AP Drawing Selected Works

Overview

• Weight: 40% of your total portfolio score
• Requirements: 5 digital images of 5 works demonstrating drawing skills and synthesis
• Written components: For each work - idea (100 chars), materials (100 chars), processes (100 chars)
• Scoring: Holistic evaluation based on drawing skills, synthesis, and written identification
• Key focus: Drawing as mark-making, not just observational rendering

Strategy Deep Dive

The Selected Works section for AP Drawing requires a sophisticated understanding of what "drawing" means in contemporary art. Drawing isn't limited to pencil on paper - it's about mark-making, line, surface, space, light and shade, and composition. Your five works should showcase different facets of these elements while demonstrating synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas.

Mark-making is the heart of drawing. Every mark should feel intentional, whether it's a delicate graphite line, an aggressive charcoal gesture, or a digital brushstroke. The readers evaluate not just what you draw, but how your marks create meaning. A scratchy, nervous line quality might perfectly express anxiety, while flowing, continuous lines could embody grace. Your mark-making vocabulary should be as developed as a writer's word choice.

Surface relationships matter tremendously in drawing. How your marks interact with the ground (paper, canvas, digital surface) creates meaning. Working on toned paper where highlights and shadows are both added creates different relationships than working on white paper where only darks are added. Rough surfaces that grab media differently than smooth ones. These aren't just technical choices - they're conceptual decisions that should align with your ideas.

The synthesis requirement means your drawing materials, processes, and ideas need to feel inevitable together. If exploring themes of erasure and memory, perhaps you're drawing with charcoal and systematically erasing portions, letting ghost images remain. If investigating growth patterns in nature, maybe you're using ink that bleeds and spreads organically. The readers should understand why these specific drawing approaches serve your concepts.

Selection strategy for drawing portfolios requires showing range within the discipline. Avoid five pieces that all use the same materials and approach. Maybe include one work that emphasizes line quality, another that explores value relationships, one that experiments with mixed drawing media, another that pushes scale relationships, and one that synthesizes multiple approaches. Show the breadth of what drawing can be.

Rubric Breakdown

Score Point 5 Requirements (your target):

Written Evidence: Your 100 characters need precision. Instead of "pencil on paper," specify "2B and 6B graphite on hot-pressed watercolor paper." Instead of "ink drawing," try "India ink applied with bamboo reed pen." For processes, "layered crosshatching" is more informative than "shading." Every detail should reveal sophisticated understanding of drawing materials and methods.

Drawing Skills - Advanced Level: The readers look for:

• Sophisticated mark-making vocabulary (varied line weights, textures, and qualities)
• Complex spatial relationships (not just perspective accuracy but how space is activated)
• Nuanced value control (subtle gradations or dramatic contrasts used purposefully)
• Intentional composition (every element placed with purpose)
• Surface sensitivity (understanding how marks interact with the ground)

These skills must appear consistently across all five works.

Synthesis - Visual Relationships: This is where drawing goes beyond technique. Your material choices should feel conceptually necessary. If exploring industrial decay, maybe you're drawing with rust and graphite on found paper. If investigating organic growth, perhaps vine charcoal mimics natural branching patterns. The synthesis should feel discovered, not imposed.

Common Score Point 4 Limitations: Students often show strong technical skills but generic material use. Their drawings might be beautifully rendered but use predictable media in expected ways. Or they have four cohesive pieces and one that demonstrates different skills but doesn't fit the synthesis standard. Remember - holistic scoring means consistency matters.

Common Patterns in Successful Portfolios

The strongest drawing portfolios often show "extended technique" - pushing a medium beyond its typical use. This might mean drawing with unconventional tools (sticks, fingers, handmade implements), using drawing media in wet processes, or combining traditional and digital mark-making. The extension should serve conceptual purposes, not just show experimentation.

Scale variation within the five works creates dynamic portfolios. This doesn't mean arbitrary size changes but purposeful scale decisions. An intimate 4"x6" drawing might create forced intimacy with the viewer, while a 30"x40" drawing could embody physical gesture and movement. Document how scale affects meaning, not just appearance.

Process evidence often strengthens drawing works. Unlike painting where layers might hide, drawing often reveals its making. Pentimenti (visible corrections/changes), accumulated marks, or evidence of physical engagement (smudges, hand prints) can add meaning. These aren't mistakes to hide but part of drawing's vocabulary.

Time Management Reality

Strong drawing works often develop through sustained engagement rather than single sessions. A complex drawing might evolve over weeks, with periods of intense work alternated with reflection and adjustment. Plan for this rhythm. You can't create five portfolio-quality drawings in a rush.

Documentation for drawing requires particular attention to surface quality. Graphite can create glare, charcoal can look flat in photos, subtle mark variations can disappear. Photograph in raking light to reveal surface texture. Take both overall shots and detail images - sometimes a 4"x4" detail reveals more about your drawing skills than the full work.

The selection process benefits from viewing works together. Pin up all contenders and evaluate as a group. Do they show range of mark-making? Various spatial approaches? Different speeds of looking (some immediate, some slow-reveal)? The group should cohesively represent your drawing capabilities while showing variety.

Writing sessions should reference specific drawing vocabulary. "Mark," "line quality," "surface," "ground," "value structure" - use language that shows you understand drawing as a discipline. Those 100 characters should efficiently communicate sophisticated understanding of your medium.

Final Thoughts

The Selected Works section is where you declare your identity as someone who understands drawing as a rich, complex language. These aren't just skillful renderings - they're works where mark-making becomes meaning-making. Every line, tone, and texture should feel purposeful and contribute to synthesis.

Drawing in the 21st century is expansive. While traditional observational skills remain valuable, contemporary drawing includes conceptual approaches, experimental mark-making, and hybrid processes. Your five works can embrace this expanded field while demonstrating deep understanding of drawing's fundamental elements.

Choose works that showcase different velocities of mark-making - some might feature accumulated, meditative marks while others capture gestural energy. Some might emphasize line while others explore tone. This variety within the discipline of drawing shows sophisticated understanding of the medium's possibilities.

Trust drawing's essential power - the direct translation of gesture to mark, idea to line. Your Selected Works should make viewers understand why drawing, specifically, was necessary for these ideas. Not painting with linear elements, not printmaking that includes line, but drawing as a primary vehicle for visual thinking. Make every work show why you chose this most fundamental of artistic languages.