CONCENTRATION TOPICS (2024)

AP Studio Art - Drawing Portfolio
Concentration Topics

Tips for a Successful Concentration

It is not enough to focus on a subject (trees) or a medium (charcoal). If trees, why trees? Is it about growth? Negative space in nature? Protective canopies? Strength and endurance? Branch and leaf structures? The “design” of a forest in compositional relationships? Look at Mondrian, van Ruisdael, Courbet, van Gogh, and Fairfield Porter.
Your exploration should go deeper than merely taking a subject and executing it in a variety of media or styles. Example: Apples rendered in watercolor, stipple, crosshatch, cubism, fauvism, and surrealism.
Ideally you should develop a visual language that fits your idea, a style and medium and format appropriate to the theme you are investigating.
A concentration can be a series of works that are very consistent in theme and approach OR it may evolve and develop as the visual idea is explored, ending in a different place than where it began. In either case, it is best to start out with a clear plan of attack; if the idea changes, the change will usually be the natural result of discoveries made in the process of exploration.
Do not choose to work in a medium in which you have absolutely no experience. This is not the time to try something completely new. The point of the concentration is to work in-depth. This can usually be best achieved in a medium in which you are already familiar. You are developing concept, not technique.
Research artists who have worked in styles similar to your own direction or with similar subject matter. Do not rely totally on yourself for inspiration. Look at historical masters, contemporary artists, the world around you, and your peers to cross-pollinate your own ideas.
If you choose to work in an area rich in cliché or teenage stereotypes your work must be very original. It is strongly recommended that you avoid topics such as blood dripping, skulls, large eyes, hearts, fairies, vampires, emotion through eyes, your girlfriend/boyfriend, sunsets, rainbows & clouds, or sad clowns.
ALL images must adhere to copyright laws. By using original imagery or drawing from life you will avoid any issues.
Themes such as “my feelings and emotions”, “nature” or “flowers” are much too broad for a concentration. Even the more common concentration themes such as portraits or still life need a specific focus. Still-lifes that tell as story or emphasize a certain interest in composition or design will be more successful. If the concentration is “portraits”, you should consider things like format, intent, point of view, lighting, style and expressiveness.
Visit the College Board Website. READ the Concentration Statements and then look at the artwork. Really LOOK at how the artwork is connected and the artist developed the idea.

Here are some successful concentration ideas used in the AP Studio Art Drawing Portfolio by students throughout the country in the past. Please take a moment to look over the list as this can help guide you in your discovery of your concentration topic.

Encounters, Experiences and Meetings

The meeting between mother and child / adoption / birth.
The clashing of those who despise each other.
Friends in a bustling and crowded restaurant.
The shields we put up in our brains: the filter between ourselves and those we meet.
The joining (or meeting) of two halves.
Meetings between strangers…The million people we pass on a daily basis, but never connect with.
Encounters with god.
Online encounters and the changing social landscape of the world.
The clashing of cultures.
Meeting someone who has suffered a great loss.
Shameful encounters / those you regret.
A meeting room, filled with business people who go about their daily lives in a trance.
A boisterous meeting between children.
A birthday party.
Meeting at a skateboard park.
Reunion at an airport.
Meeting for the last time.
A life-changing moment.
Focus on the senses (an event experienced through sight / audio etc).
Something that made you cry.
A déjà vu experience.
Remembering an experience a long time ago: the passing of time / generations.
The meeting of truth and lies.
The meeting of fiction and reality.
Encountering animals: the interaction between human and animal kind and our influence upon them (for good or bad).
Meeting your childhood self or yourself fifty years in the future.
The meeting of land and sea.
Physical meetings between two things: the boundaries and edges, perhaps at a cellular level (plunging into / stabbing / tearing apart).
The meeting of theory and practicality.
How our own biases, backgrounds and modify/influence every experience we have: the influence of the mind.
Truly seeing yourself as you really are.
The aftermath of a meeting that never happened.
Meeting temptation: the battle of wills.
The meeting of technology and nature.
Ancient man meeting the modern world: the conflict between genes and the modern environment.
Terrorist encounter.

Combinations and Alliances

A young child holding the hand of their mother.
Bad influences (combinations of friends) and peer pressure.
A family unit, in alliance against the world.
The butterfly effect (how a combination of actions / behaviors leads from one thing to another until every tiny moment in a life is interwoven with all the moments that came before).
Political alliances.
How ‘good’ people can complete horrific acts when lead on by the wrong situation and the wrong company.
Still life combinations: salt and pepper, sweet and sour, fish & chips, apple and cinnamon; peanut butter and jam; the literal combination of ingredients used to make a meal.
Unpleasant combinations we would rather not be reminded of: chocolate and obesity; that cute lamb and the juicy steak.
The legal binding (combination) of lovers: marriage / civil unions.
Combination of genes: Darwin’s theory of evolution – how traits are passed on etc.
A study of two people (or animals), or people who care about each other.
A person and something that they use to embellish their identity (i.e. fast car, makeup, fashion accessories, label clothing, iPhones).
You and the one thing that defines you.
Twins.
Siblings.
Mismatched couples.
Unfortunate combinations: drugs and celebrities; childbirth and pain; cats and water; sugar and tooth decay.
Discipline and being cruel to be kind.
Combinations of exercises / sets / routines.
Mixing of light (light streaming through colored glass windows etc).
Lock combinations.
Combinations of numbers – gambling, addiction.
An uneasy alliance: a dog about to break its chain.
Things that depend on each other for survival: a plant growing in dirt trapped in a hole in the rocks; tiny creatures that live in on the fur / skin of others – ticks on cows / hair lice / germs.
Vaccinations and the alliance of ‘good’ germs fighting against bad.
Eco-systems – the interconnection of water / life etc.
A trusted alliance: horse and rider; blind person and guide dog.
Business networks that rely on one another.
Uniting against a common enemy.

Fossils

Highly accurate, scientific records.
The layering of time.
Disintegration and memory.
Bones: the structure of life – the architecture of a living form.
Fish skeletons.
Archaeology and the documenting of fossils.
Unexpected items as fossils (i.e. a fossil of an iPod or other contemporary object – remnants of a modern existence).
Dinosaurs/extinction.

Society Today

Modern diet/processed food.
Digital technology and the impact it has on our lives.
Soaring depression levels / the psychiatric torment of modern man.
Soaring caesarian rates.
Drugs and mind-numbing forms of escape.
Slowing down.
More, more, more: ever increasing consumption.
The mechanized processes involved in the production of meat: pigs in tiny cages / battery hens / images from an abattoir.
Disconnection from the whole: i.e. a factory worker who spends his/her whole life assembling one tiny part of a product, without having any input into the big picture: disillusionment with life purpose.

Inside / Outside

Framing / windows.
Blurring of the boundary between inside and out.
Prisons / loss of freedom.
Breaking in the exterior barrier of things i.e. injuries in flesh resulting in the spilling out of insides.
Autopsy.
Opening a can of preserved fruit.
Pregnancy/birth.
Shelter from the rain.
The inconsistency between what is going on in the outside world and the inner turmoil of someone’s brain.
The change in state as something moves from outside to inside the human body (i.e. food > energy).
An environment that is devoid of ‘outside’ i.e. fluorescent lights / poor ventilation…lacking in plant life…unable to see nature outdoors…the dwindling human condition, etc.
Apocalyptic future: what will happen if humans destroy the outdoor conditions; or a wall is erected to keep an infected virus-ridden population “outside”.
The peeling back of interesting things to expose what is underneath (inside)…i.e. banana skins, seedpods, envelopes.
Vegetables or interesting fruit sliced through to expose the insides (things with lots of seed/pips/bumpy skin etc).
Something opening to reveal something unexpected (i.e. inside a cardboard box).
The Impossible Staircase: indoors blending into outdoors in an indeterminable fashion/a blurring of dimensions.
Inside the human body: complex, organic form: the miracle of life (human anatomy drawings/x-rays.
Inside an animal carcass.
The human ‘outside’ – an exterior presented to those around us. The fixation we have on creating the best exterior possible: weight control/dieting; makeup; cosmetic surgery; latest fashions.
Inside the earth: minerals/geology/the underworld.
Sectional views through a landscape (i.e. showing a slice through the ground/inside the earth): mines/slips/erosion/quarries, with trucks and machinery taking soil and rocks away.
The soul: inside / outside – leaving the body.
Plays upon storage and scale, i.e. miniature ‘scaled down’ items inside other items, like large wild animals stored inside tiny jars.
Castings of the insides of objects – things you don’t normally think about – that are then exposed for all to see.
Walls/divisions/outsiders.
Deterioration that has occurred to something as a result of being left outside (i.e. an ice sculpture that is left in the sun or a decayed, rusted, weathered structure showing the long term effects of the elements).
Light streaming in a window from outside.
Kids in a daycare facility looking longingly outside.
Animals in a small enclosure: a sorry life in comparison to those wild and free outside.
Looking outside from an unusual perspective, i.e. as if you are a mouse looking through a small crack into a room.
Inside a bomb shelter.
Inside is meant to equal haven / shelter: what if inside is not this at all: a crime scene/an inside that has been violated.
In the palm of your hand.
The contents of something spilling out.
Shellfish or snails inside their shells.

Harmony and Discord

Love and hate relationships/fighting between families and loved ones.
The human mind, swinging from joy to misery and despair/schizophrenia/the meddling mind: our own worst enemy.
A whole lot of similar things, with one different thing that clashes with the rest.
Disturbing of the peace: a beautiful scene which is rudely interrupted (i.e. a hunter firing a bullet into a grazing herd of animals or someone pulling out a gun in a crowded shopping mall).
Musical interpretations: jazz bands/instruments/broken instruments.
Money: the root of good and evil.
The broken family/divorce/merged families.
The clashing of humans with the environment.
Something beautiful and ugly.
Meditation to escape the discord of modern day life.
Prescribed medication (happy pills) to minimize the discord in life – but eliminates the harmony?
A visual battle: a mess of clashing colors.
Things in the wrong environment: placing objects unexpectedly in different locations to create discord (or at least alertness and aliveness) a scene of apparent harmony.

Changed Landscape

Erosion.
Changing seasons.
The impact of human waste/litter on the environment.
Urban sprawl.
Forests cut down to make way for new developments.
The pattern of crops, farming and paddocks on the land.

Sky High

Black holes/stars/solar systems/the big bang.
Skateboarders or snowboarders.
Cloud formations/the science of rain.
Flying in sleep.
Views from an airplane window.
Patterns humans have made in the landscape – i.e. motorways/city grids.
Hang-gliding/hot air balloons/free fallings/parachuting.
Insects/birds flying.
Wing structures.
Airports.
Aftermath of a plane crash.
Superman/superheroes.
Things blowing into the air (old newspapers/an open briefcase/seed pods/dandelion seeds).
Falling off a high rise building.
Paper airplanes.
Giants/over-scaled items.
A inner cityscape of high rise buildings – glimpses through windows to people living lives contained in tiny capsules in skyscrapers.
Athletes/sports people leaping through air.

Shade

An intricate still life that creates shadows which become an integral element of the composition.
Translucent sculptures.
Images containing only shadow (without the source object).
Woven shadows.
Overlapping shadows from multiple light sources.
Shadows that are not of the object shown.
A dark alleyway or other location where the lighting conditions are dramatic.
Photographs of paper sculptures: artificial manipulation of form to explore light and shadow.
Skin color.
A monochromatic subject, with the emphasis on tone (light & shade) rather than color.
Hats and sunscreen/skin cancer.
Buildings with visible shading screens built into the facade.

Icons

Toilet symbols in airports with crowds of people of multiple ethnicities (i.e. icons communicating without language).
An absurd aspect of a pop star’s life.
The worship of a pop star by an ordinary teen (posters peeling off a crowded bedroom wall etc).
Religious icons – relevance in a modern world.
Someone using icons to communicate.
The lie of the icon: a pop star with a public image that is nothing like they really are.
Sex symbols: the disparity between ‘real’ bodies and those portrayed in magazines.

Memorabilia

An obsessed fan’s memorabilia collection relating to a particular famous person.
Objects related to something negative that you don’t want to remember: i.e. a night out on the town (cigarette butts, empty beer bottles).
Memorabilia related to a famous wedding (i.e. Prince Charles and Diana).
A collection of tacky plastic characters from a particular film, that lie forgotten and dusty in the bottom of a box.
War memorabilia, interspersed with photographs.

Neon

‘Sleazy’ signs from a dodgy part of town…with litter/other traces of human life/dark alleyways underneath.
A inner cityscape crowded with brightly lit signs – perhaps exploring things to do with the clutter of human life/overpopulation of space, etc.
An decrepit sign (on an entertainment park or tired motel, for example) with broken bulbs/peeling paint.
Disassembling old neon signs and reassembling different signs together in tongue-and-cheek ways.
Inspiration drawn from the Neon Boneyard – where old neon signs go to die (part of the Neon Museum).
Focusing on the eye-catching aspect of neon color to draw attention to unexpected subjects.

Playing

Young children playing with toys.
A family playing a card or board game.
Playing in water – or at the beach, with a bucket and spade in the sand.
Sports – competitive playing.
‘Playing the field’.
Dress up games.
A young child putting un make-up in the mirror (playing at the imitation of adults).
Wendy houses.
An early childhood education scene.
Playing gone wrong: an injured child/fighting children, etc.

Folding Structures

Origami.
Paper airplanes.
Architectural models.
Folding architectural structures.
Tents.
Beach chairs.
Weaving.

Journey

A physical journey from a particular destination to another (i.e. the mundane drive between your home and school…seeing beauty in the ordinary etc; your first visit to see something that moved you).
The transformational journey from old to new (old structure demolished for something new/old technology making way for new etc).
A journey through time, such as a person aging/physical changes, or a record of memorable occasions in a life.
Childhood to adulthood.
Getting through an emotional circ*mstance, such as a loved one passing away or overcoming illness.
Conception/pregnancy/birth.
A miniature journey (i.e. walking down your garden path – with viewpoint at your feet etc; brushing your teeth in the morning – the journey from arrival at the sink to bright white smile).
Achieving a goal.
An academic journey – through school etc (ambition/academic goals/failure/success/test papers/assignments/grades, etc…as in the hurdles you need to go through to get to a university).
On a bus or a plane or a train.
Memorabilia related to a particular journey (i.e. an overseas trip).
A still life made from tickets, maps, timetables.
The journey of an animal (i.e. a bird or fish, swimming upstream).
The journey of an insect walking a short distance over interesting surfaces.
Terrorism and the journey you will never forget.

Domestic

A family argument.
Domesticated cat or other animal.
Domestic chores – focus on a mundane ordinary task such as doing the dishes.
Housewives/the female role/feminism, etc.
Wild versus Domestic.
The ‘perfect’ home situation illusion and what bubbles below the surface.
Domestic versus foreign/invading/other.
Domestic goods = items made in your own country…a still life featuring country-specific items.

Digital Dreams

The merging of reality and our ‘online’ lives.
The fictional online persona (the person we craft in our Facebook profiles and so on).
iPods / digital devices and brightly lit screens.
Cyber dating / online love.
Brain waves and digital imaging of human brains while dreaming.

Looking Through

Windows / frames – from unexpected locations / unexpected angles or in places where the outside scene contrasts the inside scene.
Transparent layers / glass / distortion / interesting views through things.
X-rays.
Old overhead projector transparencies.
Flicking through an old recipe book or photo album.
Looking through small gaps between leaves in the foreground at a natural scene.
Trains/tunnels.
A child looking through cracks in a jetty at the water below.
Invisibility, and the feeling you get when someone ‘looks through’ you – i.e. doesn’t notice you at all.
Kids playing hide and seek, peeking out from a hiding place.
Inappropriate snooping through someone else’s personal belonging.

People – Ordinary and/or Extraordinary

People engaged in ordinary mindless actions, i.e. brushing teeth, doing one’s hair, eating breakfast.
Scars/tattoos/deformities that are out of the ordinary.
The vices of ordinary people (cigarette smoking, alcoholism, food addiction, etc).
Portraits of really ‘plain’ people – seeing the beauty in the ordinary.
The facades/layers people build up around themselves to make themselves seem extraordinary – make-up, fashion accessories, etc.
A person of extraordinary importance in your life (your mother or grandmother, etc).
Ordinary people who have extraordinary roles (i.e. a firefighter).
The extraordinary.
Merging images of people with other objects to make fantastical creatures.
A portrait of an ordinary stereotype: the gossip or the cheerleader etc.
The desperate attempts or lengths someone will go to become extraordinary.
Depictions of ordinary people, so that they look eerie and extraordinary, like the awesome artworks by Loretta Lux.
Sculptures of the ordinary, at extraordinary scales.

Old and New

A grandmother or other elderly person holding a baby.
Meeting your childhood self or yourself fifty years in the future.
Ancient man meeting the modern world: the conflict between genes and the modern environment.
Ancient artifacts, alongside modern instruments.
Discarded outdated computers/technology, to make way for new (things that become rapidly obsolete).
Fresh fruit alongside rotted and decaying produce.
Plastic surgery: an attempt to make old into new.
A decaying structure alongside a new, contemporary form.
New posters overlaid onto an outdoor wall layered with old, peeling posters.
An old architectural form demolished for something new / old technology making way for new etc).

Here and Now

The impact of digital technology on modern lives.
Advances in preventative health and medicine.
The prevalence of natural disasters in recent times.
Terrorism.
Time.
The mechanics of an old clock.
A topical issue, such as food addiction.

Arrival/Departure

Birth.
Death.
Train stations/Airports/Looking out windows at that which is left behind.
Divorce/departure of a parent.
Parents who leave their children.
Recovering from a departure/coping mechanisms.
First day at school (or some other place).
Feet walking away.
A decaying, decrepit building after the departure of the occupants.
A look at building entrances and exits.
Motorway exits.
Maps/subway routes/directions for travelers.

Fruit, vegetables and gardening tools placed in a setting of your choice

A freshly harvested outdoor setting.
A farm-like scene with wooden crates/indoor wooden shed.
Vegetables stored for animals.
Vegetables hanging to dry, i.e. onions/garlic with tools leaning nearby.
A kitchen scene.
A fruit and veggie shop.
A bustling marketplace.
Preserving fruit – knives/chopped fruit/preserves in glass jars.
Fruit, veggies, and tools in an unexpected location, i.e. hanging in plastic bags.
Abstract works derived from the patterns on the skin of fruit and vegetables or the interiors that have been sliced open with knifes.
The brutal smashing of a watermelon or some other fruit or vegetable with a hammer.
The hanging of decaying fruit and vegetables.

Time-Honored

Wedding traditions.
Birthday celebrations.
Religious rituals.
Guy Fawkes.
Christenings.
Coming-of-age rituals.
Graduation ceremonies.

Other

Abandonment of both places and people: Student’s works was depicting people at a nursing home and some were of abandoned places.
Evolution of Illness: Student’s grandmother had Parkinson’s disease and she illustrated through photographic collage, stitching, and writing the process of that illness on her grandmother’s memory, physical ability, etc. Each image (portrait of grandmother) had a poem she’d written about the grandmother interspersed. She printed images on silk organza and layered them with drawings that depicted anatomical body parts effected by the disease. The portrait became blurrier and blurrier of each image. This was used for 2D Design mixed media portfolio, however if the student was to focus more on the drawing aspect of each piece this could be used in the AP Studio Drawing portfolio.
Identity: Hiding behind masks and other roles that we play, specifically focusing on women. The student started out photographing people wearing masks, but eventually move away from this and developed a broader interpretation of how we hide behind our roles as women “masking” who we are.
Illustrating a field trip to a historical farm emphasizing on the antiques, tools, etc. of the historical period.
Painting or drawing friends in different historical time periods through costumes and settings. Each friend was illustrated in an era and costume that was their current passion like dance, acting, etc.
Series of work based on places a student visited that her deceased father had visited. She used mixed media…photography, collage, painting for AP Studio Drawing Portfolio.
Illustrating a story using an artistic style like fauvism.
Portraying events of short duration.
Painted abstractions derived from microscopic cellular structures.
Works inspired by a story about the first flower blooming on the site of the Cambodian “killing fields”.
Life in celebrity culture: Voyeurism into other people’s humiliation, pain, weakness, and betrayal.
Society based on most efficiency: Explore the most efficient system for - living, food, education, birth, transportation, etc. Student created oil pastel drawings of plant material juxtaposed with manmade objects.
Abstractions derived from still lives of household objects.
Ink drawings based on photographic portraits.
The body as a landscape.
Ugly (wasn’t so ugly at all, and student used lots of mixed media and inspiration from Banksy).
Hands and feet.
The skeleton/bones put into before and after situations.
Unusual environments.
Masks (interpreted - how do we hide?)
War (inspired by Viet Nam Veteran, but grew to all conflicts).
Large close-ups of insects that evolved into very graphic interpretations.
Light - What is light?
Wings - How do we fly?
Water theme. Student used water as a metaphor.
Documentary style works of local veterans who fought in Afghanistan. Student submitted this for 2D Design Mixed Media Portfolio, but could also be used for AP Studio Drawing Portfolio by focusing on drawing techniques/ types of shading.
Fruits: Student illustrated growth on trees through the picking, processing, selling, and consumption by people.
Self Portraiture in action (at play) from early childhood to later childhood with focus on color and texture. Remember color can play an important impact through the symbolism and how its used.
Kitchen objects set up to represent cellular structures (in biology) with dramatic lighting and usage of color.
Focus on Vermeer - setting up friends and relatives in the positions of famous paintings and drawings by the artist, and then emulating the set ups in the students’ own work (dramatic natural light, models involved in daily routines).
Fauvist style landscapes of places that have meaning for you.
Favorite book or poem illustrated in a specific style (exaggerated perspective).
Trip overseas - creating posters, flyers, magazine covers to advertise the country (using photos that you have taken yourself).
Human influences on the environment - using photos the student took of aesthetically unpleasing human made structures (oil rigs, factories, etc.) Student then developed the photos and used them to do hand coloring, collage, and experimental mixed media techniques, finding the beauty within the ugliness.
Close-ups of machines - engine parts, factory machines, etc. combined with exaggerated 3D effects and specific usage of color (i.e. warm/ cool, analogous, etc.)
Choose a particular artist/ or style and emulate it, setting up your own people/ objects/ landscapes or abstractions.
Animal shelter drawings.
Self-portrait with grid overlays/ variations within each grid.
Hands in various positions and media.
Reflections on a variety of surfaces.
Insects with colorful and humorous viewpoint.
Expressive landscapes painted using specific color schemes.
Flowers: From realistic evolving to abstract.
Flight shown in extremely technical drawings and paintings which included sinking helicopters in the jungle as well as a birds on a wire, UFO’s over the southwest.
Winged creatures: Drawn in high detail-moths, bats, bees, etc.
Landscapes from my route home from school.
Cultural costumes.
Children as consumers and advertising.
Effects on the American children (from age 8 to age 18) spending 7.5 hours per day using electronic devices.
Cultural heritage as a resource for exploitation. Instead of producing new works of art, past works are picked over, recycled, remixed, regurgitated, and/or repurposed.
Subject dealing with fake corporate and commercial meaning in our lives.
The journey of fruits as it travels thousands of miles by plane/ truck and emits 12 lbs. of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Childhood overconsumption of “anything”.
Altered books based on love gone sour, or other unique themes.
Cultures: Student began with ethnic cultures expanded to include tourists, homeless, etc.
Feathers
Loneliness/estrangement
Interpretations of famous Fairy Tales.
Micro views which become abstractions.
Body language.
Loss of father or family member: Student illustrated person at seminal events.
Environmental consciousness.
Fabric textures.
A cross country meet or sporting event.
Construction: Student based a series of photos of different sites and the impact it has on the surrounding areas.
Rear view mirrors.
Glamorized 1940s jewelry.
Barriers
Members of my family through portraits of their feet.
Porches in my neighborhood, and how it reflects the owner’s identity.
Seven deadly sins with the addition of the student’s own five.
Bareness (both literal and metaphorical).
Vegetables, or food in general.
The dramatic figure (figures with theatrical lighting).
Dance movements from different cultures.
Idiosyncrasies (portraits revealing this in the student’s friends).
Smaller than normal size.
An examination of what is real or mirage using faces and masks.
Illustration of a story about a girl/boy building a sailboat, losing it, and buying it back.
Freedom of expression: What it looks like?
Portraits of the everyday moods of the student’s dog.
Overcoming depression.
Trophy as empty compared to the fulfillment of running and playing soccer.
Resistance
Synthetic environment rivals nature as a driving force in our lives.
Breakdown of community.
Insecurity of social roles.
Stresses of modernity and globalization.
Chemicals in the air, water, and food affecting our brains in unknown ways.
Digital rewiring of our brains in unhealthy ways.
Noise used: Rain, wind, and people talking, now it is roar of traffic, drone of fridge, buzz of monitor…and its constantly being cranked up.
Stimulation addiction, or constant brain buzz (jog with earphones, sleep with iPhone, work with music, etc.) and its effects.
Corporate advertising as large psychological experiment on human race: The average American receives 3,000 marketing messages per day. What is its impact? Erosion of empathy, due to overexposure to violence, pseudo-sex, rape, torture, genocide, etc. on prime-time TV?
Alice in Wonderland theme comparing parts of the story to a teenager’s life.
Roller coasters and their structures turning it into abstract design(s).
The jungle versus concrete jungle: Student started with the jungle and inserting elements of the city life taking over the jungle.
Consequences of cultural hom*ogenization or lack of diversity - i.e. same hairstyles, catchphrases, action-hero antics, etc.
Experience of information overload, drowning in an endless stream of connectivity, or experiencing digital daze: Inability to concentrate, feeling foggy, anxious, and fatigued.
Compare one person’s wordily possessions throughout history or in different parts of the world (i.e. the shoes of Ghandi vs. the shoes of Imelda Marcos).
A series of expressive landscapes based upon personal experience of a particular place.
A personal or family history communicated through the content and still of still-life images.
Abstractions from mechanical objects used to explore mark-making.
Interpretive self-portraiture and figure studies that emphasize exaggeration and distortion.
An exploration of interior or exterior architectural space, emphasizing principles of perspective, structure, ambiance created by light, etc.
A series of figurative works combining animal and human subjects - drawings, studies and completed works.

Unsuccessful concentrations topics used in AP Studio Drawing Portfolio: (These topics were never fully developed and only used in a general view). These might have been better used for the Breadth section of the Drawing Portfolio.

Portraits of emotions
People who shape me
Nature in general
Memories in general
Shocking viewers with the bizarre
Surrealism
Faces
Flowers
Eyes
Family and friends
Reflective surfaces
Illustration of inner thoughts
Moments I was happy
Self-portraits
Music
Everyday life objects
Goddess/myth
Different cultures
Guitars
Reflections
Ideas of beauty
Dance