5 Strategies for Merit Scholarship Artwork
1. Originality
An artwork begins with a concept or idea (most of the time!) Start with an idea, however absurd, and develop it. It doesn’t have to be so complex as long as you can take your interest and imagination to wherever they go. In a way, it could be the intersection of multiple small ideas.
2. Techniques
You don’t have to be a master of art techniques to develop an art portfolio for college. However, for a Merit Scholarship Art Portfolio, it is important that you show foundational skills, mostly drawing, in your portfolio. The style could be realistic or more abstract, but an important thing to incorporate is knowing how to use and control your chosen medium (i.e. graphite, pen, colored pencil, etc) to your advantage and idea. How you use your medium so that it well represents and supports your concept, idea, and intention, is what colleges are looking for rather than the mastery of techniques in and of themselves.
3. Experimentation
Show that you are willing to experiment and take creative risks. Play with new mediums or materials, try out new concepts, and combine interesting ideas. Experiments don’t need to happen inside your head. They can happen with the materials, mediums, and/or objects you play with. These approaches, however clever or silly, are all your own and say so much about yourself and your experience, making your work unique.
4. Commitment
Follow through with challenges in your pieces, no matter how big or small. They don’t necessarily have to feel finished but resolved, meaning the choices you make in the process would need to feel intentional. For example, if you are drawing difficult parts, like hands/feet, or rendering a background, make sure you take time as you follow through the process rather than rushing through it. Think aboug how to arrange things that make up the composition in a balanced way–if not unbalanced, stick to why and how you would play with that!
5. A range of mediums
This would go hand in hand with #3. Experimentation above. Try mixed media for a specific project or across the entire portfolio. Especially for undergraduate art/design programs, choosing and experimenting with a variety of mediums (or even disciplines) show that you are investigating, researching, and pursuing your interests with intention. Take advantage of your sketchbook and take your experiment further and wilder. Combine different mediums that you think go together or wouldn’t ever go together. Mix them and see how they react to each other aesthetically and physically.
Developing a Merit Scholarship Art Portfolio is all about taking an idea and pushing it as far as you can. With instructors who are active artists and designers in the field and specializing in portfolio development, New York Art Studio takes an individualized approach, providing instruction and guidelines based specifically on your interests, strengths, and objectives. Let us be part of your journey in your creative pursuit! Build your foundation and creative thought process and develop the well-rounded portfolio that will get you to your dream art schools!
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