AP Drawing Portfolio Senior Profile: Cassidy Terre

The AP Drawing Portfolio is an intensive course, requiring students to produce art at the college level. Students compile a portfolio of 15-20 original artworks demonstrating mastery in composition, technique, and concept. They pursue the WHY behind their own artistic process and participate in weekly critiques of classmates’ work, as well as submit completed pieces approximately every two weeks.

What is the central idea of your concentration?

My concentration is centered around my dogs. I have a pitbull-boxer mix, named Summer, and another dog, named Rocco, who is a black lab mix.

How does your work demonstrate the exploration of your idea?

My work demonstrates how much I love my dogs, how I see my dogs, and what my dogs mean to me. This can be seen through much of my process, the pictures I use, and how I have had to do an entire 15 pieces only on my dogs.

Can you explain your artistic process? Where do you gain inspiration?

After I figure out what I would like to paint, I set up my paints, my water/solvent, and get a paper towel. The paint, the brushes, and the water/solvent are always on my right hand side. On my left hand side is the reference(if it is not painting from real life). I put on some music and then begin working. I like to use the rest of my process to specific things. For example, I use a lot of paint sometimes so i can create a sense of physical texture in certain spots that I focus on in my dogs. Other times I’ll add little things like hints of flesh tint, cadmium yellow, or Indian red in the dog’s fur. Sometimes I’ll even make the background either dark, for the calm, relaxed emotions of when I took the picture, or yellow, to show that my dogs are excited. I can not say I gain inspiration from any specific person. I just went with what felt right. I loved to paint. The first thought that came to my head when I thought about what I would do for my concentration was my dogs. In my first few years in Ms. Hoadley’s art class, I noticed that I especially loved painting or drawing dogs. I wanted something that would make me happy everyday to look at and something I was interested in to have to paint 15 pieces on.

What do you hope the viewer will see in your artwork?

I hope they see how I see my dogs and how much I love my dogs. I want them to see my dogs how I see them. I hope it evokes the emotions I want the viewers to have for the dogs and for them to see how much the dogs mean to me. I want other people to see how adorable my dogs are, even when they are not sitting in a picture perfect stance, even if they are in the viewer’s face, or the viewer can only see half the dog’s face because they were moving when the picture was taken.

How long have you been making art? And when did you start to feel independent and like you were truly making your own work?

I have been making art for a long time. It first began with beginner level art classes during elementary school that my grandma would take me to on Fridays at Hobby Lobby. This eventually turned into me going to me taking art classes at Episcopal and me constantly doodling in class. This doodling really helped my art making skills because I would often draw objects in the classroom or I would try to draw my dogs. I still occasionally doodle. This later became Ms. Hoadley’s art class in high school. I started making my own art by around 11th grade. This seems like it would be late, but by 11th grade I truly knew how I like to make my art, and this takes a long time to figure out.