Portfolio for Art School Application

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  • Art school portfolio classes?

    – Apr 18, 2022
    (4 replies)

    Hi All,

    Our daughter is currently a Junior and is interested in pursuing a degree in a design field at University.

    Although her school is pretty good for academics, it falls short in creative art classes. Does anyone have suggestions on weekend/evening classes that would help her develop a solid portfolio to submit next year?  East Bay preferred but will also go to SF. She’s taken classes at Berkeley Art Studio and will take a (free) remote summer class from Academy of Art but she really needs help planning and developing her portfolio.

    Apr 18, 2022

    Hi

    maybe contact the visual arts program at Oakland school for the arts? They can steer in right direction to someone! (It is part of their curriculum)

    My daughter is a HS senior and will be majoring in art next year. Most of her portfolio work came from her graphic design class at BHS, but she took 3 art classes at BCC. They were all online and not a ton of commitment. She created some interesting pieces and the college courses looked good on her college applications. 

    My son needed an art portfolio to apply for Oak School of the Arts. He was in 6th grade, so different and also four years ago. We found Cara Goldstein and she was great at working with him one-on-one. There used to be a SF city class on the weekends on creating a portfolio, but working one-on-one with Cara was fabulous. We didn't know what we were doing and she did. 

    caragoldstein1 [at] gmail.com

    http://www.carasartstudio.com/

    When my daughter was preparing her portfolio, she took a drawing class for adults at Richmond Art Center which featured a live nude model. It was very useful to her as she was mostly self-taught in drawing before that. 

    There is an event called National Portfolio Day that you and your kid should attend next year. It is for HS juniors, seniors, and college transfer students to have their portfolios reviewed by art school admissions people. 30 art schools attended when we went (pre Covid). It was in SF, at a hotel. I think it was in February. My daughter got a lot of helpful advice such as she needed more non-digital drawings, and needed to "experiment with mark making," i.e., she needed to have drawings that used pencil & charcoal, and not just drawings/art done on an iPad. If your kid is interested in an art school rather than a university, I recommend Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver, BC! It's much less expensive than the US options. My daughter loved it and has now graduated.