The Portfolio (Drawing or 2-D Design) has three sections:
Section I: Quality
Quality refers to the mastery of drawing issues that should be apparent in the concept, composition, and execution of the works, whether they are simple or complex.
Requirements
For this section, students are asked to submit five actual works in one or more media.
Students should carefully select the works that demonstrate their highest mastery of drawing. These works should be on flat surfaces, such as paper, cardboard, canvas board, or unstretched canvas. Students receive all the portfolio materials for submission of the Quality section in May. Because of limitations imposed by the shipping and handling of the portfolios, work submitted for this section must fit easily into the portfolio envelope, which is approximately 18" x 24". Works for Quality that are smaller than 8" x 10" should be mounted on sheets that are 8" x 10" or larger.
**The Quality works submitted may come from the Concentration and/or Breadth section, but they do not have to. They may be a group of related works, unrelated works or a combination of related and unrelated works.
Section I: Quality
Quality refers to the mastery of drawing issues that should be apparent in the concept, composition, and execution of the works, whether they are simple or complex.
Requirements
For this section, students are asked to submit five actual works in one or more media.
Students should carefully select the works that demonstrate their highest mastery of drawing. These works should be on flat surfaces, such as paper, cardboard, canvas board, or unstretched canvas. Students receive all the portfolio materials for submission of the Quality section in May. Because of limitations imposed by the shipping and handling of the portfolios, work submitted for this section must fit easily into the portfolio envelope, which is approximately 18" x 24". Works for Quality that are smaller than 8" x 10" should be mounted on sheets that are 8" x 10" or larger.
**The Quality works submitted may come from the Concentration and/or Breadth section, but they do not have to. They may be a group of related works, unrelated works or a combination of related and unrelated works.
- Section II: Concentration
A concentration is a body of related works that demonstrate a student’s commitment to the thoughtful investigation of a specific visual idea. It is not a selection of a variety of works produced as solutions to class projects or a collection of works with differing intents. Students should be encouraged to explore a personal, central interest as intensively as possible; they are free to work with any idea in any medium that addresses drawing issues. The concentration should grow out of the student’s idea and demonstrate growth and/or discovery through a number of conceptually related works. In this section, the evaluators are interested not only in the work presented but also in visual evidence of the student’s thinking, selected method of working and development of the work over time.
Requirements
For this section, 12 digital images must be submitted, some of which may be details. All images should be labeled with dimensions (height x width) and material. The Digital Submission Web application incorporates space to include this information. Regardless of the content of the concentration, the works should be unified by an underlying idea that has visual and/or conceptual coherence. The choices of technique, medium, style, form, subject and content are made by the student, in consultation with the teacher.
Below is a short list of concentrations that have been submitted to AP Central in the past. They are intended only to provide a sense of range and should not necessarily be considered “better” ideas.
A series of expressive landscapes based upon personal experience of a particular place
A personal or family history communicated through the content and style of still-life images
Abstractions from mechanical objects that explore mark-making
Interpretive self-portraiture and figure studies that emphasize exaggeration and distortion
Section III: Breadth
The student’s work in this section should demonstrate understanding of a wide range of drawing concerns, such as drawing from observation, work with invented or nonobjective forms, effective use of light and shade, line quality, surface manipulation, composition, various spatial systems and expressive mark-making. Students, must therefore, be actively engaged with these concerns while thoughtfully composing their art. The work in this section should show evidence of conceptual, perceptual and expressive development, as well as technical skill; thus, the student’s work should demonstrate a variety of drawing skills and approaches.
Requirements
For this section, students must submit a total of 12 digital images of 12 different works. Details may not be included. All images should be labeled with dimensions (height x width) and materials. The Digital Submission Web application incorporates space to include this information. As a whole, the student’s work in this section should demonstrate exploration, inventiveness, and the expressive manipulation of their work, as well as knowledge of compositional organization. The best demonstrations of breadth clearly show experimentation and a range of conceptual approaches to the work. It is possible to do this in a single medium or in a variety of media. When a student chooses a single medium — for example, if the portfolio consists entirely of charcoal drawings — the work must show a range of approaches, techniques, compositions and subjects. An enormous range of possibilities exists for this section. Following is a list of possible approaches. It is not intended to exclude other ways of drawing.
- The use of linear perspective, aerial views and other ways of creating and organizing space
- The use of various objects, such as the human figure, landscape and still-life objects
- Arrangement of forms in a complex visual space
- Investigation of expressive mark-making
- Ethics, Artistic Integrity and Plagiarism
Any work that makes use of (appropriates) photographs, published images and/or the work of other artists must show substantial and significant development beyond duplication. This is demonstrated through manipulation of the formal qualities, design, and/or concept of the source. The student’s individual “voice” should be clearly evident. It is unethical, constitutes plagiarism, and often violates copyright law simply to copy an image (even in another medium) that was made by someone else and represent it as one’s own.
Digital images of student work that are submitted in the Drawing portfolio may be edited. However, the goals of image editing should be to present the clearest, most accurate representation of the student’s artwork, and to ensure that images meet the requirements of the Digital Submission Web application. When submitting their portfolios, students must indicate their acceptance of the following statement: “I hereby affirm that all works in this portfolio were done by me and that these images accurately represent my actual work.”