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sustaining practice Blog Posts - The Open College of the Arts
To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.
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sustaining practice


Artlab23 Collective thumb

Artlab23 Collective

The aim of the Collective is to provide a mutually supportive environment which will continue to provide inspiration and impetus post-OCA study. It is open to all students on the Painting, Drawing, and Fine Art pathways who have recently graduated or expect to complete their final year studies within the next 12 months.

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Student stories: Ange Mullins thumb

Student stories: Ange Mullins

I’m Ange, a Creative Arts student, and I’m within touching distance of the finishing  line after many years of study with OCA. I began in about 2008, although I can’t  now recall exactly when I signed up with what was then a very different OCA. I  joined purely as a means to learn more about ‘art’, a promise validated with a  certificate of completion at the end, along with a vague suggestion to have work  assessed; little did I realise that my journey would culminate with a BA (Hons) Creative Arts Degree. 

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Student work: Creative Arts thumb

Student work: Creative Arts

As a tutor I find the exciting challenge is how students can then be encouraged to combine, apply, and adapt these skills as they start to build and test their own interdisciplinary approach inside the unit supported by the course materials.  Rachael Barns has recently completed 1.2 and her work is an excellent example of how skills can be combined and adapted to produce Creative work

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Department stories: Interior Design thumb

Department stories: Interior Design

The Architecture Room at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has been curated this year by architect Peter Barber. The work on display shows enormous variety in approaches to spatial model making, and underlines the necessity of using this hands-on physical method of design development as a way of experimenting freely and creatively.

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Department stories: Garden Design thumb

Department stories: Garden Design

One of the earlier projects in the first unit involved completing exercises in observational drawing. I recently asked students who had completed Unit 1.1 to send me some of their more recent sketches to see how they have developed their sketching skills. 

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Student stories: Tracy Walker thumb

Student stories: Tracy Walker

In this blogpost I’d like to introduce one of our most established interior design degree students – Tracy. Tracy has been studying with us for some time, and it has been great to see how far she has progressed on her learning journey with OCA over the last few years, and how much her design work has developed.

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