Above: Illustrations for my portfolio and business cards. The first is pencil and ink with image manipulation (GIMP). The center illustration is a graphic illustration using GIMP. The last is pencil and GIMP.
How to Set Up Your Portfolio for Public Viewing and Critiques*:
1. Choose your best illustrations (those that have action or can tell a story)
2. Scan them in
3. Clean images up using digital software such as GIMP or Photoshop
4. Size them correctly
5. Print copies of these illustratons
6. Purchase a portfolio
7. Insert the illustrations in the best order:
a. your best pieces go in first and last place (they make a lasting impression in these positions)
b. select and group illustrations by story
c. if you are STRONG in more than one style of art (ie. pencil and oil), group the styles
d. have no more than 15 illustrations in your porfolio (Only your strongest pieces!)
e. try to arrange it so that all illustrations are facing one way
8. When possible, have your portfolio critiqued by your peers
a. remove any illustrations your peers deem the weakest
b. rescan the originals of any illustrations that need clean up (as suggested by your peers)
c. correct and clean up all errors (digitally)
d. print them again
9. Make business cards (or i.e., bookmarks, postcards) to pass out at the conference. Include:
a. Image of book cover if published (include year) - is it a book and/or eBook?
b. On the back side add an illustration and your name. Include whether you are an author,
illustrator, and/or artist. Add any important contact information ie. phone number, eMail,
Twitter, Website, Blog. Are you a member of SCBWI? Put that down, too.
10. At a later date, go back to your portfolio and study each copied illustration
a. are there any ink smudges
b. are the colors correct
c. do you need to manually touch up any areas
d. do the characters appear as you would like
11. If you have a book dummy, you can include it with your portfolio.
12. Make sure that as your portfolio pages are being viewed, your name and contact information can be seen with each page turn.
*Credit for much of this informaton goes to SCBWI and it's members. SCBWI is a great organization to join.
Do you have any other ideas on how to present an art portfolio? You may use the comment section to help make this an informative post for all. Thank you!