As the school year progresses, AP art students are beginning to prepare their portfolios. Art students enjoy expressing their personality and creativity in their art and their portfolios are the best opportunity to do this.
AP art students choose to challenge themselves by stepping out of their comfort zones. Senior Caroline Burgeson has found that she enjoys the challenge and has taken ceramics each year at our school because of it.
“I really enjoyed being able to express my creativity through a different mode of art,” Burgeson said.
For these students, their love for art stems from a young age and they love bringing their passion into their school art work. Many AP art students look forward to taking AP art throughout high school.
“I didn’t see myself doing anything else senior year,” Senior Izzy Obey said.
Senior Abigail Turner has always been attracted to the arts. One area she wanted to explore further was photography. Over her high school career she has had the opportunity to refine her skills.
“Out of all of my art interests I felt as a freshman that I could’ve improved the most on was photography,” Turner said
AP art classes, including AP ceramics, AP drawing and AP photography, have been given the task to create a ten piece art portfolio. The portfolio should show development throughout the year and will be submitted to the AP college board. Students must relate each piece in their portfolio to one main idea.
Burgeson takes AP ceramics and she has always been interested in the idea of movement. Burgeson decided that centering her work around movement would express innovation in her work.
“I thought it would be really cool to express movement in my pieces. I’ve always been interested in drawings that are centered around energy so I decided to express it in my ceramics,” Burgeson said.
Obey takes AP drawing. She immediately knew what she was going to center her work around. Obey decided the topic of emotional boundaries would work well as the main idea for her portfolio.
“It was something that I kind of just came up with right away and I was like I want to do that,” Obey said.
Students have a different take on all of their portfolios. Turner has decided to not only use photography in her art, but she has decided to use enhancements such as drawings and digital art.
“I have decided to create a mixed media of sorts by editing, connecting and cutting out my traditional physical art and putting it into my digital art,” Turner said.
At the AP level, students have the freedom to decide the kinds of techniques they will be using for their pieces. Burgeson is excited to challenge herself with one piece in particular.
“I’m excited to make a free structured vessel which has different types of coils on it. I’m going to do something pretty cool with the glazing and it’s kind of complicated. I’m excited to see if it turns out well,” Burgeson said.
After experimenting in class, Obey has some materials that she is eager to work with.
“There are materials that I’m excited to work with, we just stretched canvases and I have this piece of glass that I’m going to paint on,” Obey said.
Though she is unsure about other pieces she will want in her portfolio, Turner has already made a piece that she is certain will go in her portfolio.
“I turned myself into Edgar Allen Poe with makeup and then I had a photoshoot of me in historic looking outfits that made me look like an old poet. Then I drew pictures of ravens that I’m going to put into the photo. It’s going to be art on my face, art around me and then my digital art and photoshop,” Turner said.
These students have been challenged to further their expertise over the years. They are excited to demonstrate their mastery of their subjects by showcasing their portfolios.
