Dear Future AP Art Student,
First off what I would like to say is AP art is fun. It is a challenge that will force yourself to push your creativity and reach new heights, it will make you feel confident with yourself from so many ways to succeed in this class, it will give you a place at school where you feel apart. I think it is important to know going into this class that you shouldn't feel pressured by grades, you must creatively challenge yourself through your art rather than feeling forced to produce a crap piece of artwork. Also it is very easy to get into some bad habits in this class, especially when it comes to procrastination. Art doesn't really look good when you pull it out of your butt the night before, it takes time and you must have the patience to give each piece that time it deserves.
I should have taken this advice during my year in AP art, I was doing a concentration in which I really didn't like and then realized this wasn't the concentration I should have been doing. I really loved photography, not painting! And I realized over the year that I'm not too bad at it either! Because I didn't like my concentration I was pulling the pieces out the night before and wasn't having fun with it either. If you aren't having fun with your art pieces that means you have the wrong concentration. I had a lot of fun with my photographs. I loved finding different places to take these photographs as well as physically taking them and finding different angles that worked for the setting. This is what I should have been doing all along, however I had fun with some of my paintings and believe I improved my painting skills even though it wasn't my passion.
