Fine Art BA Welcome Pack
Welcome to Fine Art BA 2023.
Congratulations on securing a place on the BA Fine Art course at the University of Northampton.
On behalf of the Fine Art team we would like to extend a warm welcome and congratulate you on achieving a place on our undergraduate Fine Art course. The course gives you the chance to explore contemporary approaches to fine art across a range of disciplines, making use of our excellent resources for printmaking, sculpture, installation, photography, video and digital arts.
You will be part of a diverse group of students, each of whom bring their own unique experiences and interests to the course, making our supportive studio environment a great place to find your own artistic voice.
In our first-year modules you will gain experience and confidence with various media and concepts, and start to develop your own personal practice which you will then build upon over the next two years. Throughout your degree we will support your journey with tutorials, seminars, study visits and opportunities to participate in live projects, competitions and exhibitions.
Our Welcome Week (“Freshers Week”) starts on Monday 18 September, and we’ll meet at 11am in the breakout space immediately next to the Fine Art studios (room DH031) in the Development Hub on Cliftonville Road, Northampton NN1 5FS. If you are based in our Halls of Residence on the Waterside Campus please allow 15 minutes to walk along.
Hopefully this information pack will answer most of your questions, but should you have any issues ahead of the new term then please feel free to contact us via email. If it’s a more complicated issue then we can arrange an online meeting:
- Richard Hollinshead
Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in Sculpture and Spatial Practice
richard.hollinshead@northampton.ac.uk - Michelle Keegan
Year 1 Personal Academic Tutor and Senior Lecturer in Printmaking
michelle.keegan@northampton.ac.uk
Your Programme Leader
Dr Richard Hollinshead
Programme Leader, BA Fine Art and Senior Lecturer, Sculpture and Spatial Practice
richard.hollinshead@northampton.ac.uk
Welcome and Induction Sessions
Equipment
For any compulsory workshops and inductions we will provide materials and equipment.
Beyond that you may want to bring a small kit of basic art materials with you:
- Your Students’ Union runs an art materials shop on campus (next door to our studios) where you can purchase most arts materials, and our technical staff can also advise on sourcing materials from local suppliers that you might need for your specific ideas. The kind of materials and processes you might end up using are hugely varied so we can’t provide a definitive list of what to bring with you, but you might want to bring the following:
- A small padlock to secure your locker, if you want to use one
- A lockable tool box (the larger the better, for materials and basic tools)
- Sketchbooks (to begin with A5 & A4 sizes)
- Drawing materials such as Pencils (we recommend artist quality pencils – Derwent, Faber and Castell, Staedtler – ranges 2B-8B) Charcoal, Rubber
- Memory stick 4GB+
- SD card 8GB+
- A laptop (the library has laptops for short-term loan if you do not have one)
The other important thing to think about is your individual studio space, and how to make it into an environment you feel comfortable and productive in. We have tables, chairs, easels etc, but if you want to bring your own items of furniture with you please do. Your studio walls will quickly fill up, but you should bring some imagery for the walls that you find inspiring to help get your space up and running.