Recommended materials, activities, and resources lists

Suggested summer activities

On campus, you fill find all the material you need to fully engage with your course, but, if you want you can try and do the following during the summer:

• Think about what you would like to get out of the course, and write some ideas down (we will be making a course manifesto together in September)
• You can try and keep a summer diary, include, photos, video, sound, drawing or whatever you like use. I challenge you to make it into an interesting format.

Most of all, come in September, ready to learn and to say YES to all opportunities; we have lots of exciting projects for you!

You will find all the resources you need on campus once you start your course, including Mac Suite workstations running Adobe software, and laptops you can take out on loan free of charge. However, you may want your own laptop or tablet for homeworking.

You will have access to Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) as well as Adobe Suite, via the university for free when you start in September.

You may want to start your course with the following equipment ready for each of your modules:

• A4 notebook with lined paper
• A4 or A5 sketchbook with plain paper
• A range of pens and pencils to draw and write with.

Over the summer, you may want to get a head start on keeping up to date with the world of fashion. We encourage you to read magazines, newspapers, and engage with social media such as:

• Vogue
• SHOWstudio

We also suggest you visit fashion and textile exhibitions and museums which are often free or low cost to students, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and Dundee, the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, the Fashion Museum in Bath, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the Blandford Fashion Museum in Dorset, and the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.

You will be able to access eBooks via our ARU library once you register. When you've done that, you might want to look at the following books. However, please don't feel obliged to purchase or read them before your course starts. You'll be able to get them from the library once fully registered and on campus.

• Joseph H. Hancock II (2022) Fashion Brand Stories. London: Bloomsbury.
• Kirsten K. Swanson, Judith C. Everett, and Jenny B. Davis (2022) Writing for the Fashion Business. New York: Fairchild Books.
• Akiko Fukai (Ed.) (2019) Fashion History: From the 18th to the 20th Century. Koln: Taschen.

Art activity

Start a small sketchbook (either A6, A5 or A4) and visit an exhibition, and make a few pages of drawings/notes on what you see, including some thumbnail studies of artworks.

Try to make each page interesting as an artistic statement in itself, thinking about composition, editing, mark-making, negative space, etc.

Drawing "thumbnail studies" of individual artworks may help animate each page and enhance your understanding of each work. (See below for some examples of lively studies of artworks based on a museum visit).

Please write details of the exhibition, location and individual artworks alongside, and please also include a short reflective comment on what you have learnt from each artwork / artist, identifying where their interests might lie, and to start understanding their thoughts about art.

The exhibition can be in a local art museum or gallery near where you live, and could be as part of a trip to Cambridge or London.

Larger museums and galleries currently require visitors to book in before visiting, via the gallery website.

Please remember the excellent range of free exhibitions which are available to see in different locations, such as Tate Modern or Tate Britain in London, or the Fitzwilliam Museum or Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge.

The New Exhibitions website will be a helpful point of reference when planning a trip to a gallery.

If possible, a trip to Tate Modern is strongly recommended to see the main collection (Level 2 and Level 4 of the main building are always worth seeing and are free to visit), and if possible to view the current exhibitions, Expressionists and Yoko Ono.

Please be aware that as a student aged 16-25, you can gain entry for £5 to all specialist exhibitions at any of the Tate's galleries, if you join via the Tate Collective beforehand.

Thumbnail study examples

Recommended reading prior to starting at ARU

Books

We strongly recommend you read or make a start on reading:

Michael Archer – Art Since 1960

We're able to provide you with the first chapter of the book as a digital file. (NB copyright restrictions will not allow further chapters to be scanned).

This book is a key text which we use when teaching the course, so we suggest that you buy a copy. You might prefer to get a good quality used copy, as these are much more affordable.

Please read chapters 1, 2 and 3:

• Chapter 1: The Real and its Objects (pages: 11-59)
• Chapter 2: The Expanded Field (pages: 60-108)
• Chapter 3: Ideology, Identity and Difference (pages: 109-141)

Here are some more recommended books that you can buy, or find in the ARU library.

• Art in Theory 1900 – 2000, Harrison, C and Wood, P.J. (Wiley-Blackwell 2002). An important text book containing key essays / statements by artists and critics that will help support studies in both studio and contextual modules. The course will draw heavily on this book, so we would advise you to buy a copy.
• After Modern Art 1945-2000, Hopkins, D. (Oxford 2000). The course will draw on this book, so you may wish to buy a copy, but there are also copies available in the ARU library.
• This is Modern Art, Collings, M. (London: Seven Dials 1999). An additional book that may be of interest to you as a fine art student. It accompanied a tv series of the same name, which is available on DVD in the ARU library, along with copies of the book.
• Harvard Referencing Guide. A crucial guide on how to reference in your essays at ARU.

Websites

Key websites that will be a very useful resource when you're researching artists and exhibitions:

• Tate Gallery
• Saatchi Gallery
• Vimeo

Websites for local galleries and art organisations in the Cambridge area:

• Kettle's Yard
• Fitzwilliam Museum
• Heong Gallery
• Wysing Arts Centre
• Aid and Abet

Kit list

Basic materials

Useful websites for books, tools and materials:

• B&Q
• Art Discount
• Tindalls
• Amazon UK
• Wilko - Budget DIY tools, equipment and materials on Fitzroy Street, very close to our Cambridge campus
• Atlantis Art - Specialist artists' materials
• Mackay - Specialist DIY store close to our Cambridge campus

Required materials

Please purchase these materials before arriving - they will provide your basic needs for studying the practical modules on our BA Fine Art course.

Art storage

• Tools and art materials box (lockable)
• Padlock
• USB memory stick
• A1 portfolio

Painting and drawing materials

• B, 2B and 4B pencils
• Medium sized charcoal
• Acrylic paint (a range of colours inc. black and white)
• A range of paint brushes
• (2x) A4 or A5 sketchbooks
• Rubber
• Pencil sharpener
• Scissors
• 1” masking tape
• Painting pallet
• Pallet knife
• Painting apron or shirt
• Glass jars
• Painting rags

Tools

• Craft knife (or Stanley knife)
• 30cm metal ruler
• Small claw hammer
• Steel tape measure
• Phillips screwdriver (medium size)
• Pliers
• 1.5” panel pins
• Staple gun
• Bradawl

Optional materials

These may be be useful for your studio work:

• Digital camera
• Coloured pencils
• Pastels or Conté crayons
• Oil paints and mediums
• Black drawing ink

Materials

Although you can find computers and model-making tools on campus, you may also find it useful to have your own equipment for working on projects from home.

• Your own laptop, with a dedicated (i.e. not shared) graphics card.
• A3 cutting mat
• 1:25 figures standing (pack of six)
• 1:50 figures standing (pack of six)
• Architect's scale ruler
• Chromed steel safety ruler
• UHU stick (40g)
• Masking tape (18mm x 50mm)
• 3M Magic Tape (19mm x 33m)
• Scissors, large (190mm)
• Scissors, small
• Swann Morton scalpel blade remover
• Swann Morton scalpel (No. 3) with blades
• Large set square, big enough to draw on A3 paper. (The adjustable ones are good but more expensive).
• Tracing paper - a pad of A3 will be useful for your technical drawings. We also recommend generally having a roll of tracing paper for this module and studio that is not so precious.
• Long tape measure (for surveying spaces)
• Graphite pencils (a range including HB, 2B and 4B), eraser and sharpener
• Isometric paper - no need to buy a pad, if you have a sheet printed off on A3 you can use this multiple times with tracing paper over the top.
• Drawing paper (A3 minimum)
• A range of papers generally to collage is always useful, drawings on grey or brown packaging paper can be very successful particularly using a white crayon and ink or graphite. You may wish to bring a range of coloured or textured papers to lessons.
• Uni Pin Fine Line pens - these can be purchased in multipacks of different widths.
• Watercolour paper and watercolour paints/brushes.
• Promarkers or other quality marker pens. The colours we find useful are not the primary bright ones that usually come in the multipacks but the softer tones, neutrals and greys. Think about what you are likely to draw before purchasing colours.
• Inexpensive plain paper or sketchbook.

Books

In terms of books, these two are great introductions to interior design. However, please do not feel obliged to purchase them or read them before your course starts. Both are completely voluntary, and you'll be able to get them from the library once fully registered and on campus.

• Thomas, H., 2018. Drawing Architecture (London, Phaidon Press).
• Taylor, M. (Ed), 2006. Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader (London, Academy Press).

You will find all the photography resources you need on campus, but you may want your own laptop for homeworking. For more information, see our specific technical requirements.

You’ll be able to access e-books once you register. When you’ve done that you might want to look at the introduction of Photography: a critical introduction, by Liz Wells (6th ed., 2021).

Also, if you are local to Cambridge and can get to Kettle’s Yard, it’s worth visiting the Howardena Pindell exhibition. Or do go in your first few weeks at ARU, as we will be experimenting with similar techniques. It will also be useful for your Photographic Practice and Context module, as her work conveys themes of racism, feminism, violence, slavery, and exploitation.