Never start with the interesting bit
Ask a candidate where they began their A1 and almost all of them will say the focal point — the face, the tree, the thing they wanted to draw. It is the most engaging part of the page and the smallest, and starting there is the single most reliable way to run out of time with a beautiful object floating in a sea of unfinished paper.
Biggest first, because time runs out at the end
The logic is almost embarrassingly simple and almost nobody follows it.
The largest area on your page takes the longest to cover, especially in a dry medium that deposits pigment by abrasion. If you leave it until last, you are gambling that you will have your slowest task left when you have your least time. You will not.
So: block the big masses first, fast and blunt, while you have time and energy. Sky, ground, the large tonal fields. Then the mid-scale relationships. Then, last, the focal point — which is small, which is the part you actually want to do, and which will therefore get done in a rush at the end whether you plan it or not. Plan it.
The pleasant surprise is that this also produces better work. Establishing the big masses first forces the composition to exist before the detail does, which is exactly the discipline the previous lessons were arguing for. Working large-to-small is the same instruction as compose-before-colour, expressed as a schedule.
A workable twenty-five minutes
There is no published per-question split — 90 minutes for three questions is all COA gives you — so allocate by marks: 25, 25, 30. Call A1 twenty-five minutes and work backwards.
0–2: read and decide. Read the brief twice. Three-value thumbnail. Palette: three colours, dominant temperature, where the accent goes.
2–5: pencil layout. Light. The big divisions only. Squint at it. This is the last moment where changing your mind is free.
5–17: block the masses. Fast medium, large areas, light to dark. Leave the paper for your lights.
17–22: the focal point. Precise medium. Your saturated accent, your darkest dark against your lightest light. All three relationships in one place.
22–25: check and stop. Squint. Fix values if the page died. Stop.
Notice that only five minutes go on the part you most want to do, and three go on deciding. That ratio feels wrong and it is why it works.
Finishing beats improving
The same rule as A3, because it is a property of timed work rather than of any particular question: there is no credit for intent.
At twenty-two minutes, whatever state the page is in, stop adding and start resolving. A simpler composition that is complete — masses established, focal point clear, values structured — will read better than an ambitious one abandoned mid-thought. The examiner cannot see the version in your head.
And resist the very specific late-stage temptation: when a page feels flat at minute twenty, the instinct is to add another colour. It never works. Flatness is a value problem, and a new hue at the same value adds nothing but time you do not have. If you must intervene, deepen a dark or reclaim a light — those change the value structure, which is the thing that is actually wrong.
Then stop. Pages are more often ruined in the last three minutes than saved in them.
The rules behind this
Sourced to the official brochure rather than restated here, so there is one place to correct when the Council revises it.
NATA 2026 is two parts on the same day: Part A offline on paper (80 marks, 90 min), Part B adaptive on computer (120 marks, 90 min). Total 200 marks over three hours.
Part A is taken first, then Part B. A ten-minute break is permitted between them, but the candidate may not leave the centre.
Source · verified 2026-07-16
Part A is three questions: A1 Composition and Colour (25), A2 Sketching and Composition in Black and White (25), A3 3D Composition (30).
Eighty marks across three questions means each is worth roughly 13% of the whole exam. There is no salvaging a bad question by volume, the way a 50-question paper allows.
Source · verified 2026-07-16
Bring: the downloaded original Appointment Card, an original photo ID, pencils, erasers, dry colours, and a scale up to 15 cm.
Source · verified 2026-07-16
What almost everyone believes
“I should start with the focal point while I am fresh and my hand is steady.”
Start with the largest area. It takes longest, and leaving it to the end means meeting your slowest task with your least time.
The focal point is the smallest and most engaging part of the page, which is exactly why it attracts the start of the session and exactly why it should not. Dry media cover by abrasion, so large areas are genuinely slow; a candidate who spends fifteen minutes on a beautiful face has ten minutes to fill an entire page and will not. Working large-to-small also forces the composition to exist before the detail does — the same discipline as compose-before-colour, expressed as a schedule rather than a principle.
Depending on how long you have
Foundation
Understand the skill. Months out, or starting from zero.
Do not work to a timer yet. Learn to compose in colour without pressure first, because speed layered onto a skill you do not have produces fast bad work, and fast bad work is a habit that then needs unlearning. The clock belongs in the drill phase.
Drill
The practice protocol. What to repeat, how often, how to score it.
Twenty-five minutes, hard timer, prompt you did not choose, every single time. Enforce the phases aloud. Track one number only: how often you finished. Not how good it was — whether it was done. Once finishing is automatic, quality climbs on its own, because you stop spending the last five minutes panicking.
Exam-Day
What to actually do under the constraint — 108 seconds, no instruments, one pass.
Two minutes deciding, three in pencil, twelve on the big masses, five on the focal point, three checking. Never start with the interesting bit. At twenty-two, stop adding. If the page feels flat, fix a value — do not reach for another colour, and do not keep working past the point where you are improving it.
Try it
Twenty-five minutes. Full dress rehearsal — do this weekly once composing feels natural.
- 01Random prompt you did not choose. Hard 25-minute timer. Your exam kit, nothing else.
- 020-2: read twice, three-value thumbnail, write down your three colours and your accent.
- 032-5: pencil layout, big divisions only, squint. 5-17: block the masses, fast medium, light to dark.
- 0417-22: focal point only. 22-25: squint, fix values if needed, stop.
- 05Record one thing: did you finish? That number matters more than the drawing for the first ten attempts.
The short version
Twenty-five minutes, and dry media are slow, so block the biggest masses first and leave the focal point — the smallest, most tempting area — for minute seventeen. Two minutes deciding beats two minutes recovering. At twenty-two, stop adding and resolve, because there is no credit for the version in your head. And when a page feels flat at minute twenty, fix a value; reaching for another colour is the instinct, costs time you do not have, and has never once worked.
That completes A1. A2 takes the colour away entirely — line and tone, nowhere to hide.
Questions people actually ask
- How long should I spend on NATA A1?
- Part A is 90 minutes for three questions and no per-question split is published, so it is yours to allocate. The marks — 25, 25, 30 — suggest roughly even thirds, so about 25 minutes for A1 is a sensible working budget.
- What order should I work in for A1?
- Largest area to smallest. Block the big masses first with a fast medium while you have time, then mid-scale relationships, then the focal point last. Starting with the focal point is the most common reason candidates run out of time, because it is the smallest area on the page and the most engaging.
- My A1 always feels flat near the end. What should I do?
- Fix a value, not a hue. Flatness is almost always a value problem — everything sitting at the same lightness — and adding another colour at the same value costs time and changes nothing. Deepen a dark or reclaim a light instead. And stop on time: pages are ruined in the last three minutes more often than they are saved.