Thank you. It's 5:00 o'clock.
Hello everybody. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Today we are going to be talking about portfolio, how to specifically gathering and presenting your work. We are here today with Nellie Pacheco who is an admissions counselor and alumna of Pennsylvania College of Art and Design to talk about this topic a little bit further. As a reminder, if you have any questions, please feel free to type them into the chat area which was located on the bottom right corner of the screen and we will bring it up.
At the Q&A at the end, but for now, sit back and relax and I'll hand it off to you in Italy.
Thank you, Julia. So today, we will be talking about gathering and presenting your work for your portfolio. So throughout this presentation, we will be going through kind of like the myths of presenting your portfolio as well as the steps for putting everything together, communicating your pieces. And then at the end, we'll talk about the specifics for our portfolio.
Just a quick reminder, the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design offers these four year degree majors.
But let's get started. So what is a portfolio? And like I said, we will pretty much go through these in detail to hopefully answer any questions that you may have about the portfolio process of our application.
So First off, we'll be going through a little bit of the myths that.
Our kind of thought about when submitting a portfolio, so First off we have do you need a fancy carrying case or a really professionally done website to hold your portfolio digitally. And the reality of it is as long as you have a well done looking portfolio that is pretty much what will keep your pieces really polished and really nice to look at. You don't necessarily need to invest in a really expensive.
Physical portfolio and by that we mean like those they look like almost like black.
Almost like books that have the little plastic in the middle where you can insert your pieces. As long as you have something fairly that can pretty much practically be used the same way and keep your pieces organized, you don't have to really invest in something that's really expensive and for your digital pieces. For a website, for example, as long as they are organized and professional, you don't necessarily need to go too crazy with them, as long as there's nothing really.
Extracting there's a nice clean background that should be good.
Uh, next we have your portfolio should be concentrated, should be a concentrated investigation of 1 media main project theme or concept. And for us, we really value your ability to focus, but we also value you your willingness to play and experiment with a range of size, media and subject matter. It's really nice to diversify your portfolio as much as you can, whether it's different mediums, different subject matters and that we will discuss.
One more further along in their presentation.
Next, should it show basically your entire growth as an artist from day one from the day that you started drawing?
And although personally it is nice to see your growth from day one, for the purposes of the portfolio it's best to keep your range of pieces within the last year and a half, just so that we know what your current skill level is at the point of applying for art school.
Using any imagery or references in your artwork that did not come from your own mind is artistic plagiarism. So characters image from photographs and other artworks.
We recognize the value of inspiration and master copies, so like.
Doing master copies of work such as da Vinci from the Renaissance periods or other artists, but it is.
And many of the history's most celebrated artists learn techniques by attempting to imitate artworks from who they respect as artists exactly as they could, or by manipulating it to say something new or different. Original artwork means the final product or concept was created by your own hand in mine so.
When you do do master copies of pieces, it's definitely important to credit the artists that you are using the image from. That way you can pretty much show that yes, this particular artist is one of my favorites. I respect their style, I love their work, but you're also giving them credit as well.
Umm, So what is artistic plagiarism? So for example, taking credit.
Four or not giving credit for someone else's work. So one obvious example would be screenshotting an image from the Internet or tracing someone else's design without making any significant modifications to call your own. So for example, if you are looking for references for a certain project, it is OK to look at references. For example, for a fish sometimes scales, the scaling pattern on fish can be hard to replicate.
Unless you're looking at it, but as long as you are modifying.
The drawing in any kind of way, it's not, you're not. We won't be plagiarizing the piece and that's something that is always a good thing to ask your councillors or the person that are reviewing your pieces as well, so you can always ask.
And show and give. Ask for feedback on your piece as well.
And next, uh, your portfolio has to display perfect technique and you have to give a perfect presentation to be considered good enough for admission to pcad. And the truth is, that's not true. If your portfolios have already been perfect, we would not be here as counselors. We are looking for evidence that you can be successful at a high level college environment and we really want to see your excitement, your readiness and your willingness to keep learning.
And improving as an artist so your portfolio does not need to be 100% perfection.
Uh, next we have. If your portfolio isn't acceptable on your first try, then you're out of luck.
So the truth is each of our admissions counselors want to see you reach your best and peak head views are portfolio review process as more of an ongoing conversation than A1 and done situation. So our counselors will often do follow-up requests for either additional pieces and we also give advice for improvement or answer any specific questions. So definitely don't feel any kind of anxiety, but when you have to officially.
Submit your portfolio. We can always meet before then to ask any questions and if there are things that are missing in your portfolio that are very glaring or obvious, we do tend to follow up with you so that we can help you with those corrections.
So for our portfolio requirements, they are basically 8 to 10 recently finished original artworks that demonstrate your abilities and a range of artistic mediums.
From those pieces, two of them have to be observational drawings. They could also be called drawing from life. Basically anything that you are directly seeing in front of you so example, not a photograph or a reference from something you find online and showcase equal amounts of breadth and depth and to explain what that is.
Breath is basically displaying a range of skills by experimenting with in varying size and media and subject matter. So for example, they can be a range of things such as a painting, drawing and sculpture, photos, installation work that you would take a photo of to put in your portfolio. So they're basically different things that make each piece different.
And then depth is focusing on a concentration of work, so the best way to explain that is.
Picasso's blue period were all of his artworks have the same thing. Their theme, they were all in the color blue. So what we ask is that you show equal sides of both sides, so instead of focusing on one particular thing, so for example we see a lot of students who love to do character designs and every single one of their piece is a character design. So the best way to kind of explain how to.
Show equal amounts of breadth and depth would be to. If you still want to do character designs, maybe do them in different mediums.
Different sizes try to change it up a bit so it's not that we're seeing the exact same piece after piece.
Umm. And if you ever feel like you're not sure if you're showing equals amounts of breadth and depth, that's a question that you can also ask your counselor for feedback as well.
And then making artwork from observation. So examples of observational work would be a still life or self portraits. This could be a portrait of yourself or portraits. Maybe your friends or your family's. Interior spaces are good forms of observational pieces. And then figurative work as well if you do figure drawings of your classmates or if you do.
Extra art classes outside of your traditional high school classes. Those also work as well and then landscape as well. So if you ever are at the park or anything like that, you can also draw landscapes as part of your observational work.
And then he cat tip. Observational work is hard. It is a practice that is something that you still do beyond high school. So we don't really we we don't ask for absolute perfection when it comes to your observational work, and that's why we only ask for two of them.
And we want to see that you take your time and that you make your best effort of it, though definitely try to make it a complete piece, which we'll talk about a little bit more in a couple slides.
These are examples of observational work. So the interior piece would be the one on the left with the image of the window and some furniture, and then the one on the right is an example of a still life.
OK. So next we have repairing your portfolio. So first thoughtfully select the pieces that you'll include in your portfolio.
Then we want you to gather and organize your pieces. So consider how to best organize and present the work that you picked that sometimes it'll take a couple of tries if you're trying to figure out what order to put your pieces. So definitely if you're able to kind of lay all your pieces out on the table and then organize them in a way that makes sense or a flow that is really smooth, that's one thing. That's one way to tackle the organizational part.
Uh, next, communicate. So definitely share your creative process with others if you when you can. Especially for teachers or mentors or friends or family, their feedback and just them seeing your pieces for the first time, their feedback could really, really help. Especially for us, when we look at our pieces for so long, we tend to just get a little bit of tunnel vision and not notice things, so sharing that with others really helps.
And then finally, share and submit. So schedule an interview, an individual review and or upload your portfolio. So if you feel like you have any questions and you just want feedback from your counselors, definitely schedule and individual review. But if you feel like your portfolio is great as it is, you're more than welcome to also just submit it as well.
Examples of media to include would be drawings, paintings, performative art that you take a video of, metal and jewelry, fiber arts, public art, sculpture installations, things like that are great additions to your portfolio and then besides the obvious illustrations.
2D design sketch things on your sketchbook, which we'll talk about a little bit more in a little bit. We have a little bit of things to say about sketchbook pieces, which you can include, but there are some exceptions.
Uh, next, ask yourself these questions as you're kind of selecting your work. So First off, do I consider this work a finished piece? That is something that can be a bit tricky, especially as an artist. You tend to look at your piece and always find things that you can keep doing and keep finishing. We do ask that you have your work and the most finish that it can be so that we can see kind of the end results.
Of the pieces that you're working on.
Umm next ask yourself, does this piece show off my ideas, my skills, and my abilities? This definitely rings true for some of the pieces that are in like your favorite medium.
For example, I tend to do well with mostly graphite and ink and to some extent acrylic pens. So those particular mediums are where my skills show off the most. But if I'm doing something brand new in a medium that I've never, never done before, that is where it becomes really, really challenging. It may not look as advanced as I would be in some of my other mediums.
Uh, next. Does this showcase my problem solving skills, decision making skills, or originality of my work? That's definitely a big question. A pretty heavy question to ask about your things, about the pieces that you make, so definitely ask yourself this when you're looking at your piece.
And another big one. Am I able to talk about or explain this piece? That's definitely going to be really important when you present your pieces in person to either to anyone, either your counselor or your teacher or your friends or family. It's very important to be able to talk about your piece so that the viewer can understand your process, things that challenged you, things that you learned. So that's definitely a big thing.
And it doesn't need to be anything really long or elaborate, but it's something that gets the point across for us to understand.
Kind of what you were thinking and going through and learning when you were making your piece.
Next, will this piece flow together with others in a cohesive way to show who I am as an artist? So that kind of goes into when you are organizing as well. Are there any pieces that kind of ruin the flow of your portfolio or it's it's typically more obvious when you're seeing it visually, are there pieces that so for example if you have maybe groups of different?
Subject Matter like figurative work, still life, or animations. For example, three different categories of things are you showing.
All of your animations, but then you mix it up when you go with your still lives and your figurative work. So something like that. Is that interrupting the flow of your portfolio?
And these were pretty much the questions that we were just going over. But a pro tip that we suggest is if you don't know where to start, definitely ask your teachers, your mentors, your friends, your family, so that.
If there are any specific pieces of your work that come to mind when they think of you as an artist, so definitely being able to reach out to the people that you trust to show your work definitely is a big benefit to organizing your portfolio and selecting your pieces.
And next, so we're going to start talking about gathering and organizing. So a couple of questions to ask yourself as you're doing that step of your portfolio process is, does the order of your art in the portfolio make sense? So it kind of goes into what we were just talking about earlier. Are there any pieces that kind of interrupt the flow of the portfolio as you're going through it?
Big thing to think about is are your pieces.
Are the pieces of your art clear and well lit? So this is really important from the viewer side. It is important to make sure that your pieces are very clear and are taken in a very well lit area. So typically if you can do it during the day, if you're outside, or if you're by a window that receives enough natural lighting, that can help really keep your pieces well lit and in particular graphite.
Pieces are really prone to being really reflective when there's direct lighting on it, so definitely be conscious of that process when you're taking photos of your work, because that can really benefit the viewer. Or.
Make the viewing viewing experience not so positive.
And this kind of goes along with the photo part of it definitely. Are your items cropped or formatted to show a clear composition. So this definitely rings true when you have things finished pieces that are in like a spiral notepad, and we can see if the page is taken out of the pad and you can see all of the little holes that are in this the edge of the paper. You can still have a picture show that when you're taking it, but when you're editing it, it's always good to just.
Shrink and crop it down so that those little distracting elements aren't.
Taking away from your final piece and definitely for all your pieces, you worked hard on them, spent a lot of time on them. Definitely make sure to edit things down so that they really.
Give a really nice result. Final look to your pieces.
And if you include any time based pieces, so animations or film or video pieces, are they 3 minutes or less? So this definitely helps to keep things from dragging on and on in your portfolios, but it definitely really helps for when you're meeting people to review your things in person, especially for events such as national portfolio day.
Or portfolio events where you're timed and it's really, really nice. We do love seeing motion time based pieces, but it's always good to make sure that they don't take up too much of your time, especially for the the parts where you have to explain how your pieces are. So it gives you time and you won't need to rush. So definitely keep in mind how long those people, how the duration of those videos.
And next, if uploading online, have you come up with clear titles and written descriptions?
So for us, especially when we don't get to meet you in person, we have to rely on the information that you put.
When you are submitting your portfolio, so titles and written descriptions are very important for us to kind of get supplemental information into the work that you're submitting. So for example, if you are doing figurative work, but they are timed pieces. So for example with gesture drawings that can be anywhere from.
30 seconds, one minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes. It's always nice to include those details, especially since something that take something that takes 15 seconds or a minute to do will be vastly different than something that you've been working on for half an hour. So those kinds of that kind of information really helps us out to see your level of skill.
For that example and as well for any other pieces, if for example in class you're working on a medium that is brand new to you, you've never done it before. In comparison to what I said earlier, I'm really good at graphite and ink. So you do see a little bit of those difference in skills, but it's always nice to know when you're experimenting with different media, so.
That information is really, really important.
Uh, here are just the examples that we were just talking about, but one pro tip is consult a teacher or a mentor to get outside perspective after organizing your portfolio. Sometimes things make sense in our own heads, but not to others. So just like the pro tip from earlier talk with.
Family teachers, mentors, especially art teachers that you trust to say your work and then they can definitely give you really important feedback with your pieces.
OK, so this is where we talk about work in progress and sketchbooks, so.
To really try to align with the 8 to 10 piece limit, we do ask, well, we do consider sketchbook pieces to just be one piece. So even if you have, let's say, you submit three sketch work pieces, in our minds will really just think of them as one piece.
But however, some schools may treat that a little bit differently, so definitely do some research. Ask ahead to ask, because some schools may treat sketchbook, sketchbook work, work in progress, or sketches a bit differently, and you can condense them into one file. Or if you just want to take separate photos of those 3 pages of sketchbook pieces, for example, that's OK as well.
So these following photos will just be examples of pieces that were put into sketchbooks.
As you can see on the left that is an example of someone doing portraiture work as part of their portfolio. And then on the right, we have an example of just someone doing hand studies. And as you can see, they actually put down that it was a 5 minute hand study at the bottom. So that really helps us out and seeing how much they've accomplished in a certain time period.
Next, these are just examples of more work.
The left one really helps to. It looks like the student was having a real fun time, especially dealing with negative space, but also with scale, and it's very, very impactful to see the little person at the bottom. I can't really see. It looks like they are. It's almost like they're painting the piece, but it's really nice to see the impact of the scale in that piece. And then on the piece of the right, it looks like the person was really trying to experiment with composition as well.
Next we have examples of collage work and then another example of portraiture in a different medium. It looks like it could be colored pencil.
And next, we also have examples of 3D3D work as well. And in this one, especially with 3D work, those are pieces that we recommend that you definitely take photos of. Definitely do not.
Julya Nichols
05:26:16 PM
PCA&D Admissions Requirements: https://pcad.edu/admissions/admission-requirements/
Travel with these pieces. We don't want to risk you, we don't want to risk them falling and breaking. So that is where you definitely need to be. Very conscious of your lighting, the positioning of your camera, maybe a little bit of some editing in case if for example the color that you see in person is a little bit different when the camera takes a picture of it. So that is where you just need to be a little bit more conscious of your photo taking skills and your editing as well.
Speaking of photographers and photographs, here are some examples of black and white photography and another photo piece on the right so.
For those of you who are into photography, definitely include those pieces as well.
Next we have an example of someone experimenting with different textures.
Especially for those of us who want to get into animation and game art, that's definitely a skill that they will need to do when they're modeling.
And then on the right we have an example of.
And then next we have more pieces that were.
Dealing with photography.
And then on this one just more examples of a landscape, UM drawing on the I mean painting on the right and then on the left. It is a self portraiture but with a little bit more thought into.
Like the composition and the UM.
The strategy needed to pull off those alternating spaces in between the faces.
Next, definitely if you are interested in graphic design, definitely include those pieces as well. We love to see students kind of tackling with graphic design pieces that either they do personally for their own brands or their friend if they are working on a brand or if it's just a project that you're doing in school.
And then finally we just have another example of a more illustration piece, as well as a little bit of typography as well.
OK. So now we are talking about the last part of our presentation, which is the communication part.
So one question to consider is, does this piece have meaning or communicate a concept? Is this a project where you were mostly working on, like for example an observational piece? It's pretty much just an observational piece. Or were you working on a project that needed to be impactful by having a meeting or a story or any kind of concept to it?
Also, what techniques did you use to create it? Did you face any challenges and did you discover anything as you went along? So this is definitely true for any kind of project. We're working on a medium that is brand new to you and it's always nice to hear kind of like your journey and your process through it, so definitely.
Communicate any kind of experiences, good or bad, that you felt with this piece and then let us know what you learned from it.
And then this one is kind of obvious, but what mediums did you use and why did you stick with mediums that you were more comfortable with? Or like in the earlier question, did you use mediums that you felt like would challenge you?
Uh, next have how and why? Sorry about that. How and why did you pick up the style? Did you have a specific inspiration? So this is a question that students who are heavily, heavily inspired by either an era of.
An era of drawing or an area of or a time period where a specific sort of style was more prevalent or for those contemporary works that are happening now, is there a studio or an artist whose style has influenced you a lot? That is something that we are seeing a lot with current portfolio is that we can see how artists that are working and now really influence the students that are submitting portfolio, so.
If there was any inspiration to the style that you picked.
Next, did you have a specific goal for this piece? Were you exploring a color, learning the figure, or mastering a new medium? So sometimes for the students that do tackle different mediums, it's nice to see if they had an end goal when they were working on their piece and then seeing the final result of those pieces.
UM, next, is there any creative story that you can think about when you are presenting your portfolio or in general? So for example?
How has the experience of creating the pieces that you have done led you to apply to art school? So have has there been any positive experience or any aha moment where you thought this is something that really brings me joy, is inspiring to me, really motivates me, and this is what has led me to apply to art school. So it's really, really nice to always hear those stories of those kinds of things that kind of connect the dots of your.
Enjoyment of making art as well as connecting that with your motivations to apply for art school and next, have these artworks influenced your future path as an artist? So especially for any artist that inspire you or any kind of positive experience that you had when you were creating art, whether it was at home or in your art classes, how have the artworks inspired you? So these are really nice questions to think about as you are kind of communicating.
And room pro tip, definitely a big one, is to practice talking about your work out loud, especially. It's always great to either if there's no one around you can do it while you're looking at a mirror or implore importantly to kind of get those public speaking anxieties away. Definitely try doing it with your friend, family member, teacher, your pet. The goal is especially for you to get comfortable.
To talk about your pieces and especially to time yourself, especially for events where you may only have 15 minutes to both present and talk about your pieces. So definitely do a couple of runs of your speaking part of this. So it definitely helps you become a little bit more comfortable and then you can see if you're running over 15 minutes or if you're running a lot under and you can kind of help take away or add to.
And then the next part is the review process. So there's pretty much two types of reviews. They can be either individual reviews that you do.
I'll forward the submission process. These aren't considered official though until you officially submit your pieces. So then the next part is your the part where you submit online. So all students that plan to apply for peak ads via a program are required to upload their pieces online with your with their admissions application. So that part is what we met earlier by hitting submit until you do that.
Your pieces are not officially submitted to us, but before that, if you have questions or need feedback then you can request an individual review.
Last step, your individual reviews. So how can you set one up? Definitely by contacting your admissions counselor. Whether it's myself or my colleagues, you can request one at any time.
And then another way to get an individual review is to join us during our portfolio day events at the college. That is where you can bring your pieces and they can be pieces that you have physically with you or pictures that you can have on your tablet or computer, especially for those large ceramic pieces that you don't really want to risk having having break on your way to see us. So we definitely don't want that and then national portfolio days that happen.
In major cities, definitely check and see if we are there, and then we can also do an individual review during those events and then.
Asking for a review review when we visit your high school or college class in person. So if we're doing a high school visit and you just want to show us your pieces that you have with you, that's also a way to get feedback as well.
Pro tip, if you are presenting your artwork digitally, make sure to have a way to show your pieces that do not need to rely on an Internet connection. So if you have anything uploaded, for example on YouTube or any or any service that requires Wi-Fi, definitely make sure that they are already on your tablet or viewable offline. We wouldn't want to miss out on an opportunity to show your piece just because it's kind of blocked by Wi-Fi.
OK. So final step as well, is this submitting online portion? So for us, you would have to submit your portfolio at the peak i.edu/submit Dash portfolio. From there you can start your new portfolio and then you can also edit things along the way once you start that application. So you don't necessarily need to start and finish in one sitting. You would just fill out information that is on the form.
Your check your e-mail for instructions that will follow up so that you can log into your PC CAD account so that you can then submit your portfolio pieces.
You'll see an option that says portfolio for admissions where you can upload your work.
Julya Nichols
05:36:42 PM
www.pcad.edu/submit-portfolio
And then from there you'll be able to add information like descriptions, titles, the medium that you picked. From there you'll be able to put the information that you'll need.
When you're submitting your work and then like we said before, don't forget to hit submit when you feel ready. So if you feel comfortable hitting submit, definitely hit it. But if you have questions or need feedback, you can request individual reviews when you get to that point as well.
Uh, pro tip. There is going to be a section that asks if some of your pieces are representation, representation, representative work. And that pretty much tells us as the reviewer that these were pieces that are a great representation of who you are as an artist. So it'll be kind of next to our upload your your images.
But besides that, that is pretty much all the information I have about gathering and presenting your work. Thank you so much for listening to me. And hello, Julia.
Hi, thank you so much for that wonderful information. You did a wonderful job, but we do have a few questions that have come in. So the first question is, if I am submitting an animation that I did, the music isn't mine. Is it OK for me to submit?
Yes, so this can be true, especially if you're doing a classroom assignment or just a personal work in general and you have maybe music that is popular at the time or that just fits your work in general. You can upload it as long as you.
Provide the credits of the artist in your work. So just how we were saying about the work that inspires you and you credit the artist that inspired you. In this case you would also credit just because the music isn't yours.
Perfect. And then the other question that we have is what what if we have more than 10 pieces, can we show more of them?
I would say yes, but not too much. So we definitely for example if a student uploads 50 pieces.
We will e-mail them and say please condense this. You can. For example, especially when we were talking about these sketch work, the sketchbook pieces. Even if you were to upload two or three pieces, we'll consider them one piece. So if you upload, for example, 13 or 14 pieces, that's not going to go against you, but definitely do not upload more than maybe 15 pieces.
Because we really want you to pick the pieces, to make a conscious decision of the pieces that you pick. So that's why we ask that you don't go too crazy. But if you have pieces, for example, maybe you have a ceramics piece that requires multiple angles and you just need two extra pieces to show off the piece, that is fine.
And it's just a tip of advice for that. If you do have a piece that is showing off multiple angles, you can always condense it down to 1 slide by using like a slide room or Google Slides. That way we can see it all in one place, but it's not taking up the count of how many people that were submitted.
The last question that we have is.
Am I able to mail in my physical pieces to you for review?
So I would have to say no.
Umm we definitely do not want your pieces to either egg get lost in the mail, be damaged, or C not get back to your house if we were to ever return it for example. So definitely we ask that students do not mail in their work, which is why we have a online submission portion to that. We do not want to have your pieces lost, especially in your original pieces.
That looks like that is all the questions we have today. So thank you Natalie for presenting on this wonderful topic and thank you everybody who joined the live and or is watching this in the future. I hope that this helps kind of get you started in the portfolio process and starts making you think about how to submit and how to start gathering and presenting your work. If there are any questions, please feel free to e-mail admissions at keuka.edu. We will be more than happy to contact you or connect you with.
An admissions counselor to answer any of the questions that you have, and if you are interested in getting a properly reviewed done in person, please feel free to reach out to your missions counselor. They can arrange an in person, properly review or over zoom, but we also will be hosting a few as ovens this upcoming year, so feel free to check out our website where you can go under the visit US page and find those events there as well.
But thank you everybody for joining and we hope that you have with your like everybody.