Fine Art Edinburgh College of Art

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Fine Art Edinburgh College of Art

I got offers for Edinburgh College of Art (Fine Art Edinburgh College of Art), DJAD, Gray’s and I almost got an interview for Glasgow.

I feel really happy about this ’cause they were all unconditionals. I ended up accepting ECA (Fine Art Edinburgh College of Art) but I yeah, I’m really happy about it. I don’t think without Julie’s help I would have gotten 3 unconditionals for like my dream art Unis. And yeah, it was I was really happy when I got them through.

Before discovering Portfolio Oomph I had a lot of frustrations and like issues with the way my school was trying to help us, like create a portfolios for art Uni. There wasn’t much help, the websites, the actual University websites were all really vague so they’d just say like “research slides” and like “context slides” and it was just like, what do these words mean? What do these Universities actually want? And I’d go to my like school teachers and they wouldn’t know what the Universities wanted. So I found myself really frustrated ’cause there was all different information in different places and no one seems to actually know what was going on.

I decided to contact Julie to work together for my portfolio because the reviews seemed amazing. I mean it was like every pretty much every review was just glowing and she like looked like a very like friendly person that I could go to entrust with my portfolio. And yeah, the course as well was just so nuts like this, this looks amazing why would I not? This seems to be everything I’m like missing in my school course so it seemed like the perfect option.

Fine Art Edinburgh College of Art

Working with Julie was amazing she’s such a friendly person and it was really easy to contact her via e-mail or WhatsApp with any questions and she could contact me for any questions or additional work from my portfolio as well. And it was, she, she listens to concerns amazingly and it just, yeah it was really nice to have a friendly face. And being able to visit in person because I lived quite close by was really beneficial for my portfolio I think, because it meant I got some like good like in person feedback on the physical work as well as rather than just like photos of my work that I’ve sent via e-mail.

Working with Julie and there was a lot of ‘lightbulb’ moments for me. I had a lot of like creative breakthroughs I’d say. Beforehand I was quite like rigid and I would just like – I was oil paintings and it was oil paintings it was oil paintings! But through the course I really like, I kind of relearnt how to work creatively and I found myself doing a lot more like mark making stuff and like, a lot freer, like I felt a lot freer after the course and it’s actually really helped my like University work as well. ‘Cause a lot my peers are still like “I do this and I only do this” and I feel like I’ve got like almost a little bit of a step up because I have been like freed up by this course. Because you get doing all sorts of stuff that you’d never thought of doing and it was really, it really opened my, my mind a lot.

The most helpful thing I found from the Portfolio Oomph course was, like, the ability, like I learned the ability to really push myself without being pushed if that makes sense. So instead of having a tutor or teacher tell me to do something outside of my comfort zone and having to do it, I found myself willingly doing a lot more stuff that I would have never thought about doing before. And it’s been really beneficial for my University work (Fine Art Edinburgh College of Art) because I found myself like pushing the boundaries a bit more and kind of doing better off for it in ways that I’ve not been told to do it so it’s yeah it’s it that was really beneficial – learning to kind of push myself more and step outside of my comfort zone – willingly.

Tony’s daughter Anna studied for success on my PLAN CREATE SUCCEED portfolio preparation course.

Like, in high school and stuff you kind of get like told what to do even if it’s outside of your comfort zone, you’ve got to do it to pass whereas it’s like the course like I find myself just kind of doing stuff I would never thought of doing for the fun of doing it.

Now that working like now that I’m done working with Julie I feel really confident actually in my ability to experiment and hit briefs and make portfolios quite frankly for stuff other than art Unis.

It’s really upped my like, artistic confidence working with Julie. I feel like I’m in a much better place with my art than I was before the course started. I would say if you were thinking of working with Julie, go for it – it’s absolutely worth it. She’s so lovely, the course is amazing I mean it’s, it’s full on. You need to be committed to doing this course and getting stuff done on time but it is amazing and yeah I, I seriously don’t think I would have gotten into ECA (Fine Art Edinburgh College of Art) which was my dream art Uni without her help and without the course. I would say go for it. If you’re even like thinking about it – just do it, it’s so worth it. Even like, it’s been worth it outside of just applying and getting offers because it has greatly changed like, the way I create art as well for like, a good like in a good way. It has greatly changed the way I create art and the way I think it. And it is yeah, it’s so worth it I would say absolutely go, go work with Julie.

Fine Art Edinburgh College of Art

I since working with Julie my life is completely changed because, because of the course, ’cause it’s really like they made like working with Julie made me feel so much more confident about like my skills and also like, about working with other people and it’s totally changed my, like, the way I think creatively as well. Rather than thinking, I’m going to like, coming up with an image and putting it on the paper or the canvas I’m now thinking like how could I alter that, how can I change that image into something new – rather than just copy paste it and it’s yeah it’s, it’s totally it feels totally different now after completing the course.

This article was written by Julie Read, a leading educator in the Creative Industries, as featured in The Guardian newspaper, on a mission to create a legacy to ‘unlock your creative genius’.

My passion and mission is your art portfolio, to help to get you that place at college or university.

CLARITY, in particular around the creative process, sketchbooks, and what the Colleges actually want to see are the founding principles.