TO HELP IMPROVE IN ART & DESIGN YOU MUST…Keep on drawing, by keeping a sketchbook which acts as a visual diary and helps you practise and improve your skills of observation and to try out a variety of media. Try and annotate your drawings by adding little notes next to your drawings and also collect interesting things to stick in your book. Remember Imagination is also really important to help you be creative so keep your eyes open and record what you see and then imagine what you could do with it and remember your sketchbook is a personal response to being creative so there is no right or wrong way to do it.

Artists and designers have always been influenced by the world around them and take inspiration from lots of different sources such as films and music, youth culture, fashion, travelling and visiting exhibitions and museums and the work done by artist and deigners throughout history.Our courses from S1 to S6 continually link classwork with the work of artists and designers as there is a lot to learn from from what has gone before creatively.Even visiting local exhibitions at The Meffan in Forfar or the end of year Degree Shows at Duncan of Jordanstone College of art can help pupils widen their experience and ideas and hopefully with the new V&A in Dundee this will help to inspire even more. Obviously the internet is a great source of ideas and one of the best websites that is useful to pupils is Pinterest which allows them to scroll through loads of examples and ideas to help them come up with their own artwork and designs.