Dani Duck: Artist Obscure: Awesome Artist Angie Jones -- Plus A PRIZE!

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Awesome Artist Angie Jones -- Plus A PRIZE!

I saw Angie's work on Instagram after a long time of not seeing her art. Angie has so much beautiful work on her Instagram page that's portfolio worthy, and going on her website I was blown away by all the beautiful things she's done! Angie has wonderful portfolios for all her painterly and vector children's illustration, design work and fine art. Because of her awesome portfolio I asked her to create a post about portfolio illustration.

Check the bottom of this post for a PRIZE!

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8 Steps to Your Best Portfolio

1. There is no getting around it. If you want a good portfolio you need a lot of art. You're not going to show all of it, but the more you make the better. It’s harder to make a stellar portfolio when you have only 10 or 20 pieces to choose from. The average portfolio is about 20 pieces. If you have only 20 pieces then you don’t have room to weed out the weaker art. Source from client work and self driven/assigned work.

2. Only show your best work. Look at all the work you have to show, and remove the weakest pieces. Your portfolio is only as strong as it’s weakest piece. Rinse repeat.

3. Limit how much work you show. Art directors want to quickly look through your work to get a good idea of your skill set. You can have multiple collections organized by common themes. They can be the medium used, the intended audience, a specific style, etc.

Examples

Group 1: Raster Art

Group 2: Vector Art

Group 3: Black and White Art

4. Start with the best piece and end with the best piece. Always make a good first and last impression.

5. Look for a common trait for the work in your portfolio; develop that trait. It might be the way you render your noses, or the shape of a head. It could be color palettes and composition. Or perhaps it’s the story telling in the illustrations.

Eyes:

Texture:

6. Change your portfolio often. Change it by adding new personal or client work, show your work is evolving. Change it by reorganize your portfolio. A new order might make more sense. The change can be weeding out old outdated work. Change by making new samples that are like the type of art you want to be hired to make.

7. Set deadlines to refresh your portfolio. Change doesn’t happen without a little pressure. Self imposed deadlines will keep your book fresh.

8. When submitting to a specific client put together a portfolio tailored to them. Look at the type of art they’ve purchased in the past. Show the art that you think fits in with that art. Don’t have samples like the art they’ve purchased in the past? Make new art that does fit in.