Most colleges expect 12 - 20 pieces in your portfolio.

Keep all of your work stored in a flat box or portfolio, with tissue over chalk or pastels. 

Select portfolio pieces based on college requirements.

Show depth and breadth.

Organize portfolio with strongest piece first, next strongest piece at the end. Have a logical progression of work.

Take color slides of all work - at least 3 slides of each artwork. Create three- five sets of your portfolio slides.

Practice showing your portfolio to family and friends to prepare for the interview.

Attend a Portfolio Review Day (meet college reps, practice showing work, see other portfolios)

Sketchbook: A visual record of thoughts and ideas. Preliminary studies for larger more finished work, etc. May include writing, collage, etc.

Things to avoid: Anything that may be viewed  as a cliché. Disney characters, sunsets, super-heroes, models, work that is not original, should be avoided.

Heads: life-size from a variety of angles, not just head-on.

Figures: If it is possible, the ambitious student may want to take a figure drawing course. If not, clothed figures are fine. A person reading or watching TV will usually stay in the same pose without being too uncomfortable.

Page of life-size hands: Actual size drawings of the student's left hand (or right) doing a variety of gestures.

Page of heads: Something like a page from a sketchbook by Leonardo da Vinci

Self-portrait: life-size, showing at least the student's head and drawing hand. (The student must give some thought to lighting, what to wear, background, etc. It may take some time to light the scene properly in front of the mirror.)

Copy of an old master drawing: done meticulously (Michelangelo, Leonardo, etc.) This is so much more valuable than copying a fashion illustration. You are learning from the masters.

Drawings and paintings: Color pencil, pastels, watercolor, acrylic etc.

Realistic color landscape: with pastels (from observation, not photos).

Fauve landscape: Look it up. A good companion piece for the realistic landscape would be one done with more expressive strokes and more emotional use of color.

Creative still-life: One that says something about the student - items should go beyond the usual vases, etc. This could also be a fantasy-oriented still life in which the objects form something as in Arcimbaldi paintings.

Cubist still-life: A variation on the usual realistic image after the student has some knowledge of what the Cubists were doing with form, color, texture, etc.

Surrealism: Explore dream imagery or come up with a wild, incongruous composition. To be effective, surrealism must be executed flawlessly.

Expressionistic piece: An emotional drawing or painting influenced by German Expressionism, Munch, van Gogh, etc.

Abstraction based on forms, textures, shapes, etc: Elements of the subject matter, whether it is landscape, still-life, machinery, architecture, etc., can be reordered, transformed, echoed, amplified, and exaggerated in many ways. Look at Leger, Miro, Duchamp, etc.

Collage or Assemblage: Media that demonstrate that the student can create works of art by organizing materials, not through drawing, painting media. (Collages can be either cut-outs that retain their identity used in a composition, or cut pieces used purely for their color as brushstrokes in a composition.) (For Assemblage reference, see Louise Nevelson and Joseph Cornell.)

Prints and monotypes: Linoleum cuts, wood cuts, various monotype techniques

Perspective Drawing: A view down a hallway with lots of detail or the exterior of a complicated building, rendered beautifully. The more complex the better: lots of windows, lights, floor tiles, etc. Combine lines with tonality and a sense of atmosphere.

A detailed rendering of a complicated object: A bicycle, the inside of an old clock or watch, blown up

Grid Drawings: Using photographic imagery in an imaginative way - distorting the grid or using several grids in a composition like falling photographs. Even a standard grid drawing, of a strong photograph, can be a good learning experience and a powerful portfolio piece if all tones of the pencil are exploited.

Realistic sculpture of a head in clay

Abstract representation of an object using found objects

Ceramic pieces that go beyond the ordinary bowls, tea pots and cups