Art & Design students get off to a great start

New students on the Foundation Diploma Art and Design at Plymouth College of Art took Looe Beach by storm on Monday 12 September to create relief sculptures in the sand.

The town’s beach shops have probably never done such a roaring trade, selling buckets and spades to the 98 students who set about creating some amazing images in the sand and delighting unsuspecting onlookers.

The weather held out but it was very gusty which made crafting the relief sculptures difficult. However, the tenacious Plymouth College of Art students battled on working together in groups to replicate eleven famous sculptures in the sand.

Each group was given a 2D image of the work of famous sculptors such as Rodin, Bernini, Donatello and Michelangelo. By placing a grid on top of the image and marking out a larger scale corresponding grid on the sand they were able to replicate the images to the scale of twice life size, approximately 15ft x 15ft.

Foundation Diploma Course Manager Helen Markes said: “This is an annual event and it’s a great opportunity for our new students to discover ways of scaling work and it also encourages them to work together cooperatively and to mix and discover the creative interests of their fellow students.

“I decided to take the students to Looe this year and I am so glad we went there because everybody was so welcoming. We had loads of passing visitors interacting with the students. One woman in particular was so impressed that she said she had never seen anything like it before and she was amazed at how big the relief sculptures were.”

Among the impressed onlookers were the Mayor of Looe, Cllr David Bryan and the Chairman of East Looe Town Trust, John Warne. Mr Warne was so impressed by what he saw that he has invited the students back next year and intends to offer a prize for the best relief sculpture.

The Foundation Diploma Art and Design at Plymouth College of Art is a one year intensive course designed to prepare post A-Level students for progression onto university through discovery, experimentation and exploration.

For more information visit http://www.plymouthart.ac.uk/prospectus/Further-Education/Foundation-Diploma-in-Art-and-Design-%28Post-A-Level%29/FSFRA1112