How I Learned to Love the Sketchbook

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t used to be that the Advanced Placement (AP) Studio Art course was an exercise in efficiency. The robust course portfolio requirements comprised three sections: Breadth, Concentration, and Selected Works. Required to produce a total of 24 artworks by the end of the year, students turned in, on average, more than one piece per school week. Students emerged from the course knowing more about producing an artwork with speed than with intention and forethought.

That was the conclusion of the College Board, which introduced a wide array of changes to the course after the 2018-19 academic year.

The retooled version of AP Studio Art, called AP Art and Design, eliminated the Breadth section, which showcased students’

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abilities to work across artistic media, and reduced the total number of required artworks. Most significantly, the new class mandates that the artwork produced throughout the year be completely student-driven, from initial idea to final artwork, underscoring the importance of ideas, process and research.

For the Selected Works section, students submit their five strongest final pieces, and for the Sustained Investigation section, students submit 15 images that show works of art and process documentation based on a guiding idea. In other words, students do not need to produce 15 final pieces; in addition to final works, they can choose to submit process and design 56

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work, whether in the form of sketches or research recorded in their sketchbooks or the final works themselves.

On a day-to-day basis, students work from the ground up, beginning with written and visual exploration in their sketchbooks. They may work for days researching and doing initial composition sketches before synthesizing it all in a final piece. Such methodological work is foreign to many new AP students, who describe process work as challenging, but rewarding.

Painting student Salma Al-Kaabneh ’20, whose project focuses on the visual expression of her vivid dreams, says, “In painting classes outside of school, the teacher would give us a picture and we would try to copy it on our canvas.

“Working by myself, I usually just come up with something and paint it.

So I had never done sketchbook work, and now I see it as an integral part of my process.”

Fathia Aulia ’21, who works in the medium of photography, initially found research difficult. “I didn’t know what to research,” she says, “so in my first photograph I ended up using elements that just did not work together.

Research is really important because without it, your art may be perceived as expressing something you didn’t intend to express.”

Perhaps the biggest change for students was in the Sustained Investigation section, which reflects the course’s new emphasis on ideas.

At the beginning of the year, students

are tasked with producing a Guiding Question (GQ), an inquiry that guides their Sustained Investigation work for the entirety of the school year. Unlike in the past, they no longer get prompts to respond to; the entirety of the project is student-directed, with feedback from teachers.

In their sketchbooks, students document their engagement with their GQ: their research, their sketches, and their writing about how they translate their ideas into their art. “My previous art classes were more focused on technique as opposed to ideas,” says Ke Deng ’22, a drawing student whose work details the psychological and materialistic elements of pet-owner relationships. “Normally, in school, you portray ideas through writing and that we tend to distract ourselves from.”

Aulia ’21 witnessed her project focus shift from

GQ; their research, their sketches, and their writing about how they translate their ideas into their art. “My previous art classes were more focused on technique as opposed to ideas,” says Ke Deng ’22, a drawing student whose work details the psychological and materialistic elements of pet-owner relationships.

“Normally, in school, you portray ideas through writing and

Orientalist stereotypes to specifically about hijabwearing women.

“At first, the idea didn’t connect with me,” she says.

“So after doing research, I figured out what I actually wanted to say, and I changed it to focus on portraying hijabis as confident, which they express through their fashion and facial expressions.”

Students in past years used to submit one piece per week to their AP teachers, whereas they now aim to submit one every 10 school days. And many elect to submit sketchbook work or research in lieu of a final piece, in keeping with the AP’s emphasis on process work. In general, students praise the opportunity to focus more on quality SPRING 2020

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