Recommended prerequisite(s): Visual Arts I - IV (Drawing & 2D) or Sculpture and Ceramics I & II (3-D Design)
Emphasis is placed on studio art with a concentration in either Drawing, 2D Design, or 3D Design. It is expected that students enrolled in these courses will take the College Board Advanced Placement Test. The student must prepare and submit a portfolio to the Advanced Placement Visual Arts Committee of The College Board for college credit approval. Success at the AP level requires rigorous study, excellence in design and production, and extensive knowledge of a variety of art forms. Students initiate, define, and solve challenging visual arts problems independently using intellectual skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Students have in-depth experiences in reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others.
Grades for this course are broken down into the following two categories:
80% - Major Assessments
Projects, Presentations, etc.
20% - Intermediate Assessments
Sketchbooks, Classwork, etc.
Unlike other AP courses, there is no written exam for this course; rather, a portfolio of artwork is submitted to the College Board for review at the end of the course. Students will be required to produce 24-30 college-level works to submit for the portfolio review. The portfolio is broken into three categories: Selected Works (Quality), Concentration and Breadth.
Section I - Selected Works (Quality) (5 physical works)
The Quality section of the portfolio focuses on the technical understanding of drawing issues, and should represent the highest mastery of skill and technique related to the exploration of drawing. For this section, students are asked to submit five actual works in one or more media. Because of the limitations imposed by the shipping and handling of the portfolios, work submitted for this section must fit easily into the portfolio envelope, which is approximately 18”x24” – All work for the quality section should be at least 8”x10” but no larger than 18”x24”, and must be completed on flat surfaces, such as paper, cardboard, canvas board, or unstretched canvas.
The works submitted for the quality section may come from the Concentration and/or Breadth sections, but they do not have to. They may be a group of related works, unrelated works, or a combination of related and unrelated works.
Section II – Sustained Investigation (15 digital images)
A concentration is a body of related works that demonstrate a student’s sustained and thoughtful investigation of a specific visual idea. It is NOT a selection of a variety of works produced as solutions to class projects or a collection of works with differing intents. Students are encouraged to explore a personal, central interest as intensively as possible; they are free to work with any idea in any medium that addresses drawing issues. The concentration should grow out of the student’s idea and demonstrate growth and/or discovery through a number of conceptually related works. In this section, the evaluators are interested not only in the work presented but also in visual evidence of the student’s thinking, selected method of working and development of work over time. Students are encouraged to include images that document their processes of thinking and creating.
While the list of possible concentration topics is infinite, here are a few examples of concentrations that have been submitted in the past:
A series of expressive landscapes based upon personal experience of a particular place.
A personal or family history communicated through the content and style of still-life images.
Abstractions from mechanical objects used to explore mark-making
Interpretive self-portraiture and figure studies that emphasize exaggeration and distortion
An exploration of interior or exterior architectural space, emphasizing principles of perspective, structure, ambiance created by light, etc.