These past couple of weeks I have been preparing for my sophomore portfolio review. I wanted to give a few tips that I have been told over the past couple of years. I hope this helps other students in preparation for when they are picking out artwork for their reviews.

List your projects

I started by making a list of all of my projects from each of my classes from this year, just to see everything I had done so far. My classes included figure drawing, computer graphics, illustration, digital illustration, and printmaking. Then I went through and laid out each piece I had done starting with figure drawing. I looked at each one essentially trying to pick the strongest drawings overall. I did this for each of my other classes and ended up with about 2-3 from each one.

Consider the lessons learned

Another thing I kept in mind while picking out my best artwork, was the lessons we covered in class while creating each one. Some pieces were more challenging than others to make and required much more thought and effort. That is something that can be discussed during review, to show that you challenged yourself.

find the story

It is also a good idea to keep in mind why you made that work that you did. There should always be a reason to why you are making your project the way it is. It makes you sound more involved with you artwork instead of just saying “I made this because I wanted to.” Try to find a reason or story for why the work was made the way it was.

revise and refine

Lastly, any artwork you have made in the past can always be edited or added onto in any way that you want. If you didn’t completely like the end result of a project, you can go back and fix what you didn’t like and make it an even better piece. That also shows that you really do take the time to carefully go over your work and apply a better understanding of your knowledge of art.