[penquin]

Hey, Ringling's portfolio day is this Sunday...is anyone going or have any of you gone in the past? What's it like? Would you recommend going? Oh, and I didn't know if this should be here or under random musings, please let me know if this isn't appropriate for this forum. Thanks for any replies.

[Jason Manley]

I went....I also then went to ringling. youll get a good idea of the different schools if you go talk to the recruiters.

jason

[xXxPZxXx]

Jason - I hope you stop back in this thread. And I hope penquin doesn't mind me hijacking the thread for a minute. I have heard you say before that you didn't really start getting into art until later (after High school I guess) and that you wanted to pursue a more traditional type of art background. Well I really respect your art work now in these times and was wondering what kind of a portfolio and background you had going INTO Ringling. Did you take time off after HS or what exactly? Thanks for any answers.

Penquin - I think any porfolio day you go to is good. Best to get a feel for what you can work on and what other people think of your work as long as you don't take it TOO seriously. It would also help you get acquainted with the school and administration a bit. Good Luck!

[penquin]

Thanks . I'll give it a go, what've I got to lose right? Ringling's come to my school and everything, and I already know alot about them, but hopefully I'll learn something knew when I go.

XPZ, No problem, hijack away, oh and from what I understand, if you haven't had any formal art training, you can do like five pretty specific various weird drawings that they outline in their little overview book in place of a normal portfolio. Supposedly they'll take into account the fact that you haven't had any training and judge you by your "potential" (whatever that means). I'll try to look up the specifics if you're interested. I think you can order one from their site (they're nicely designed and they smell good too ;p).

Anyways, thanks for the comments and hopefully I'll see some of you there.

[Gryphon]

Well, I'd have to disagree - I went to Ringling's Portfolio Day and got nothing but "Draw more from life."

Now, I could've dealt with that advice if there was something else in the way of constructive thought given about what I *had* - but there wasn't.

After getting the same treatment from 7-9 different recruiters, I left, but not before hearing that almost everyone else got the same speech.

If you really want to know what Ringling's like, don't go to Portfolio Day - go to PreCollege. It's a great deal more helpful.

[Jason Manley]

no disagreements here.

when looking for art schools I listened to the recruiters not just for help with my work...but for info on the kind of program I might be going into....

for example...Ringling's recruiter harped on my value range (I was very high key and almost never used black early on in my training...I was just timid.) I knew that he was right..simple as that. I figured that if the recruiters knew that I had to work on my values then the teachers and students must be ok too...

I went on a trip with my friend jim moore who now concepts at factor five games. We decided to travel around the country in my old 86 honda and see all the art schools we were interested in. We hit Art Center which impressed me greatly on our first trip(it is up on that hill and full of rather serious stuffy types...it smelled like success to me)....then we went across country to Ringling in Florida...same deal..great impression...nice student work...amazing beaches...clean...incredible little art museum affilliated with the school etc...then we went to SVA (passed it up to head up to Boston as we heard there was an old master program at the Museum School)....at the musuem school of fine arts we both chatted with the recruiter (who in my opinion knew nothing useful at all...told me to get big charcoles at least an inch wide and really get all my feelings out....yawn...they had no master program as the recruiter had said and had a lot of leaves tacked on paper and scotch tape on rocks kind of art. They did have a nice animation setup for experimentation though...the recruiters there really bothered me..tey knew nothing of what we were trying to learn and had no good input at all....we stayed in boston for a while and then headed to Kansas City which at the time was running an illustration program which allowed for studying from life and supposedly had a connection to disney and the other hootie tootie jobs we coveted. Before we went to the school we spent about fifteen minutes making the ugliest damn piece of art ever made with our travel art supplies...it had an abortion theme complete with little baby feet prints made with the palms of our hands and the alpahbet spelling abcdefghijKILL...we wanted a junk piece of expressive, socially responsible piece of art to test the recruiter there with...the idea was that if they liked that image we made as a joke then we would leave immediately and not waste our time with fools.

you see...you need to listen to the recruiters AND visit the schools before blowing through a hundred thousand plus dollars....that is the only way to decide.

the earlier point about precollege at RSAD would give you a good idea of what to expect...it also hooks you up with some other young artists who would end up there so if you go you would have some friends when you start your freshman year.

check out as many schools as you can and to the best of your ability..it is a big investment.

xXxp...I went into ringling (turned down a nice scholarship at Art Center to follow my girl..well she never went..haha but thats another story) with a portfolio of drawings that consisted of about 4 pages of figure drawings (anywhere from 5 minutes to 12 hours per pose)...about 6 figure compositions (narrative stuff) a couple still life images done in black and white and color...some landscapes that were done in pastel, oil etc...two full sketchbooks...a couple illustration images etc...I wanted to show that I had my foundation going already and that I had begun thinking about commercial uses for my work.

also..when applying...write a nice essay ok? my friends who had almost exact duplicates of my portfolio got jack cuz thier applications were a mess and their essays stunk too. Its all about presentation...sell yourself. find out what the school wants and give it ALL to them..and do a bunch of other stuff too.

good luck

jason

PS I heard from every recruiter how glad they were to see my work. They told me that they saw hundreds of poorly drawn fantasy images and thousands of comic book copies...they didnt want to see any of that stuff...they wanted to see me studying light..space...form...composition...brushwork...medias...you name it...

[penquin]

Jason, thanks for taking the time to share that great information with us.

And, thanks for the opposing point of view Gryphon.

I really want to go to PreCollege, the only thing holding me back is that $3500 price tag. But, that's probably reasonable in a relative sense.

For anyone reading this who doesn't know what PreCollege is, go here.

Thanks again guys.