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Student work


Blog of the week thumb

Blog of the week

A keen blogger, Lia Edwards keeps two. There’s one at Drawn to Creativity and another at Lia Edwards. There’s a bit of an overlap between the two, but what’s great it the variety of what she does: printmaking, illustration, bag making and photography. She also exhibits and goes to lots of exhibitions. The OCA illustration […]

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Blog of the week – Sarah Bayly thumb

Blog of the week – Sarah Bayly

Sarah Bayly is a textiles student who keeps an excellent blog. What is striking about it is the thoughtfulness with which it has been structured, with areas for books she has looked at, blogs she likes, among other things. Of course it is also broken up into assignments, projects and exercises too. Sarah documents all […]

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Student work uncovered …. Attacking the paper thumb

Student work uncovered …. Attacking the paper

Valerie Newman recently submitted some drawings for assessment, and here, assessor and tutor Richard Liley explains what it is about her drawings that makes them so strong.

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Student work uncovered – Jackie Owen thumb

Student work uncovered – Jackie Owen

Here is a good example of an online portfolio of work for those textiles students who prefer to send their tutor a link to a blog rather than to send a large bag full of work to their tutor, hence saving on postage and backache! Jackie has so far only completed her first assignment, but […]

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Making it Personal! thumb

Making it Personal!

One of the things which students often struggle with is finding that personal theme with real meaning. Katie Taylor has tried out several  themes over two courses at level 1. For her latest assignment 5, she chose to go with the theme of fat after finding some stunning photos of fat cells. For her, as […]

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Blog of the week: Keith Greenough thumb

Blog of the week: Keith Greenough

The latest Blog of the Week is a bit of a departure. Usually we pick blogs from students who have made significant progress through a course so that there is a lot to read and appreciate. Well, there is a lot to appreciate with Keith’s blog but the difference is that he is just at […]

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Student work uncovered … 'getting stuck in' thumb

Student work uncovered … 'getting stuck in'

Here, textiles assessor Pat Moloney, talks about Jackie Lim’s work and her approach to learning. Jackie’s delight in the observation of nature comes through in the beautiful little textiles samples she produces.

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Non-writing thumb

Non-writing

It’s not always the case that writers have to produce draft after draft of a short story, as OCA creative writing student Guy Barriscale found when he wrote his prize-winning story ‘Jamesy’ in just one sitting. Prompted by an incident in this childhood, the story came to him fully formed when he saw an old man pushing his bicycle up a hill in a rural part of County Leitrim, with additional ideas for the life of gthe central character being inspired by his speculations about the lives of three farmer brothers. Commended in the Seán Ó Faoláin competition in 2011, the story was published in the Munster Festival’s ‘Southword’ at the beginning of 2012.

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Student work uncovered: Jane Dugdale and her thumbnails for Graphic Design thumb

Student work uncovered: Jane Dugdale and her thumbnails for Graphic Design

Christian Lloyd, Curriculum Leader for Graphic Design, takes a look at Jane Dugdale’s creative process demonstrated through her sketchbooks. Because many of the images are in pencil, to see them clearly it’s best to expand the size of the video window to view the video full screen (which you can do by clicking on the […]

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Student work uncovered… Paul Washer's illustrations and use of Photoshop thumb

Student work uncovered… Paul Washer's illustrations and use of Photoshop

Christian Lloyd, Curriculum Leader for Visual Communications, and an assessor, talks to us about Paul Washer’s work from Illustraion 1 and a common trap students fall into when using Photoshop. Notice how good Paul’s drawings are…. and how little you can see of them in these examples.

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