Courses — BNDS A-Level Programme

S1 Lesson 08: Artist Study 1

A Level Art & Design · Unit 3 · Lesson 08 of 15 · ← L07 | L09 →

At a glance

Sessions5 days (W9) — first use of the artist study template
DatesMon 2026-10-26 → Fri 2026-10-30
AO focusAO3 Develop, contextual study
DeliverableArtist pages: analysis, meaning and context, method study, personal response, influence note
HomeworkWritten annotation: draft the meaning-and-context paragraph at home

These dates are provisional and may shift when the school publishes the calendar for this period.

Goal

Choose your first artist because they solve the problem in your work, not because you like them. The week runs the full artist study arc: analyze, understand in context, copy the method to learn it, then answer the artist with your own work. Influence must be visible in the work, not only claimed in the writing.

Key content: prescribed artist pools, by theme

Choose from the pool for your committed theme. A swap outside the pool needs a one-to-one case.

  • Reflections and Surfaces — Richard Estes (urban glass), Janet Fish (glass, light, still-life color), M. C. Escher (reflecting-sphere drawings).
  • Worn and Weathered — Antoni Tàpies (matter and surface), Aaron Siskind (photographed peeling walls), Anselm Kiefer (material and memory, for stronger students).
  • Hands at Work — Käthe Kollwitz (working hands and figures), Albrecht Dürer (praying-hands studies), Yoshitoshi or a contemporary craft documentary photographer as a non-European anchor.
  • Structures of the Everyday — Charles Sheeler (industrial structure), Lyonel Feininger (architecture into geometry), Rachel Whiteread (structure into 3D casting — feeds the 3D loop).

How it runs

  • Mon 10-26 — pools presented, two works per artist; choose and begin the analysis (composition, tone, mark, color); write your choice rationale: which problem this artist solves.
  • Tue 10-27 — meaning and context: what the work meant then, what it means for you now; writing frame for the ESL register; peer read strikes every sentence that could describe any artist.
  • Wed 10-28 — method study: copy a passage of the artist’s method in the artist’s logic; annotate what the copying taught you.
  • Thu 10-29 — personal response: your own source worked through what the artist taught; exit: name the artist’s fingerprint in your piece.
  • Fri 10-30 — the influence note: point at the evidence; assemble the artist pages; CS7 collected.

Assessment

CS7 (artist analysis pages, written annotation) is collected Fri 2026-10-30 — see the full register.