Starting the Independent Work Book

[catfromouterspace]

Hello! I am just starting IB art, in exactly 3 days actually. I was wondering how most of you have gone about starting the IWB? What did you put on your first pages (after the TOC of course)? Just looking for some tips! Thank you.

[elmar]

I'm sure in this thread (The Arts) there are a variety of sources concerning the IWB, but I'll summarize what I did.

• My school doesn't tell their students to do a table of contents, and I know that IB looks for one, so regardless of what your school enforces or does not enforce, leave one or two pages at the beginning of your IWB to include a table of contents.
  
• Then, I opened up with an introduction - my name, a few pictures I've taken, pictures that inspire me. Just a brief synopsys of who I am and what I enjoy.
  
• We were required to visit a gallery and describe one of the art pieces we enjoyed most. If you're not required, I would recommend it anyway. IB enjoys seeing their candidates visit local galleries and really emerge themselves into the art culture. My teacher even states that the research we do online is inferior to the amount of investigation we do in person at galleries. The more you interact and grow in your town's art scene, the more likely you'll be to gain more insight and knowledge to why specific artists use a certain technique or method, which is just what IB is looking for in their Visual Arts course. And you might also be offered an internship or be encouraged to enter contests for high school artists. This is commonly what my school does.
  

That's really all I did to prepare for my class. You could also number all of your pages in your IWB, which I had to do while I was writing in my IWB during the school year. I'd recommend you do it now so you don't forget and don't get overloaded. Also, you should start dating the entries you do during these next three days, and even those you do in class. Proper identification of the date and of the sources you use in your IWB are just two of the smallest details that go overlooked by students but are inspected and expected by the IB examiners who come and look through your IWB(s).

[Emmi]

My first few pages were from our summer homework assigned to us. We were required to go to an art museum and choose two artworks, both from different time periods (I chose an Impressionist work and Pop Art work), that we really liked, draw them in our IWB, and analyze them and state why we liked them. We didn't have to have a table of contents, but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to have one.

And I agree with what elmar said. In addition, it's important to document EVERY source you use in your research! If you are using another artwork, include its title, artist, date, and medium/media. If it's an image, get the book/article/newspaper/magazine title, author of the image (if given), or get the website address. Document as you go along. It's a lot easier to get your sources as you go than to try to find your exact source months later. Also, my teacher recommended to everyone that they use a variety of sources - online, magazines, art textbooks, newspapers, going to art galleries, and even your own sources (photographs, objects you plan to use in your art, etc.) because it looks better than using all online sources.

Also, it helps to leave about a 1 inch margin around the edges because when you go to photocopy your chosen pages to be sent off to the examiner, you don't want anything to be cut off!

You can't really "prepare," per say, but you can easily avoid not getting behind by keeping everything up to date.

Good luck with your IWB and I hope you get a 7!