hi! my name is ollantay and this past year i
applied to 10 schools. i was admitted into seven,
denied from two, and wait listed to one. those schools were
connecticut college, new york university, rhode island school of design,
savannah college of art and design, school of the art institute of chicago,
southern methodist university, trinity university,
texas tech, the university of texas at austin,
and wesleyan university. and next year i'll be attending
rhode island school of design. as i am planning on studying art,
for most of these schools i had to submit some kind of portfolio.
some of these portfolios were required and some of them were
supplements, but depending on the university
and what department i was applying to, i submitted different things.
but the portfolio that i'm about to show you today
pretty much coincides with everything that i submitted.
i have a few tips that i want to share that are hopefully
a little bit different than from the ones that are already out there
and are helpful to people who are looking to apply to art schools or
just public private universities and studying art.
this is just all my opinion some advice that i would have liked to have when i
was putting together this portfolio. some
quick stats! i got a 28 on the act, i graduated with
a 3.7 gpa, i live in texas (so that's the reason why
i applied to so many schools in texas),
i have taken art all four years of high school,
i was the president of my school's national art
honor society.
i submitted a lot of pieces to shows and i got a few awards from my school
and i got a scholarship that my school offers for rising seniors. okay so
before i show you my portfolio i have my first
piece of advice that i would like to share with you:
if you're applying to a regular university like a state or
public private university and there's an
option to submit a portfolio i would highly recommend
submitting a portfolio. (even though it takes a little bit of effort)
i would definitely recommend it because it shows the admissions officers that
you're (you know) you're serious about studying
art at their school. just show them what you have. and
tip number two (also before we start) start off strong but don't start with
your strongest. save your strongest piece towards the
end so that you have something to build up to.
okay so i have my portfolio pulled up now
this first piece is a painting made with acrylic
paint and the face is painted in oil. this is
one of the pieces from my ap portfolio from my senior year
and i think it's a really strong piece to start on
because it has a pretty strong design, strong focal point and i think it
shows vulnerability which was one of the themes in my
portfolio. and that leads to tip number three
please please please write something in the little section
that they give you on the portfolio website
i did not do that um and i totally left it up to chance so
i would definitely not recommend doing that i think it's a great little space
to give a small explanation about what the piece
is about what you were thinking what your thought process was
i imagine you would want to keep it as concise as possible
so i would keep that in mind alright this next
piece was originally a watercolor painting but
i felt that something was missing so i scanned it into photoshop and added
those bright buildings um i put this one after open because
um they show similar colors or from the same portfolio
um and i thought it didn't outshine the first one but it provided a good
interlude or transition between my next piece
tip number four order of your portfolio does matter
um i would recommend that there be a flow to your portfolio
um as you're presenting a body of work you're not just presenting
you know singular pieces just strung together
all right so this next piece is an acrylic painting from my sophomore year
this piece came from a concentration my junior year
where i focused on the mexican american identity it's a super personal piece
and the care that i put into making it can really show
even though i mean i painted it two years ago
um this piece is nine by 12 inches which leads me to my next tip
tip number five not everything has to be a huge
piece um i think that this piece that i just showed you
um is a really strong piece even though it's on the smaller side
um just work with what you have and i think the admissions officers will
understand if you don't have access to this huge piece of canvas also i
think that i have a lot of work to choose from because
my pieces tended to be on the smaller side i mean it's up to you
it's your portfolio this next piece is a piece that i made from observation
i just hung a mirror and i drew what i saw
i drew it in pen so i didn't erase anything and about a week after i drew
this i attended a workshop where i learned
about lino cuts and those kinds of printings
and i thought it'd be a really interesting experiment
if i tried to translate that onto this piece of linoleum so that's what i
did tip number six um this is a drawing from
observation um and just because it's from
observation it doesn't mean that it has to be
photorealistic perfect that took you 12 hours to finish
the most important thing is that you're able to show space
which can be lost when you're working from a photograph also
working from a photograph is not bad it's just
important to know when it's better to work from life and when to work from a
reference i use references all the time but i also
work from life okay next piece piece number five um
this is an encaustic piece an encaustic painting
is where you use wax to paint and kind of add layers i was super lucky to
have an amazing teacher who loves to show us new ideas new concept
mediums and have this experiment that leads me to tip number seven
show diversity and experimentation and mediums and color
it's super important for you to be able to show that you're willing to
experiment learn go out of your comfort zone
because that's what you're going to be doing for
the next four years and in your career all right so this next
piece is a drawing design that i did for a
t-shirt that i was originally going to screen print
but unfortunately the screen printing teacher didn't let me use the materials
for things outside of school and i never ended up doing it so anyways
i just really like this piece i think that these past few pieces i've
been showing that i can work in different mediums
that's not just pencil charcoal painting etc piece number seven this is the
digital collage that i also made my sophomore year
um i really love the textures the colors and i think
it reflects my hispanic heritage really well
i think that this piece tells the viewer something about me which
is something that's really important in a portfolio so that's why i put it in
okay piece number eight uh so this piece i made the summer before my senior year
i was just super bored and i sat down on my bed and i just drew what i saw
this piece ended up being a really important piece in my ap
concentration for my senior year um because
boredom was another theme that i had throughout my portfolio
which leads me to my next point tip number eight
uh still lives and drawings from observation
are important but it is equally if not more important to show
your personality through these still lives and
drawings from observation i think this piece really reflects
the mental state that i was in while i was drawing and lets the viewer into
what i was feeling and the ambience of the room
piece number nine all right um so this next piece is some gouache
portraits of my family honestly i don't think that it's a very
strong piece and if i were to redo my portfolio this
would not be in it um i already have a lot of portraits and
i think it's kind of basic you don't really feel any of the emotion
from it um so yeah i um
if i were to redo my portfolio this would
not make the cut um anyways next piece oh okay
um so this is a piece from my sketchbook so
it shows an artist of inspiration um so i pasted a few of her drawings and i
wrote about what i thought of her art and drew this portrait in her style
tip number nine submit your thought process
your portfolio is all about what you think how you perceive the world
um so submit how you came about to your final piece
all right piece number eleven we're getting near the end of my portfolio
and i think this piece is one of the strongest pieces that i have
i really experimented with colors textures
and i think that i use the portrait um that i drew in my sketchbook in a really
effective way i really love this piece i love the
colors um and i think it's really different from
uh what i have in other places in my
portfolio piece number 12. this is a sculpture
that i made out of a wooden box for my ap concentration my junior year
um it kind of matches the bright colors
from the piece before so i thought that this would be a nice
place to put it and piece number 13. this is the inside of
the sculpture tip number 10 if you have a two-parter
piece like this i would definitely recommend
showing it together um i think that this may give off the impression that i'm
trying to fill out my portfolio when it definitely wasn't the
case i had a lot of things to choose from and i purposely
put this piece in because i thought it was really strong and showed a lot of my
personality and tip number 11 if it's a 3d piece try
to show at least three angles uh so that the
admissions officers know what they're looking at
anyways i love this piece i think the paper mache
looks super personal and has a handmade and kind of
artisanal feel which was what i was going for
someone's texting me okay piece number 14. this piece is
technically three pieces combined but i thought it
presented better as one piece i put so so much effort
into this piece and it was a conclusion to my ap
portfolio from my junior year i think it shows a lot of technique but
also personal voice which is what i'm really proud of and why i put it
in the portfolio and to conclude my portfolio
i ended with my last piece of my ap portfolio from my senior year it shows
the most amount of technique emotion reflection in any of my pieces
in my portfolio and i think the black and white is a
really striking way to end my portfolio so i have four more tips for you so just
bear with me okay uh document your work
professionally and make sure that it's in good lighting
i personally like using a scanner if the work is small enough i also used
an app on my phone called tiny scanner which
was decent it worked for what i was using it for keep in mind that
documenting your work takes a lot of time and please do not
leave it until the final moment um
i typically scanned my work after i was done with it
and i kept the photos all in one folder so that they were easy to
keep track of tip number 13 you do not have to submit the maximum amount
of pieces the minimum for the risd portfolio
is 12 so don't feel like you need to submit every single piece that you have
um i have a ton of pieces that i left out of my portfolio
just because i didn't feel like they were strong enough that they didn't go
with the flow of the portfolio um or that they were a good reflection
of my best work last tip i think that this is the most
important piece of advice that i'm going to share with you
um submit what you love all of these pieces were made with
so much love and i think that the quality of the work really reflects that
i think the viewer can see and feel when the artist loves the work that they're
making and submitting work that you love shows
the admissions officers a lot about you what you value what your interests
are how you think and how you view the world
so this video is mostly for people that i know
who wanted to see my portfolio um or for people that are applying to
college um so if you have any questions feel
free to reach out and i would love to talk about my art
some more i don't want to keep dragging this on
anyways i hope you enjoyed this video i hope you found it helpful
entertaining and i wish you the best luck on all of your future endeavors