Art and Design will compliment Photography or Textiles, but is a great companion course for practically any area of study. Whether a technical subject or science, encouraging your own creativity is always a bonus and can also help you have great ideas in your other subjects. Fine Art is not for the faint hearted, you must be dedicated, committed, motivated and prepared to work extremely hard. The characteristics of materials such as plasticity, opacity, translucence, malleability and transparency. Properties of colour, such as hue, tint, saturation, tone and colour perception. Materials such as graphite, oil pastel, soft pastel, charcoal, ink, chalk, conté crayon, watercolour, acrylic paint, oil paint, dyes and computer software. The use of a range of tools, such as artists’ brushes, decorators’ tools, knives, sponges, digital software, fingers, card squeegees, scrapers, sticks, found objects, natural forms and rags. The potential for exploring combinations of materials, such as combining drawn and painted elements, collage, found objects, including inert materials to add textures/impart meaning.