HOW IT WORKS

Now that you've experimented with different materials, media, and techniques, you're ready to choose a topic of inquiry for your Sustained Investigation. For these projects, your art making will be largely self-guided: you get to decide the prompt, the materials/media, and will even have some control over how many artworks you produce.

The first order of business, however, is to decide the focus of your inquiry. We will be taking several days in class to explore different topics that could potentially be the focus of your inquiry, and look at how other artists have tackled similar subjects. You will then research different art-making techniques, and map out a learning and experimentation schedule for materials you are interested in using but not familiar with. Finally, you will plan out your art pieces and create a schedule for executing your pieces, receive your approval, and then devote the majority of the rest of the year developing your pieces.

In summary, these are the steps of the Sustained Investigation project proposal:

• Artist and Topic Research

• Materials and Technique Research

• Schedule Mapping

• Project Approval

• Project Execution

DEVELOPING AN INQUIRY QUESTION

Before we get into developing an Inquiry Question, it is first helpful to understand exactly what the College Board is looking for when they review artworks from the Sustained Investigation section:

"[The Sustained Investigation] section of the AP Art and Design Portfolio Exams offers students the opportunity to make and present works of art and design based on an in-depth investigation of materials, processes, and ideas done over time. Sustained investigation is guided by questions. It involves practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas. The Sustained Investigation section is expected to demonstrate skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas.

Along with each work, students are required to submit written responses to prompts about the work. Responses to these prompts are evaluated along with the images that students submit. The most successful responses in terms of assessment are those that are clearly related to the images of work submitted; that directly and completely address the prompts; and that provide evidence of inquiry-based sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision."

--pp.32-33, AP Art and Design Course and Exam Description