When applying for college as an art major, you typically need to have some kind of portfolio ready to submit. This helps the school decide who to let in and can also end up giving you more aid (like the art talent awards offered at Marywood to incoming freshmen). Hopefully my tips below can help anyone getting ready for college.

From my high school experience, I did a variety of projects using different mediums and using the principles of art. Even if you didn’t take a lot of art classes or do many projects during high school you can still put together a few strong pieces and have a sketchbook handy as well.

When your portfolio is being judged at a college then generally like to look for usage of more than one medium. It doesn’t matter all that much which major you are applying for, it is more to see what you can do as an artist and what you may struggle with. This could be anything from paint to charcoal, pastels, or even clay projects. Literally anything you want and that you can carry to have viewed (or photographed if you’re sending in a digital portfolio for review).

For your sketchbook it would be ideal to have a lot of sketches from observation. Real life drawings can go a long way in showing your ability to sketch and draw. Some ideas for this might be to set up a still life at home, sketch some people, buildings, animals, clothing, or anything else you can think of. They want to see this because it shows you can draw from life and can show your originality. A few things to consider not including (unless its your very best work) are tattoo designs, dragons, unicorns and other stuff of that nature. Try to also avoid drawings from photographs because drawing from life gives you better shadows and you can see the object three dimensionally.

Finally don’t forget to show you! Show off your style of art and how you express your creativity. It might also be nice to have a huge portfolio case that can fit all of you projects big or small.