Bring your art portfolio and get 1 or more 15 minute one-on-one reviews from the ART PROF staff. Unique opportunity to receive diverse feedback from several trusted professionals all in one day! Great chance for high school students working on a portfolio for college admission and for professional artists working on a body of work. This event is free, but registration is required to be guaranteed a review. Scroll down for registration info.
Portfolio Requirements
Please bring 5-8 artworks in any media. We prefer to see actual artwork, but we can also view artwork on laptops/tablets.
Registration This event is free, but advance registration is required to be guaranteed a review. You can register for a maximum of 3 slots in advance of the event day. Please do not register for more than 1 slot with the same reviewer, all slots you sign up for must be with different reviewers. Every participant must register themselves with their own email address. Please do not register for more than 1 person using the same email address.
If there are still slots open the day of the event, you can sign up for as many reviews as you want, on a first-come, first-serve basis. (there is still a limit of 1 slot per reviewer the day of the event) You are welcome to show up the day of the event without registering in advance, however, we cannot guarantee that you will receive a review. If you are not present at your slot time, your slot will be given to someone else.
Contact
Hear what our past event participants had to say!
“I found our review very helpful in fine-tuning the direction with my work.” “Your team was amazing! I feel blessed to have been part of this day.” “Both portfolio reviewers I talked to were encouraging and helpful.”
Casey Roonan is freelance illustrator, a cartoonist, and a Teaching Assistant at Art Prof. Casey does editorial illustrations for the blog Narratively, and other clients. He writes and edit an anthology-format comic book called Ciambella with Mike Karpiel. Listen to some of Casey’s critiques here.
Deepti Menon is an independent filmmaker, an animator, and a Teaching Assistant at Art Prof. She has worked with Nickelodeon’s international on-air promotional team as a motion graphic artist. Recently, her independent work has been shown in North America and is scheduled to be shown in India this fall. Listen to one of Deepti’s critiques here.
Leyla Faye is a Painting major at the Rhode Island School of Design. She works primarily in oil paint, but is also a printmaker with expertise in monotype, mezzotint and drypoint. Her cartooned and distorted figures are used as motifs which are composed into surreal patterns. Leyla has been a Teaching Assistant for RISD Project Open Door, the RISD Pre-College program, and RISD Freshman Drawing. Recently, Leyla studied abroad in Rome and was awarded the 2016 Gamblin Paint Award. Listen to one of Leyla’s critiques here.
“When and how you should use photo references to draw?”
Too often I find that people use photo references out of laziness. Be careful that if you decide to work with photo references, that it’s for a very specific need, not because of convenience. Photographs should only be used when direct observation of a subject is absolutely impossible. If you’re an illustrator and you’re creating a illustration about dinosaurs, obviously that’s not an image you can draw from life. However, there are many subjects where it’s very possible, and in some cases very easy. For a still life drawing, get the actual objects and set them so you can directly observe them from life. I’ve literally seen students search for a photo of an apple online so that they can draw an apple. Is it really that hard to buy an apple to draw from life?!?
If you are drawing a self-portrait, it’s easy enough to get a mirror and draw from that. The 15 minutes it takes to figure out how to set up your mirror and drawing board to draw a self-portrait are seriously worth the time. Anything that you can possibly observe from life should be done in this way. Nothing can substitute experiencing a subject in real life: being able to touch it, smell it, walk around it, inspect it, experience it, etc. Staunchly set direct observation as your number one priority whenever possible.
I’ve also seen many professional artists work with a variety of other references that are just as effective, if not more so, than photo references. Artist James Gurney fabricates sculptures of dinosaurs for his paintings. After sculpting the dinosaur in clay, he paints the sculpture and then draws from the sculpture as his reference. You can watch him go through this process in this terrific video below. It goes to show that photographs are not the only option, and that other methods can provide a level of depth and understanding of a subject that photographs are incapable of providing.
Artist James Gurney on how he paints dinosaurs by sculpting clay models.
My RISD colleague and former professor Andrew Raftery painstakingly creates complex 3D models of interior spaces using wood and wax figures as references for his incredible engravings.
You can visibly see in this side-by-side comparison of Raftery’s 3D model and finished engraving how critical the creation of the 3D model is in constructing the interior scene. The lighting and spatial relationships are literally re-created in the 3D model and are thus incredibly convincing in the completed engraving.
If you’ve decided that photographs are indeed the only option for your drawing, the next stage is to do everything in your power to shoot the photographs yourself. If that means taking a trip to the zoo to take photographs of the gorillas, then do it. I know it’s very tempting and easy to go on Google Images and simply pull a photograph off the Internet. However, when you use someone else’s photograph, your drawing will be vastly limited. You won’t be able to control the point of view, you can’t zoom in to get more details, and most likely the resolution of the photograph will be poor. Take the initiative to go to your subject and photograph it from every point of view. Shoot close up shots of specific areas so that you have all of the information you need.
The only time I would advocate using someone else’s photograph as a reference is if there is absolutely, one hundred percent, no other way to get the visual information you need. For example, if you are doing an illustration of an elephant, and you need details of the wrinkles in the skin, that’s a circumstance where you’ll need to use someone else’s photograph. In general though, someone else’s photograph should be the last resort in terms of references.
When you do get to the point where you are working from a photograph, think about it as a process of gathering raw information which you then edit and manipulate. There is nothing artistic or creative about copying a photograph verbatim. If that is your intent, you might as well xerox the photograph and be done with it.
Instead, take the raw information from the photograph and process it and shift it. change that raw information into something new and engaging. Be highly selective about what visual information you choose to use. Just because something is in the photograph, it doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to use it in your drawing. Think about yourself as an editor, where you get to choose from a vast buffet of visual information. Comb through all of the visual information in the photograph and use only what is going to help facilitate your drawing in a positive manner. I also find that it’s very helpful to work from multiple photographs, so that you are not so reliant on a single photograph for all of your information. You can take visual portions from each reference photo and mix them together according to your needs.
Drawings that use photo references successfully always look better than the photo reference. If the reference photo is more engaging than the drawing, then it means that the drawing hasn’t done anything to fully manipulate beyond just copying the reference photo.
In the above image, you can see that the drawing at the figure gripping it’s face has very aggressive charcoal marks that are not apparent in the reference photo. The reference photo looks static, flat, and posed. The drawing took major liberties with the charcoal marks and therefore is much more full of action and tension.
In the image below, you can see the student’s reference photos that he shot at the bottom. The reference photos provide raw information, but the two drawings are far more interesting than the reference photos. The reference photos have very flat, boring black backgrounds and the facial expressions are not very dynamic. In the final drawings, the student greatly manipulated and distorted the facial expressions to make them much more dramatic and exaggerated.
It’s extremely difficult to use a photographic reference well, very few people do it successfully. In my drawing classes at RISD, I spend half the course giving assignments that must be done from direct observation the entire time. In the second half of the course, I open up references so that students can work from a variety of visual references: imagination, from photos they shot for the specific drawing, from photos online. When I switch over to open references in my courses, the reaction of pretty much all the students is: “Thank goodness, this is going to be so much easier now that I don’t have to draw from life and I can work from photos!”
Actually, the complete opposite happens: students realize after the first critique that creating excellent reference photos is an art in itself. I critique their photo references: we talk about their light source, choice of location, their choice of models, what their models are wearing, the posing of the models-the works. So many problems emerge in the reference photos: tons of factors distract in the reference photo, the set up looks fake, etc. Making the transition from the reference photo to the drawing presents its own unique set of challenges which is not nearly as straightforward as many people initially think. Personally, I find drawing from a reference photo much more difficult than drawing from life, because the temptation to simply copy the photo is always there. When you draw from observation, you have to visually interpret and innovate.
I firmly believe that the only way to truly learn how to draw from a photograph well is to establish a solid understanding of fundamentals in drawing with years and years of experience drawing from direct observation. Once you have solid skills drawing from direct observation, these skills will allow you to draw from a photograph successfully. This article talks about how direct observation will provide the basic foundation to be able to work from any visual references successfully.
Bring your art portfolio and get 1 or more 15 minute one-on-one reviews from the ART PROF staff. Unique opportunity to receive diverse feedback from several trusted professionals all in one day! Great chance for high school students working on a portfolio for college admission and for professional artists working on a body of work. This event is free, but registration is required to be guaranteed a review. Scroll down for registration info.
Portfolio Requirements
Please bring 5-8 artworks in any media. We prefer to see actual artwork, but we can also view artwork on laptops/tablets.
Registration This event is free, but advance registration is required to be guaranteed a review. You can register for a maximum of 3 slots in advance of the event day. Please do not register for more than 1 slot with the same reviewer, all slots you sign up for must be with different reviewers. Every participant must register themselves with their own email address. Please do not register for more than 1 person using the same email address.
If there are still slots open the day of the event, you can sign up for as many reviews as you want, on a first-come, first-serve basis. (there is still a limit of 1 slot per reviewer the day of the event) You are welcome to show up the day of the event without registering in advance, however, we cannot guarantee that you will receive a review. If you are not present at your slot time, your slot will be given to someone else.
Contact
Hear what our past event participants had to say!
“I found our review very helpful in fine-tuning the direction with my work.” “Your team was amazing! I feel blessed to have been part of this day.” “Both portfolio reviewers I talked to were encouraging and helpful.”
Casey Roonan is freelance illustrator, a cartoonist, and a Teaching Assistant at Art Prof. Casey does editorial illustrations for the blog Narratively, and other clients. He writes and edit an anthology-format comic book called Ciambella with Mike Karpiel. Listen to some of Casey’s critiques here.
Deepti Menon is an independent filmmaker, an animator, and a Teaching Assistant at Art Prof. She has worked with Nickelodeon’s international on-air promotional team as a motion graphic artist. Recently, her independent work has been shown in North America and is scheduled to be shown in India this fall. Listen to one of Deepti’s critiques here.
Leyla Faye is a Painting major at the Rhode Island School of Design. She works primarily in oil paint, but is also a printmaker with expertise in monotype, mezzotint and drypoint. Her cartooned and distorted figures are used as motifs which are composed into surreal patterns. Leyla has been a Teaching Assistant for RISD Project Open Door, the RISD Pre-College program, and RISD Freshman Drawing. Recently, Leyla studied abroad in Rome and was awarded the 2016 Gamblin Paint Award. Listen to one of Leyla’s critiques here.
Since 2009, I have maintained a crazy gigantic archive of student art projects on my Flickr page. Once I got started documenting all of the student art projects, the perfectionist side of me had to keep going, so it’s incredible how many images I’ve amassed over the years. When you have taught at numerous schools and programs for over a decade, and have had over a thousand students, that makes for tons of student artwork images! Good thing too, because these student artworks have been a priceless resource building all of the content needed for Art Prof. (more soon, but our official site will be launching in a few months!)
My fabulous Teaching Assistants at RISD have spent countless hours photographing student artwork, tweaking all of the photos in Photoshop, and uploading/organizing all of these images student art projects for many years. Without their efforts and time, this archive could never exist!
Seeing that few artists and art teachers are on Flickr, I recently revamped our Pinterest page as a new place for to view my student art projects. (I’ve organized all of the boards on our Pinterest page so that you can browse by level (high school & college) and also by subject matter. Boards have subjects like Linear Perspective, Drawings in Color, Sculpture, Printmaking, Painting, Narrative Drawings, and much more.
I hope our Pinterest page is a valuable resource for both art teachers and art students! I know when I was a student, I learned tremendously from just seeing the artwork that my peers were creating, and seeing the incredible range of unique responses to every assignment. That’s what I find so fascinating about teaching studio art-you could teach the exact same project 35 times, and every single time each student will create their own unique take on the assignment.
One of the aspects of being an artist that I really enjoy is the surprises that occur within the creative process that you can never predict. When I started this series of drawings of elderly figures, I never anticipated that these drawings would eventually become so sculptural. I have a lot of experience in figure modeling and casting, but I still consider myself to be largely an artist who works in two-dimensional media. This project is an exception in that I’ve been able to combine sculptural qualities directly into the context of drawing.
My days making art are made up of a series of problems, which over time, I learn to avoid by trial and error. Or sometimes, I just fall flat on my face.
I find the artistic process to be no different. We learn to avoid problems only by bumping right into them. The uniqueness of any individual artistic process is how we troubleshoot. When I started art school, I was quickly frustrated by my lack of ability to find subjects in life to draw that truly interested me. I lacked control over what I wanted to make. My drawings of shells and plants were the results of as much inspiration as comes from a souvenir bag-o-shells in a coastal town gas station or a plastic houseplant with no context. The hours I spent sitting in front of houses that did and continue to actually inspire me, might well have warranted my arrest for loitering.
Dilemmas happen every day in art making. They are never a bad thing. Creative thinking is a means to work around these dilemmas. Reframing your problem will allow you to approach it with new direction. By shifting perspectives you can flip your problem into a prompt. How can I draw what I have around me to create what I am inspired by conceptually?
While this question lingered, for an assignment in drawing class, I was set on including a sock monkey in my drawing. The catch was, I didn’t have a sock monkey. I had to make it. To be perfectly honest, it was a Frankenstein monster made from paint-dyed socks, yarn and lace from the thrift store, and terrible embroidery. Monster grotesqueness aside, it was my monster, and I could control how the lighting would work, the space, and the context in which my bizarre sock creature could be drawn.
That initial sock monkey was a turning point. The physicality that I could apply in my drawing started before the canvas, and opened all of the doors I had seen as locked. These objects were essential in my artistic growth and contributed to my choice to pursue a degree in the medium of Textiles instead of Painting. My new found practice fueled the concept for countless works, and inspired my entire undergraduate thesis. Today, the monkeys live on and are being sold as artist edition objects in Colorado. The artistic process calls for these moments, to encounter problems, while frustrating, is the most eye-opening thing that can happen. Fail faster, fail better, and troubleshoot!
For those you applying to art school or college this year, this new video critique of Rachel He’s portfolio for college admission will be a useful resource! Preparing a portfolio for art school or college admission is a huge undertaking, and it’s really helpful to see another student’s portfolio and hear constructive comments on their pieces. We are frequently amazed that many high school students have little help, or are completely on their own when preparing their portfolios, so these video critiques are one way to get help. Don’t wait until the last minute to start preparing your college portfolio, it’s a time consuming task that can take months to complete, start now!
Below are more resources on our blog that will help you with the college admissions process. For more information on how to purchase a 30 min. video critique on 8-20 artworks from RISD Adjunct Professor Clara Lieu, click here.
