In a week of wind and storms, the Fourth Year Art & Design students were lucky to have beautiful weather for their trip to Christchurch on Tuesday.  They were studying for their first GCSE project based on the title “ Boats and Harbours”, travelling to Christchurch and Lymington to draw, sketch and take photos. Our aims is for all Art & Design students at Godolphin to work from first hand sources and this trip is a way of teaching them at the start of the course how they go about this.

We arrived at Christchurch harbour first and got the girls to draw, sketch and take photographs of all the elements that make up the scene, not just the boats themselves but surface textures, patterns on the water, boat yards, boat trailers in fact anything that gives them inspiration.  At Lymington we walked along the riverside looking at the Marina, the lifeboat centre, the sailing club and finally the boat year where boats are being refitted and are out of the water. Again the idea is to see a variety of shapes forms textures and themes that they may take forward.

The girls have a separate design brief from each area – three dimensional design, painting drawing and printmaking and textile design which they will work on for the next eleven weeks. At the end of this period they should have 5 A1 mounted sheets of study that lead to a final piece. This final piece is produced in five weeks next year, in Fifth Year, when they return to each area of study.

Nick Eggleton, Head of Art