Viewing their art with critical eyes, the students evaluate the pieces they have chosen to submit.

Throughout the course of a year, AP Studio Art students have been working hard to put together their portfolios to be sent to the college board for judging. Each student must submit three portfolios, consisting of 24 pieces total.

The concentration portfolio, dedicated to a specific theme, is made up of 12 unified art pieces.

“My concentration this year is doing the planets as people, like doing portraits of each of the planets as a person,”  senior Hailey Algoe said. “It’s been really cool.”

Senior Miki Iida’s favorite piece comes from her concentration portfolio.

“It’s watercolor that’s of this girl, kinda like a bust portrait because it’s shoulders up, and she’s floating in the water,” Iida said. “I feel like I succeeded in how I portrayed the hair that’s in the water.”

Also made up of 12 pieces, the breadth portfolio shows the student’s skill in a variety of mediums.

“I get to challenge myself to work with other mediums,” Iida said. “Before this I was kinda like ‘I’m only going to work with graphite pencil drawings and I’m not going to travel with different mediums’ but with the breadth part you need to, so it’s good practice on getting out of your comfort zone a little bit. It’s kinda useful because I’m probably going to have to work with other mediums anyway in the future.”

The quality portfolio consists of five pieces chosen from the 24 pieces of the other two portfolios.

“Students pick their five strongest, most sophisticated, impressive pieces,” AP Studio Art teacher Laura Hartford said. “Those five quality pieces not only get submitted digitally, but they also get matted and sent out to the college board as well.”

Senior Hannah Casey, though not submitting her portfolio for AP grading, works hard on her portfolio.

“[My concentration] is about being aware of your own anatomy,” Casey said. “You don’t think about the fact that you have organs inside of your body and their functioning all the time and keeping you alive. It’s kind of pulling that into light, and I have a lot of pieces that are about what happens when you do something damaging to your body.”

Students are given a lot of freedom with their portfolio.

“I like the free reign a lot,” junior Avery Oh said. “In the classes leading up to this, your teacher will give you an assignment, and you still have a lot of room for creativity but this one really lets you do whatever you want.”

There aren’t many restrictions to what subjects students are allowed to cover.

“Your topic can be really gruesome, and it’s totally okay,” Casey said. “You can have nudes, like nude paintings, and you can do pretty much anything you want to, it’s nice.”

Hartford enjoys seeing what her students choose to do.

“I don’t necessarily think that being the most photo-realistic in their drawing or painting is the most impressive, but they really surprise me a lot with their different styles,” Hartford said. “Each one of them truly does, they all have their special talents.”

The artists must work hard daily to get things done in time.

“It’s very self motivated,” Casey said. “You have to plan stuff out from the beginning and realize that 24 pieces in the length of the school year is a lot to get done.”

Each student has a unique style of art.
“I learn a lot from them too, you know with their different styles, maybe their style of anger, their style of watercolor,” Hartford said. “I can learn from them too with the techniques they’ve gathered through the years.”