If you had the gift of time....advice for a newbie

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
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<p>I've been reading on here for quite awhile. I just want to say a HUGE GIANT THANK YOU to all of you who have taken the time to post your advice and experiences. What a wonderful and generous lot you are. I'd give you a hug if I could. </p>

<p>I landed in this forum by accident. My 13 year old announced she wanted to be an industrial designer, so I thought I'd look up what exactly that was. Our daughter goes to a great prep school and does well academically, has always been known for her creativity, and especially strong in the sciences. I and her dad, professors trained and having taught at top 10ish schools, so we took the whole college thing for granted. Plus it's so far away, who cares.</p>

<p>But once I came on here and became exposed to this world of art education- wow. This is an entirely different animal! And something neither of us knew anything about! Portfolios? Life drawing? NPD? Art school vs. art department? Holy smokes. None of this was ever on our radar screen.</p>

<p>So as you can see, you've provided a wealth of information for people like us. And I think it's great that my D has the gift of time to go down this path if she continues to want to. She's always loved creating, in all possible ways, and loves art, and draws very well (if only from doing it so much). I think college and career choices should be about pursuing your gifts and following your passion. </p>

<p>So I have a question for you all. When I look at the work of these senior portfolios I'm blown away by some of the quality I see (not that I'd make a good judge, of course). But how does one get that good? Okay, hard work you might say, but what does "hard work" look like (in practical terms) when you're a highschool artist? To be an outstanding college athlete requires a whole childhood in the sport with excellent coaches. Accomplishment musicians practice many hours a day from a very young age. What about visual art? </p>

<p>My daughter is at a great HS, but with a weak art dept. If you had 4 years to create a portfolio, but went to such a HS, what would you do? What did you do in HS to get where you are at? D has signed up for a once a week drawing class outside of school this term and in the summer she wants to spend a few weeks at an art-focused camp. It's a fun start but I would be very curious to know your experiences.</p>

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<p>My daughter has wanted a career related to art since she was in second grade. For much of the time, she's been in schools with very limited art instruction. How did we handle it? I found outside courses. She did summer community art programs when she was in middle school, and then we found a great local resource several towns over, a community art school that mostly provides music instrument instruction, but also has a small visual art department. Once she started high school, she could take advantage of programs at art schools in the nearby big city for high school students. Even though she wouldn't want to attend some of the schools, she values having the courses. </p>

<p>All of those programs involved a commute for her on public transit, sometimes an hour each way. Toi afford them, I applied for financial aid programs offered, which provided a discount on the tuition. I think these sorts of programs are available in many places, but you often have to hunt for them -- her schools didn't really know anything about them. </p>

<p>For her, hard work is 2 hours or so a day on various projects, in addition to 2-4 hours a week of afterschool art classes. For her birthday I got her a pen tablet, so she spent all of her winter break getting more adept at using it and learning the software for it. On the weekends, she sometimes spends 6-10 hours a day working on new pieces for her online store or commissioned work. My guess and expectation is that she probably spends about as much time on art and creative projects as a high school athlete or musician would spend.</p>

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<p>Sounds like you are on the right track. Drawing, drawing and when she has time she should try drawing. Also help her grow her visual vocabulary -take her to art shows and exhibits at at museums, galleries and art schools.</p>

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<p>If she is in high school, you might consider some "pre-college" programs offered by various art schools (RISD, MICA, Pratt, WUSTL, KCAI to name a few). These programs are pretty easy to get into, as long as you have the money and are APPLYING EARLY. They are expensive, and probably not very generous with fin aid, but they are a great way to find out if a college-level art education is for you (and they help to build a portfolio). My daughter attended WUSTL program and loved it. I also heard very good things about RISD, MICA and KCAI. (KCAI is shorter and much cheaper then others.)</p>

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<p>The key is starting portfolio development and training early in the high school career, such as sophomore year. Take courses in the local junior college. There are a number of pre-college art programs offered in the summer.</p>

<p>One good way to both develop skills and develop a killer portfolio is to take private lessons. There are a number of good art teachers around. Ask around for references. Check out placement of their students into art programs. Ask for credentials of the teacher such as degrees, portfolio development experience or critique etc. </p>

<p>Once you have a number of good pieces, attend national portfolio day in their junior year to get some feedback. This can be crucial. </p>

<p>The earlier that you start this process, the better.</p>

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<p>get your daughter to start reading about design and about art. nothing has been more inspiring to me than looking at great art and reading the words of the makers of that art. the more exposure to the topic she gets the better, not only will she be familiar with its history but also with its vernacular. she will also find tons and tons of inspiration of great work. </p>

<p>thats the advice i have for you that no ones mentioned,</p>

<p>but like everyones said draw, do summer programs, and expose her to as much art as possible. </p>

<p>all the best,
scott langer</p>

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<p>another thing I'm suprised that nobody has mentioned is simply LOOKING at art. If there are good museums in your area, especially any that focus on or occasionally display design, simply going to the exhibits put on there will do so much for her level of artistic literacy. No, it's not directly/necessarily helping her portfolio, but it helps her to speak intelligently to her NPD reviewer about what sort of work she wants to be doing, helps her express herself more clearly in her letters of intent, and may eventually worm it's way into her work via her increased awareness of the world of art and design.</p>

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<p>both musica and slang mentioned it</p>

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<p>Wow, thank you so much for your advice! This is extremely useful. It all makes a lot of sense. </p>

<p>It's funny because so many things we've always taken for granted (and to be frank, never really appreciated and should have), now take on a new light. She's always been the one pulling me into galleries of modern art (pulling because it's not my thing). I've always had to nag her to stop reading her art books when she should be sleeping or finishing her English. October in our house has always been an intense one of planning and designing the world's best costume. What's so cool that the things she's always gravitated to for fun have suddenly become as valuable as algebra homework! </p>

<p>If you can think of anything else to add, please do!</p>

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<p>Consider ceramics classes, particularly wheel throwing and human sculpture. These make great portfolio pieces in an aspiring industrial designer portfolio, as they indicate a sensitivity to form and detail.</p>

<p>Choose a pre-college carefully; if she does well, she can almost guarantee an acceptance. </p>

<p>Good luck :)</p>

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<p>Thanks for this idea. We've found a few good summer art programs for her age group (so many she's not yet old enough for). She wants to do primarily drawing and painting but most also offer other arts electives and I will mention ceramics.</p>

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<p>She may already be a whiz on the computer, but I'd suggest she do some online tutorials in graphic design, website design, even programming because as an artist she is not going to want someone else doing her website--or will not want to pay someone else to do it!--and because as an industrial designer, she will need computer skills and there's no harm in having lots of marketable--and fun (I love graphic design!) computer skills.</p>

<p>My nephew is in NYU grad school in ITP (interactive telecommunications program--look it up, especially the section on Projects--it's pretty wild and all the students have blogs), which is kind of a think-tank, creative, all-media industrial art program and he is up to his eyeballs in learning programming, Flash and the whole computer bit that he'd never dealt with before. He wishes he'd learned this earlier, but on the other hand he's appreciated by others for his hands-on work in, simply, making stuff, doing colored concrete finishing, and in having salvaged boats and engines when he was a teen. Nephew (who got double degree at Tufts/Museum school Boston over 5 1/2 years) has a talented girlfriend who got BA from Tufts then Pratt for masters and she loves her new job as a kitchen tool designer.</p>

<p>What I am saying is, she should make stuff and she should learn how to be a design whiz on the computer, and she can do all that without going away--great for this time before she is old enough for camp. I think Industrial design is the best career ever and wish I had had an inkling about it when I was 13! She'll be great.</p>

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<p>Thanks so much. The idea of online tutorials is great, especially as she can do it here. She found a good drawing tutorial but hadn't thought about design ones. I'll have a look at that NYU program. I hadn't heard of it before but it sounds very cool. </p>

<p>She has been using Flash a few years, and has been playing around with Photoshop since she got a Watcom Bamboo (?) tablet. Yesterday she was telling me about how much her Graffiti art in Facebook have improved since she got the tablet. They have these online regular art contests with the Graffiti application, and she's working to make the top cut. </p>

<p>Kids these days. They have this required 'information technology applications' course at her school but it's so useless (and sort of funny) since the kids are miles ahead of the teacher.</p>

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<p>Learn on your own. I've been into photography for a year, and I've never taken a single class.</p>

<p>Flickr:</a> Photos from Josh McElwee Photography</p>

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<p>When she gets to high school, find out how to create an AP Art Portfolio, which can be evaluated outside of her own school, even if they don't offer much art. Begin by looking it up on the Advanced Placement website. She could be working towards this and submit a portfolio in her junior or perhaps senior year for outside review. </p>

<p>My D was steamed she never heard of it until she got to college, where she took an Art Minor. She surely could have used the AP credits, as she came from a rural h.s. with no academic AP courses. During h.s., she took courses from adult community classes, along with whatever the high school offered. Her strength area is illustration, and she draws constantly. The AP Portfolio requires examples from many genres (some sculpture, painting, drawing) so she can plan it out with her h.s. art classes to produce pieces in each category.</p>

<p>Since you have a great h.s. but weak art department, see if there's an up-to-date English teacher who'd let her do some creative "writing" in the form of a Graphic Novel. The kids call them Comic Books sometimes, but they are serious storyboard art.
Ask around the English dept; maybe she can submit some creative writing assignments this way. Go to a bookstore and ask to see some Graphic Novels, for example, The Sandman, or anything by Neal Gaimon...</p>

<p>My D also submitted sometimes to contests run by our town, the national PTA, and other calls for submissions. Once, she won a computer for re-designing the logo for a county department. Another time, a drug rehab place wanted a poster design, and she placed well. Find your nearest art museum to see if there are Saturday courses. You never know!</p>

<p>The hard part is finding out about the contests. I noticed them in local and regional newspapers, mostly, but today there might be better ways by computer to learn of contests, or other CC'ers might have weblinks for you on this.</p>

<p>HS Art teachers are in the position to hear about these contests. She might tell her art teachers she wants to submit, so if they get any fliers, to hand them to her before they throw them in the wastecan.</p>

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<p>^^timed out,
look into your nearest community college or art museum in the region; perhaps there are Saturday or evening courses. If you can't drive her, you might ask the registrar if there are any students living near you to share the ride if you pitch in to pay for her gasoline. </p>

<p>My D and S had no problem enrolling in adult art classes at community centers in our rural region, starting around age 14. As long as they behave appropriately, many art classes will let teens enrol in adult courses. Some community centers program for kids up to age 12, but then have nothing for teens; in those situations, they recognize the gap and welcome teens into adult art classes, just not life drawing from models, obviously.</p>

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<p>Wow, it's almost bizarre you wrote this now because I came to the same conclusion yesterday! I checked out our local comm. centres, and they had tons of art for kids, lots for adults and seniors, and virtually nothing for teens. I was really surprised and I wonder why. </p>

<p>Thanks for posting!</p>

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<p>I missed your first post paying3tuitions (sorry about your name! ugh 3...). </p>

<p>Thanks for this too. I think I know what you mean about the graphic novel as in 6 and 7 they did creative writing with art in journals all year. Actually that school she was in was great for art, she had wonderful teacher english and art teachers. Such a shame it's so different in HS.</p>

<p>Great about the AP art portfolio. Since she'd need to do an portfolio for college eventually it seems like a great idea.</p>

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<p>Check to see what the requirements are to take classes at the community college. They will usually allow HS students to take classes. I think ours requires them to finish their sophomore year before they can take classes. This is for the regular credit classes, not the youth programs. If she is still too young, contact the professor and ask what he/she suggests. They might be willing to give lessons on the side.</p>

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<p>As noted, have her work on the drawings. One area which would be very helpful would be to introduce her to anatomical work. Get a copy of Stephen Rogers Peck, and start doing studies (of the images you deem appropriate). Don't overload the admissions portfolio with these, but do include a few.
Might also consider having her read into a art history survey text which focuses on art and social mnemonics (like Honour & Fleming). The reason for this is twofold; first some well placed references showing awareness of social and historical context of art, could be useful in an admission essay. Second, whether a beginning artist is entering as a HS AP student, or as a first year...too often the first exposure to art history is in that first class. Which is expected, but the style of writing and critical thinking is often a bit of a difficult adjustment. And can be vexing.
CC's if the programs are good, very applicable to learning essential studio techniques. Too often the university art programs minimize these in favor of conceptualism and 'avant gardism'. Fine during those four years of sometimes misguided bliss, but it can be upsetting when a student artist finds out the rest of civilization generally couldn't care less about such games.
As profs you'd be insiders to the vexations of college art programs and the respective merits. But have the red flags ready if a school tells her she's going there to 'do art'. Too often that leads to insufficient training in technique or art history.
This is a bit indirect, but since digital and manga was mentioned, have her look into the work and interviews by the Bizenghast creator. She does a good job of nudging young artists into the realization that these contemporary forms do require more than superficial effort.
Contacting profs for advice, good suggestion. Although many are too engaged in collegiate duties for tutoring-especially since many of the arts programs are currently under pressure from various sources. But could get a reputable grad student (not doing thesis work) to do so. They need the money, and if from a good school may be technically very capable.</p>