7 Ways to Prepare for AP Studio Art

Posted in Homeschool students, how to be more creative

No matter if you attend an k-12 public high school, charter school, participate in hybrid learning, and/or homeschool, this year likely didn’t end like most others. And you’re probably feeling the summer doesn’t feel like summers past.

Many public pools either aren’t opening or are delaying their opening.

Camps and other in person events that you were looking forward to are canceled.

Many students that are interested in taking AP Drawing or AP 2D Design have reached out to ask if there are things that they can work on over the summer to get prepared for the class.

7 Ways to Prepare for AP Art Class.

  1. Visit art museums and/or galleries. In person is always the best, but if you can’t make it in person, check to see if they have any virtual exhibits. Looking at art helps to provide you with more reference points for ideas, reflection, and inspiration. Bonus: take your sketchbook and do some sketching while you’re there.
  2. Check out this post and watch the video to understand the requirements of AP Art. You’ll hear me talking about a sustained investigation. Which is mainly thinking about something that you’re really interested in exploring and framing it a question to find out more about. Grab your sketchbook, or open a doc on your computer and start to brainstorm areas of interest. Next write questions that are related to those areas of interest.
  3. Create. Spend time creating each week. Take photos, spend time drawing what you see around you. As with anything, the more that you do it, the better you get.
  4. This summer, I’m teaching a course about Creative Thought Development. It’s a perfect way to help you better understand how to develop and push your ideas.
  5. Make a list of 5-10 artists that interest you and see if you can find books about them at the library or for purchase. As you look at the work, ask yourself why you like it? What do the artist that you like have in common? That can help you start to think about developing your personal style.
  6. We achieve more when we have actionable trackable goals. What are 2-3 goals that you have related to your own art, and what are 2-3 things that you need to do in order to help you get closer to reaching those goals?
  7. Give yourself permission to make bad art, and commit to trying at least one new thing. It might mean that you try to use a medium that you’ve never used, that explore a new subject matter, or even that you create a piece that much larger or much smaller than you’ve ever created before. Going out of your comfort zone can teach you a lot.