Drawing BA(Hons)

Working in our dynamic studio environment you'll take on a series of projects to develop drawing-specific skills and concepts within a range of contemporary arts contexts. You’ll start to develop rigorous research skills too, understanding where your own practice sits within the 21st century cultural landscape. You'll also have opportunities to show your work in the studios and engage with peers across all three years. 

Modules

Practice in Context 1

This module introduces key contemporary and historical art contexts, developments, and debates, helping you to extend the scope of what subject-specific practice is and can be. You’ll be introduced to the vocabulary, concepts, and contexts to be able to analyse artistic practice. You will also be introduced to academic writing and research conventions appropriate to a range of arts contexts. 

Press Play

Through technical workshops and inductions, you’ll be supported to kick-start approaches to your artistic practice and establishing ambitious lines of inquiry: testing boundaries, taking risks and experimenting. This module will also establish the ways that theory and practice are in dialogue with each other and will introduce you to a range of contemporary and historical art practices, cultural and theoretical issues, debates, and contexts such as socio-political, economic, and environmental dimensions of art in the 21st century. 

Practice in Context 2

You will be introduced to a range of themes and trends that have shaped contemporary artistic practices, reinforcing the connections between critical and contextual knowledge and your developing studio practice. You will start to consider possible ways to situate your own work and make connections between research, your own practice, and contemporary industry. You will also engage with academic source material and develop strategies for analysing, researching, and writing about art.  

Initiating Practice 

This module will strengthen your understanding of what it means to have and maintain an independent and ethical artistic practice and will support you to further explore methods for practice-based research. The module will also provide opportunities to explore different modes of display and consider audience experience, interaction, and participation as you work with your peers to construct a group exhibition. 

In the second year of your Drawing degree, you'll delve deeper into your own practice, developing your technical prowess whilst learning how to articulate and present your work in a broad range of professional and public contexts.  

Modules

Sustained Personal Enquiry 1

This module will support you to develop skills of critical analysis in relation to the language of drawing. You will be encouraged to explore new research territories to complement the evolution of your studio practice, as well as developing presentation skills as a tool for creative professionals, delivering a visual contextual presentation to an audience of peers and staff. 

Situating Practice: Studio  

Taking place in the studio and technical workshops, you will develop a new body of work focusing on process, material investigation and technical experimentation. This will help you to identify themes and contexts that emerge from thinking through making and how you ‘tell the story’ of your practice and research, situated in real-world contexts. 

Sustained Personal Enquiry 2 

This module will support you to generate a portfolio of research. You will be introduced to core research methodologies and then apply methods for planning and organising your research. In addition, you will explore a range of strategies for undertaking critical reading and experimental modes of writing. 

Testing Ground: Collaboration 

This module will focus on expanding your knowledge of public arts platforms, including arts festivals and how they operate. Working in exhibition planning groups, you will identify and work towards a live context for your current practice. Each group will contribute to planning and preparing a public facing arts festival and the group curation of your practice. 

Testing Ground: Studio  

During this module, you will challenge and test established conventions within your practice. The emphasis will be on experimentation and risk-taking through the practical business of making. Through a combination of seminars, tutorials and peer review you will articulate and receive critical feedback on your work. You will curate a body of work into an organised portfolio with a supporting artist statement. 

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on a three-year programme, or after your third year if you’re studying for a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year. 

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your professional placement

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

The modules in your final year give you the opportunity to demonstrate originality, skills and professionalism in producing a distinctive body of work and showcasing your ideas. You'll work on a project reflecting and building on your personal discoveries and ambitions. You'll also work on a major negotiated project, which will culminate in a public exhibition. 

Modules

Entrepreneurial Practices: Agencies and Audiences 

In this module, you will build an entrepreneurial skillset by engaging with public contexts and devising strategies for employment. You will identify the relevant audiences, platforms, and tools for the dissemination of your practice and research in relation to your career goals. The module will culminate in you working either independently or collaboratively with other students to showcase your work in a public-facing context. 

Practice as Research 

This module will develop your ability to identify, apply and position your research concerns as an artist working in the 21st century. Through challenge and exploration, you will create a set of outputs distinctive to your own critical concerns through one of three pathways: 

• Practical submission and critical essay 
• Written submission 
• Art writing submission 

Public Platforms 

This module provides a platform for you to showcase the depth of your ambition through a distinctive body of work, to be staged in a public exhibition. 

Together with your peers, you will curate, exhibit, and present your project to high standards to an audience in a public context within and beyond the academic community and identify relevant professional online networks for its dissemination.

Realisation  

This module is a culmination of the skills, knowledge, and understanding you have developed during your time on the course. You will challenge and finesse your practice so that your Degree Show exhibition showcases your accomplishments to a wider audience.  

Liaising with your cohort you will collectively organise, curate, and promote an exciting exhibition demonstrating a confident and comprehensive understanding of your own artistic practice that is innovative, professional and clearly underpinned by detailed knowledge of the subject and industry. 

Why study an Integrated Foundation Year route?

If you’re taking on a new subject that you haven’t studied in depth before, have been out of education for a while or have a non-standard educational background then an Integrated Foundation Year degree may be the right choice for you. It is a four-year degree with an Integrated Foundation Year to start, which allows you to explore the primary elements of your subject before progressing on to the remaining three years of the BA(Hons) degree.

What you'll learn

If you choose this pathway, you'll study five core modules in your Foundation year. These are all designed to help you explore the foundational elements of your subject. You'll gain relevant technical skills, learn to experiment and take risks, develop an understanding of professional practice, have opportunities to work across disciplines and collaborate with other students on live project briefs.

Modules

Explore

You'll begin your foundation year by working collaboratively with others to explore themes of the future. You'll take risks, experiment through play and be supported to break through barriers.

Technique

You'll take subject-specific workshops and develop essential technical and practical skills in your area of study. You'll also enhance your analytical and organisational abilities.

Apply

You'll work with your peer group to think beyond discipline by addressing a societal or global issue. You'll then showcase your work to your peers and deliver an accompanying evaluation of your process.

Industry

You'll enhance your creative and practical skills in your subject specialism by responding to typical industry briefs, underpinned by focused research and experiments. You'll also gain industry insights through guest lectures and workshops.

Launch

You'll develop your unique identity in your specialism through the production of a self-initiated body of work. Your final project will be the bridge to your next year, fully supported by evaluative reviews and critical analysis of the work you have created.

After the Foundation year, you progress into Year One of the full three-year degree, equipped with a deeper knowledge of your subject, a clear understanding of your strengths, and develop a practical and technical skillset and the confidence to excel in your chosen subject.

If you apply for and enrol onto a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year, you’ll have the option to switch onto a five-year version including a placement year. That means you’ll complete the first three years of your course before completing a placement in industry in your fourth year and returning to Falmouth for the fifth year of your programme. 

This studio-based Drawing degree brings together practical approaches, structured learning, dedicated tutor support, and opportunities for national and international placements, along with optional visits to museums, galleries and other artistic locations. As you progress, you'll take greater ownership of your work through self-directed projects and through collaborative group work. 

At Falmouth, we use a 'digitally enhanced learning & teaching' approach. Your experience will always be predominantly in-person, including seminars, tutorials and studio teaching, with some, more targeted elements, being online either live (synchronous) or pre-recorded (asynchronous). You can read more here.

100% of your assessment will be coursework. 

Assessment methods

• Foundation year assessments are 100% coursework based
• Continuous monitoring
• Twice-yearly studio practice
• Written assignments
• Self-evaluation
• Final-year dissertation, project and exhibition