cludos comment on the balls...feicin' deadly craic...Much better when they're held in the college though!

What year are you in Samhildanach? I would find the joint course sooooo hard...!

artieanna

no sympathy here snorlax sorry. out of my three years on the course i have missed only one day last week because of snow. I would feel if i missed a day jeez i'd be missing soo much.
i'm curious is there a block in your course in occupational therapy that covers art/writing as a form of therapy?

snorlax

yup, that would be art therapy, a very cool module i did back in 2nd year too !

Samhildanach

Fajitas! wrote:

Wow, didn't realise there are so many other NCAD people here!

What year are you in Samhildanach? I would find the joint course sooooo hard...!

Hi Fajitas! I'm an NCAD graduate. About the Joint course ... I absolutely loved it and so didn't find it that difficult. It's not as hard as it looks and I would definitely advise it to you if you're interested in the academic side of art. It only takes up a half day a week and 2/3 extra essays a year. Also in 4th year the normal thesis should be 8'000 - 10'000 words .. but 10'000 to 12'000 for JC students.

By the way I saw your work in the portfolio thread - very nice. I particularly like your clock piece.

red_ice

You art students sure are lazy!

2000 words is just coming up to 2 pages of foolscap! Thats nothing! Stop whining about what little work you have to do, and just do it, it will take you an hour at most, just plot down your different points on paper, then find the best way to link them together, then fill it with BullCrap! If you think 2000 words on limitation will be hard, how about doing 2k words on discribing why a maths formula for 'the sky is blue, and mary has pink boots' is true or not!

You only need 35/40 to pass... get to steppin!

Fajitas!

Lol, you try doing it along with the rest of the work

Thanks Samhildanach, hopefully I'll have some more by the end of the week!

I'm not academic in the slightest, so the joint course wouldn't suit me!

What did you specialise in?

Samhildanach

I did the Vis. Comm. and History of Art/Design.:)

Samhildanach

red_ice wrote:

You art students sure are lazy!

2000 words is just coming up to 2 pages of foolscap! Thats nothing! Stop whining about what little work you have to do, and just do it, it will take you an hour at most, just plot down your different points on paper, then find the best way to link them together, then fill it with BullCrap! If you think 2000 words on limitation will be hard, how about doing 2k words on discribing why a maths formula for 'the sky is blue, and mary has pink boots' is true or not!

You only need 35/40 to pass... get to steppin!

I'm sure you're trolling!

Sounds like you're not only jealous but just plain ignorant to me! The essays are on top of studio work. Art students are in Art College - eh you know 'ART COLLEGE' .... its a college for artists and designers!! The idea is to train creative people to master different technical skills - essays are simply complimentary studies to further a students knowledge and critical thinking skills. So less of the condescending attitude ... it only makes you look ignorant.

Just a suggestion but you might actually educate yourself before making dumb misinformed statements. Better still ... why don't you go to an art college open day and see exactly what is involved.

clodo

HEAR!!! HEAR!!! couldn't agree more. Ignorance must be bliss!

snorlax

less insulting more debating. Thank you

red_ice

Actually i wasnt trolling Samhildanach. Im no fool, and i have graduated a cert in comptuers, and am 1/2 way through a degree in computing science. We all get essays on horrible topics, and have side projects to work on aswell. Unlike you who have it to yourselves to put your own style to a question, or take a question and use a different visual to represent the answer, we are told what to do. Now i could be wrong, with the way your college works, i've only experienced NCAD through my friends, which seems a doddle.

so dont give me the 'oh im an art student, i deserve more free time' bullsh1te, if the lecturer gives an essay, they give a deadline to match which suits the ammount of work.

If you see it as trolling, then you need a harsh reality check, because deadlines in the work place dont stretch so far

Samhildanach

red_ice wrote:

so dont give me the 'oh im an art student, i deserve more free time' bullsh1te, if the lecturer gives an essay, they give a deadline to match which suits the ammount of work.

If you see it as trolling, then you need a harsh reality check, because deadlines in the work place dont stretch so far

I'm not a student anymore, I graduated a few years ago. I'm a working designer so I don't need any 'reality check' ... I know all about deadlines and for that matter designers often work much harder because in this industry we have to work sometimes until very late to meet such deadlines. For that matter all students in art college have VERY STRICT deadlines just like any other college - they don't get grace periods for late work, if work IS handed in late then the student can only be given a certain mark no matter how good the work.

Students don't have much freetime - because they are CREATIVE they can't just exactly pluck something from the air or study it directly from a book - they must use their imagination and combine this with very detailed and meticulous research. Art and Design is about originality, creativity and technical skill - not something that can be studied and regurgitated for an exam. NCAD students attend college 5 days a week - its a taught course, they work from 9am - 4.30 and for some courses 5pm. The majority of students stay working on practical projects until 9pm when the college closes. I don't know where you get the idea that ART STUDENTS ARE LAZY!! Remember you can just walk into a job with your Computer Science degree but for most artists/designers who graduate it is very hard work to find a job or to get commissions. Most designers and artists I know are the most proactive and motivated people I have ever met. Regular people may work until 5-6pm before heading home from work ... however any designer or artist I know stay and finish what they are working on (call it professional pride, artistic integrity or just PASSION for what they do) before they go home. We are a the most self-critical group of people and can't leave our work alone until we are satisfied with the result.

By the way art students do have deadlines too. When I was studying we had weekly project deadlines ... this included having
1. A project brief
2. Research
3. Brainstorming
4. Mock ups - thumbnail drawings
5. Start actual main construction from selection of work
6. Finish 3 or more final pieces - either by hand or on the computer (painstaking work very time consuming)
7. Prepare presentation format
8. Make class presentation of work and tutor criticism

Fajitas!

And I can guess you can add to that, if you fail an essay, you have to repeat, so unless you can afford repeating a few times, you have to make sure your work is up to standard.

red_ice

i think your missing the point here.

I never said they were lazy because they had work to do, i said they were lazy because the lecture has more than likely been teaching that subject for a number of years (anything more than 2 years fits my case). So they know the ropes and how long it will take to work on something, so they give a deadline to meet. Read whats in the text, not whats in your mind.

I'm not a student anymore, I graduated a few years ago. I'm a working designer so I don't need any 'reality check' ... I know all about deadlines and for that matter designers often work much harder because in this industry we have to work sometimes until very late to meet such deadlines. For that matter all students in art college have VERY STRICT deadlines just like any other college - they don't get grace periods for late work, if work IS handed in late then the student can only be given a certain mark no matter how good the work.

You dont know what i do, so dont jump to conclusions. I design websites for a living, which on top of how the thing looks, i have to work with layers(ofc you know what that is) which can get very messy when you get +20 of them, i also have to produce diagrams and such to how a site works, so i not only encompass design and the majority of what you study in my work. I also have other work on top of that, being coding, diagrams, schematics, which are all subsided because the main factor is 'how does it look' to most people. In my college, if a deadline is not met, you dont get the grade - so we repeat. we ditched our old system of, a day late = top score 90%, 2 days 80% and so on till its not accepeted. We replaced it with, if its a day late, its not accepeted-tough shat! Your in college to work, and if you work you get the job done, as you said yourself, you stay up all night working to meet a deadline, so do i, its harsh, but it has to be done. You should know what is expected, and be prepared for whats coming, and it should be executed with little stress if you start when the works given, not a day before it starts.

Why dont you read up on what you need to do to build a good working site from scratch, maybe have a go at a basic language, see how much fun it is. (im on my 8th language now, im only getting started.)

Students don't have much freetime - because they are CREATIVE they can't just exactly pluck something from the air or study it directly from a book - they must use their imagination and combine this with very detailed and meticulous research. Art and Design is about originality, creativity and technical skill - not something that can be studied and regurgitated for an exam. NCAD students attend college 5 days a week - its a taught course, they work from 9am - 4.30 and for some courses 5pm.

Well, theres an obvious contradiction there. You just said all that stuff can't be taught, yet you do lessons? Im not going to bicker, i get your point, i understand it, and i agree, but for you to say that anything i study, or do for a living comes from something that im told to do is very close minded of you, a designer, who should understand the pricipals of inspiration, and applying them to your craft wether it be computers or art. Windows didnt come about because big bill was told to, he got an idea and did it. We have to come up with an idea, Design how it works, then find a way to make the computer do it, and make it look good at the same time.

The majority of students stay working on practical projects until 9pm when the college closes. I don't know where you get the idea that ART STUDENTS ARE LAZY!! Remember you can just walk into a job with your Computer Science degree but for most artists/designers who graduate it is very hard work to find a job or to get commissions. Most designers and artists I know are the most proactive and motivated people I have ever met. Regular people may work until 5-6pm before heading home from work ... however any designer or artist I know stay and finish what they are working on (call it professional pride, artistic integrity or just PASSION for what they do) before they go home.

I did say that i view art college through the eyes of my friends in a previous post. They work 2 and 3 nights a week, party at the weekend, and do their work and pass. Again, im a web designer who is a student, i have to get commissions aswell, so you can put that card back in the deck. Reading through your posts i cant believe you know so little about computers in general. Writing a good program that can revolutionise something is a matter of pride. You dont produce anything worthwhile in computers, and especially in webdesign that doesnt involve mental and physical strain, the need to have a line just right, professional pride, and artistic integrity or just a PASSION for whats going on. You need to be focused, as a mistake early on, such as a ',' in place of a ';' will completely ruin 2 weeks work, and you wont know whats wrong. You can spend weeks looking for it.

We are a the most self-critical group of people and can't leave our work alone until we are satisfied with the result.

I was hinting about you being close minded, so maybe you could do a bit more research into computers and the workings of before you decided to continue your arguement in a constructive mannor. But then you went and said that. That is the biggest load of crap i have ever heard in my life. I stand by that. Do you think when im designing a layout, im just going to run mspaint and colour it in with an e-brush? Everything has to be perfect. When i make a 3d animation, i dont only design and build charactors, i have to make them move right, i have to understand and use emotion as if it was me that i was animating. The physics, gravity, variable breating motions, everything has to be right. That one line of crap you just wrote there shows how snobbish, close minded and above all condecending on anyone who enjoys what they do for a living. You are so wrapped up in your 'art bubble' you dont have a clue. Do you think a man who builds guitars and sells them for 15k a pop simply because his brand name is written on the top just picks up timber and cuts the shapes out? Cop on. I question myself on a regular basis as to wether i have OCD simply because if somethings not right i have to do it, or if i get an idea, i cant function at all, or focus on anything but getting home and trying out my idea. Passion is a feeling and an espression of who you are, it doesnt have to be painted or chizzled out of marble to be experienced. If thats how you experience it, i dont want to ever meet you as you would belong in exile.

I was going to end this on a level that would have left us even, and being able to somewhat joke about each others views on each area, but after that line i dont have to bother, it would be like talking to a brick wall. Which i clearly am doing.

snorlax

thread locked due to excessive fumming/ flamming.

Red_ice i said no insults banned for a week. art college students work hard and so do web designers. my cousins a web designer and i also know someone who went to NCAD so i have some idea what im talking about it. discussion closed.