This class is mostly about Career, Professional & Business Practices. Networking, Portfolios, Websites, and all the things you may not have spent too much time on in past art classes.

In addition to all that, it’s essential that you make new work.

Career Goal

You’ve selected a Career Goal and 3 categories within that goal, like

Animation

• Storyboards
• Backgrounds
• Character Designs

Graphic Design

• Branding
• Packaging
• Typography

Gallery Artist

• Painting
• Drawing
• Printmaking

Illustrator

• Children’s Books
• Posters
• Cartoons

Photographer

• Portrait
• Fashion
• Editorial

Photographer

• Documentary
• Photojournalism
• Experimental

Performance Artist

• Choreography
• Collaboration
• Site-Specific Works

Art Director

• Film & Television
• Music Videos
• Commercials

and so on for any Art Career you want to pursue.

Art School Assignments

Many students have spent time in Art School doing class assignments. You’ve taken many classes and tried many things. Now that you’re focusing on a specific Art Career, you might find that the various class assignments you’ve done don’t necessarily fit in your 3 Categories. This is common.

Or perhaps some of it fits, but there are also holes in your portfolio. For Example:

Animation – pieces I currently have:

• Storyboards – 6 pieces
• Backgrounds – 3 pieces
• Character Designs – 0 pieces

In this example, you’d want to focus on creating Character Designs and a few Backgrounds to fill out your portfolio. You’re OK with Storyboards for now.

New Work For Your Portfolio!

If, as in the example above, your Career Goal is Animation and your 3 Portfolio Categories are Storyboards, Backgrounds, and Character Designs, then that is what your “Make New Work” for Art 490 should focus on.

If you’re also taking a Metals Class and a Printmaking class, that’s great. But that work does not count for your portfolio. Please do not submit your latest piece of metalwork or your new serigraph. Not because this work isn’t good, but because it doesn’t help build your portfolio and launch your career.

In this example, your New Work each week should be Character Designs, Backgrounds, or Storyboards, since that is the work you need to build your portfolio and launch your career.

If you have a different Career Goal & 3 Categories, then those would be the New Work that You would make for Your Portfolio.

6 Pieces per Category

It’s great if you can get to 6 pieces to show for each of your 3 categories. You might have 6-6-6 now. You might have 0-0-0. Or 6-3-0.

• 6-6-6 – If you’ve already got everything covered, awesome! (not many peeps in the class do!) Then look at which Category you think you can improve on the most and create new work there.
• 0-0-0 – if you don’t have anything ATM – don’t panic – this is common!
• You also might have more than you think if you look through everything you’ve ever done. Remember those Wedding Invitations you designed for your cousin for free? You don’t have to say “cousin” and you don’t have to say “free”. All you have to say is, “The client wanted a baseball themed wedding invitation so I created X, Y, Z.” And then put that in your Graphic Design portfolio.
• Do not, however, count “work in my parent’s attic”. Stuff you have to wait a month to get is a distraction that just slows you down. Don’t go there! It’s probably not as good as you think. And now that you’re a better and more mature artist, you can probably create better work in not much time. Only include work you can get your hands on today.
• 6-3-0 – is a nice place to be. Spend the first month or so working on Category 3. Later you can add to Category 2. Category 1 is fine for now.

Assignment

• Every other week this semester make a new piece of work that fits one of your Career Categories
• Be realistic, you can’t do an animated feature film every week. But you can do a small piece every week. A character sheet. Or a 15-second animated film.
• It’s going to take work to meet people and to get people to look at your portfolio. Let’s make sure you have the best you possible represented in that portfolio.
• Post your work on Canvas

URL on Canvas

• If you haven’t made them yet, make your three category pages on your Portfolio Website.
• Add your New Work to the relevant page.
• Write an informative caption for it.
• Paste the URL for that page in the URL box on Canvas.