RISD - Observational art in portfolio

mackinaw
Sun, 18 Nov 2007 13:44:22 +0000

Heron, I think Theresa’s comment are helpful. RISD’s preferences aren’t much different from those of other colleges. They are looking for skills, a basic one of which is can you draw what you see from life? (Not from pictures and not from imagination.) This wouldn’t necessarily speak against abstraction but it’s easier to show what you can do if a significant part of your portfolio is representational, whether it’s figure drawing or drawing of objects. The artist’s sense of perspective and 3-D perception (which could be sculpture or some kinds of design work) are among the skills that they might also look for, along with a sense of color.

Beyond this, if you can you want to show work in a variety of media. I recall that my daughter’s RISD portfolio (beyond the 3 requisite pencil-on-paper drawings) included some self-portraits (pastels), some sculpture (a head and torso–not abstract–done in a precollege program), some still life paintings, & some landscape paintings. No graphic work, no photography. A majority of her work was of figures (2-D and 3-D). The same portfolio worked well at all the places she applied to.