portfolio material: y/n? - UPDATED 11-09-08

[phi]

Hello everybody! Short introduction: I'm 23, from Austria, graduated in knowlegde management, always loved animation and went to life drawing classes for the last ... 5 years or so? Now I'm for the first time speculating to go to CalArts and that's why I'd love to hear some comments from you guys and girls about my stuff.

Follow the link (makes the posting so much shorter):

http://phi16.blogspot.com/

What do you think about the quality of the drawings?
Do they fit to what CalArts wants to see, more or less?
What drawings would you exclude?

I'm probably adding some more original art but that's now the first stack of drawings I have online.

Thanks so much for any input! I promise to bring lots of chocolate, if I'm accepted into next years class.

[dancaylor]

Hey phi,

Let me start of by saying that all of these drawings are great. But the ones I would include in a Cal Arts Portfolio are the following:

2
6
12
13
24
31
37
38
42
43

That's top to bottom, Top being #1

That's just my opinion, but I think those are the strongest candidates. Looks like some good competition is coming out of the woodworks with a few months to go. How do they say, "It's on like Donkey Kong!" in Austria?

[phi]

hey thanks for your input - I numbered the drawings so now it might be easier to say which one out and which one in

hey btw no. 30-37 and 41 were done in Vancouver! I've been there for a month last year (VanArts if you know that school) and once went to a great gesture drawing class. It was awesome and since then I'm searching Vienna and it's sourroundings for something compareable but the average life drawing class here gives you only poses around 20 minutes, which I really don't like so much.

It's on like Donkey Kong = something like "Der Kampf kann beginnen" in German but I'm not a translator

[Rostbrot]

Portfolio-wise, go with the most expressive and alive feeling pieces. That's really a huge chunk of what they look for.

[phi]

I try my best - I'm not sure though if I'm up to it: I am getting pretty indifferent about my pieces and I'm not sure if I'm lacking somewhat anatomy and creativity. I know, I just played around with the colours I had, so... what to improve in, I'm not sure right now.

But I got new pictures posted, this time drawings from public transportation, the zoo and plain doodles. Should this sort of thing be included too or not?

http://phi16.blogspot.com/

[dancaylor]

I like 3, 7, 8, 13, 16, 21 for your portfolio

[phi]

Thanks for the comment! On the weekend I went to the zoo I tried to do some sketches but apparently I suck at drawing tigers. So afterwards I sat down to draw some tigers from photos and that went okay - what do you think?
And is it really a big no-no to include drawings from photos in the CalArts portfolio? Is it obvious that they are done with the help of photos?





Thanks for any advice on how to approach the subject - I'd mostly try to get down the basic structure of the animal and then maybe go back to the zoo and try it again? How do you guys do it?

[dancaylor]

I'm actually heading to the zoo in about 40 minutes. I would only include a few pieces from photos. Yes, it is sometimes obvious if it's from a photo.

When I go to the zoo I only bring a small moleskin and a few pigma and faber castell pens and letraset markers. I am not interested in getting anything close to what you have here. I go in fully aware that most of my drawings are going to suck, because I rarely spend more than a minute on each one. I only want to put down a few lines, enough to try and describe what's going on. It's gesture sketching. And I look at the drawings as "learning drawings". They're a visual representation of me trying to understanding what is going on in the body of whatever I'm sketching. I dare not post my garbage drawings, not yet atleast. But here's a good example of what I'm talking about:

http://www.dgderrick.com/journal

[phi]

interesting link - I understand what you are aiming for! I'm trying to do the same, just that I mostly lack the use of colour up to now on my sketches from the zoo. Well, the "best" outcomings from my ... three? visits to the zoo you've already seen on my blog... the three pictures of a tiger are mainly for studying purpose because really, none of my tigers, lions etc. looked even remotely like what they are in my sketchbook. But I wonder if my third sketch of the tiger from a photo might even be good enough for a portfolio or do you think it also looks stiff and is pretty obviously just a copy from a photo?

BTW I was being told that most of my animal sketches on my blog lack the dynamics I have on my human drawings.. so yeah, more practice is needed definitely.

Oh and do you have any postable sketches from animals already?

[phi]

hey I added some stuff, maybe you wanna take a look and tell me what you think! Thanks a bunch!

http://phi16.blogspot.com/

[phi]

Hey hey, time flies by and I posted some more drawings on my blog:

http://phi16.blogspot.com

I tried to improve on the animals (although I didn't go to the zoo as often as I wished I could).
Anything new there that you think should go in the portfolio?
Anything that you generally feel is missing in the kind of drawings I do?

Any input, critique & comment highly appreciated!!

I won't forget about the chocolate once I'm in

[stephen]

your one of those rare exceptions where i cannot find one thing that could be better with, nice work

[Tool]

Their website says they want nothing from photos.

[stephen]

well i was referring to blog stuff

but the ones from photos look nice

but he's right dont include them

[phi]

na, no worries, I wouldn't include those from photos. It was rather to ask how to portray animals generally, because I had a hard time just drawing them from life in the zoo... thanks for the comments though! and there's always room for improvement, don't hold it back