Technically, it isn't an art school. However, the university I applied for does have a highly coveted art course in which the same criteria applies just like any other art course.
Getting into an art course is a mixed bag - if you have been drawing since you were very young, it isn't too much of a challenge. If you haven't and are making a sudden change in life choices, then you have much work to do.
I am one of those who got through without much of a struggle. However, despite that, I still understand the criteria of what is required of the applicants to which I will explain in this post with examples of my portfolio. I will mainly talk about my portfolio work as I am not that mindful about the other requirements.
Firstoff, just like any other course, I needed an academic background which consisted of the minimum AABB at A-level or the equivalent (four subjects, at least two As and two Bs, one of the As being an Art course). I already had those which told me that this course requires a somewhat high level of competence from your highschool years.
Secondly, a personal statement written by myself talking about why I would be great for art school in the form of personal strengths and hobbies.
And lastly, a portfolio to prove my abilities.
Probably the most important point is that examiners look for variety - they don't care about how many anime drawings you have done, they care more about you stepping outside your comfort zone to achieve something new and refreshing.
Which brings me to the common arguement: art schools hate anime.
They don't.
They hate the fact that you won't draw any else other than anime. Although I say that, there are definitely professors or lecturers out there that absolutely despise anime for whatever reason they may have. That can't be helped but everyone has their own tastes. It also doesn't make you very marketable that you're a one trick pony - if there ever comes a time where you need to drawing something else, you're in a pinch. Just remember: vareity is the spice of life!
So I will showcase one of my portfolio pieces:
I drew this from life in roughly 45 min. This particular figurative drawing demonstrates my understanding of perspective and technical ability to draw bodily proportions correctly. Let's face it (no pun intended), if you can't draw a person or at least a face with somewhat correct proportions, you were doomed from the beginning.
In my personal opinion, correct proportions are the most important aspect of any artwork because you can be the world's best colour theorist or whatnot, but if you can't apply that in the correct frame or persepctive, there's no point as it will look like a garbled mess. Conversely, if you have superior proportions but horrendeus colouring, there is a chance it can still turn out ok.
On to the next pieces:
Yes, I attended life drawing lessons outside of school. A naked model (woowee) would stand in the center of artists and make different poses every 1, 2, 5 or 10 mins at a time. This further reinforces my ability to convey proportions as sometimes one example isn't enough. In my opinion, this is much more important than drawing random people you find because this shows understanding at the anatomical level compared to other drawing which was more of an icing to the cake.
These drawings of a male model done in charcoal further conveys the variety in my skillset. Taking high quality snaps or scans is definitely important too!
On to the next set of portfolio work:
The building of an art gallery.
An old structure from my previous school.
As you may be able to tell by now, the examiners also looked for high quality sketches of the environment. They also looked for drawings done in different mediums, therefore the first structural drawing was done with tinted charcoal pencils even though I wasn't familiar with using them. They probably looked for ways I interpreted the texture of the surfaces because a flat line drawing would be boring and unimpressive.
These next two are from my art course in highschool:
This is an expressive portfolio drawing done in charcoal, pastel and conte. It is a piece meant to convey a fantasy creature flying through the sky. With that being said... I just wanted to draw a dragon as one of my major pieces. The pieces done above the dragon were research drawings consisting of landscape and experimenting with different styles.
Surprise, surprise! They don't always strictly look for 2D works, so therefore I submitted one of my other projects from my highschool years. This is a piece of fantasy armour (yes I just wanted to do fantasy artwork) that I crafted myself using origami techniques that I was heavily invested into back then - I had learnt to fold some highly complex dragon scales at that time and managed to convert them into some upper body armour to which I then spayed silver to make it look metallic.
This doesn't exactly show highly technical drawing skills and submitting this piece is purely optional. However, I believed that submitting this shows my creative process and passion I had for art which I suppose is also very imprtant - no point in doing art if you don't want to eh?
Submitting old course work was a good start as it allowed me to easily see what else was needed.
The last 3 pieces are all creative pieces with all the processes and inspiration within one picture:
A competition piece for a game called "PAYDAY 2".
A character creation named "Kai" for a story I was planning on writing.
A competition piece for a game called "Contract Wars".
These pieces were again, to show a variety in medium but more importantly to show my creative process. I believe they were more interested in how I got my idea and how I developed it rather than the final piece itself.
I submitted digitally drawn pieces because my course includes that. You might be applying for a course that doesn't specialise in that, so watch out for things that are related to the course.
The use of colour is also very important as it conveys all sorts of things like depth, emotion, shape etc.
In addition to all these pieces, I also had to a separate text file for all of them talking about the pieces themselves - conveying process, time spent, events that happened during, etc.
If I haven't implied it enough already, variety is extremely important - you aren't getting in with just pencil drawings or the same style of drawing itterated over and over.
I will finalise by listing the things you should work on if you ever plan to attend an art school:
- Proportions - not everyone will buy your Picasso rip offs.
- Colour - liven things up.
- Variety - anime all day everyday won't help you.
- Creativity - creating your own compositions is vital.
- Values - learning how shadows work and adding contrast to pieces.
My pieces should give you an idea of what most art courses look for. I got an unconditional offer for my place at the university but i've seen artists with less technical ability get into art schools, as long as you have the passion to create something.
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STOPThanks for sharing, you're very talented.
I'm not planning to attend an art school, but I'm into drawing and really want to get better, so I guess I need to work on that list of things.
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