Our BFA Art School Portfolio Track is a structured sequence of prompts and video lessons that will support the development of artworks for your portfolio. This free track is created with the specific intent to balance gaining a broad range of skills while also achieving the goal of creating a finished portfolio for your art school applications.
Visit our Pro Development section for content on BFA programs, BFA Portfolio Critiques, how to prepare an art school portfolio, and MFA Programs.
BFA Art School Portfolios Premium Track
Need more guidance, or someone to kick your butt? Purchase our premium track where you’ll get comprehensive support from the Art Prof staff through weekly voice sessions and critiques in our Discord.
Pacing
Do the track at your own pace! Taking the time to process the content is important, so we don’t advise putting pressure on yourself to finish the track quickly. Remember to have fun and enjoy the process! Hear Prof Lieu’s explanation of the track in this video.
Share your progress
Post your ongoing progress in the #bfa-track channel in our Discord, you’ll get support and feedback from the community! Tag us @art.prof on Instagram with #artproftrack so we can share your work.
Ongoing Assignment
Ideally, this ongoing assignment is to be done simultaneously with the track lessons. However, if your schedule doesn’t fit well with this, and you want to do the ongoing assignment at a separate time from the 10 lessons, our suggestion is to do the ongoing assignment for 3 weeks straight. The continuity is important so any time that you can draw daily for 3 weeks is great.
Prompt
Draw for at least ten minutes daily in your sketchbook. Draw anything you want!
Lesson 1
thumbnails
Do several sets of thumbnail sketches.
Lesson 2
Gesture Drawings from life
Create 6 hours of 2-10 min. gesture drawings
Lesson 3
sustained drawing from life
Create 1 sustained drawing with any drawing medium.
Lesson 4
Unconventional supplies
Create 1 mixed media artwork that is a shape that is not a rectangle, and that uses at least 2 media that are not from an art store, and has collage in some capacity.
Lesson 5
layered Color
Create a drawing with layered colors.
Lesson 6
Color & mood
Create a portrait with an unusual color scheme to convey a specific mood or emotion.
Lesson 7
abstract sculptures
Create 2 sculptures that are abstract representations of 2 contrasting sides of your personality.
Lesson 8
typography
Create an artwork that incorporates text within the image.
Lesson 9
narrative interior space
Create a narrative artwork that shows physical depth through an interior space. Choose from a list of subjects.
Lesson 10
imagined exterior space
Create a narrative artwork that shows physical depth through an imagined exterior space. Choose from a list of subjects.
Finished?
- Submit your track images + info via this upload form.
- You can choose to receive a hard copy certificate from us via snail mail. (this includes international people)
- We’ll feature your track work in an Art Prof Share segment in one of our live streams on YouTube.
- We’ll post your name, a link of your choice, your slideshow, and video feature on the corresponding track page in our student gallery area.
