Portfolio Development Continued: Several Student Examples, and Recommendations
Believe it or not, in just a little more than 6 weeks, you will create a lovely portfolio which showcases your skill and growing virtuosity!
Students often ask 'what I want,' and I turn it back to you: what do you want? How much are you able to manage? I do expect that you create some form of documentation of all your work. More and more, electronic is handy to have, and yet, a website, for example, may be challenging for some. As such, here are some examples that may prove inspiring to you. Several students have created Instagram portfolios, also.
https://www.instagram.com/allisonmayart/
At the other end of the spectrum in complexity is the PowerPoint presentation. Some students have found the notion of a website, blog or other online format to be too much, too intimidating within the scope of six weeks, and yet, they want an electronic record, at least for the interim. I think Heather Hamm's PowerPoint is a great example of shooting this middle ground: she presented her work beautifully. Here is a video slideshow of her portfolio:
Portfolio Website Preferences and Recommendations as prepared by Tarja Barton, 2013, with a few updates added in 2020.
When looking for a portfolio site, every artist should have a list of preferences and criteria in mind when looking for this type of a service. Keep in mind the following:
1. Your portfolio site should be easy to navigate.
2. Make sure it’s easy for potential clients to contact you.
3. Your portfolio site should offer some information about you and express some of your personality.
4. Your portfolio site should be easy to update and should also be updated often so that only your best content is featured.
5. Include testimonials or references from happy clients.
6. Include your social networking profiles, but only if they are professional.
7. Provide a downloadable resume.
8. Categorize and tag your work, especially if there’s a lot of it. Consider including a search field so that visitors can search within your site.
9. Include relevant and interesting information on your site, so that visitors will want to return.
FEE-BASED portfolio sites
There are too many to list them all, but the sites that I visited and which I thought were user friendly and easy to navigate are as follows:
Website Design – The Leader in Website Design – Squarespace
Artists Agents & Reps. Pay a fee for portfolio page with up to 50 images, direct mailing offer.
Artists Representatives
Artists need to submit sample work for consideration.
Free portfolio websites (some with optional fee for upgrades):
wordpress.com – They have portfolio themes to choose from.
www.facebook.com – Create your own facebook page, which includes an ‘about’ page, photo albums of your work and send status updates to site visitors following your page. Create facebook ads to market your facebook page and art. Link to your portfolio or website.
Create a new website using html (or update an existing one)
For the short term, I will mostly likely update my existing website content (www.inkberrystudio.ca) so that it reflects the new art created as a result of the Botanical Illustration course. In the long term, however, I can see myself recreating the website, with perhaps some subtle flash content in the gallery pages. The current website was created with Adobe Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Illustrator. It has a clean layout and an easy navigation. Last Fall, I completed an ‘Introduction to html’ online course, which will be helpful when it’s time to update my gallery pages.
Sample botanical illustrator websites
www.catherinewatters.com - Catherine Watters
www.botanical-paintings.com - Karen Kluglein
www.mindylighthipe.com - Mindy Lighthipe
www.annswan.co.uk - Ann Swan
www.emmaskurnick.com-Emma Skurnick
Consider joining a local society of botanical artists. One such site in Canada is the Ottawa Society of Botanical Artists, https://ottawasocietyofbotanicalartists.ca/ or American Society of botanical Artists, Home | American Society of Botanical Artists (asba-art.org) or the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, Home (gnsi.org) located in the United States. There are such societies in many countries of the world. Societies such as these usually offer membership, member gallery, lectures, exhibitions, newsletters and links to resources.