Collingswood HS/MS Art Dept.: The Evolution of Thematic Work

College portfolios can be a tricky thing for students and teachers to navigate. There is a balance between demonstrating a student's skill set and ability to tackle a variety of media while at the same time showing the student's personal creative interests. Each time students come back from portfolio interviews, students inevitably tell me that the schools were most drawn to their personal, thematic work. Colleges no longer want to see any artwork that is judged as being a "class project". They also like to see the progression of an idea and the process.
So, how do you develop thematic work with high schoolers? It doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes, it never happens (and yes, those students will get into college). For the students who give a large amount of time into creating and developing thematic work, their efforts pay off, and usually in a big way. They seem to be the students who get into the most schools, and even better, get merit scholarships.
I try to do two things with my students. First, I assign a lot of independent work in Art II, Art III, and in Art IV. When I do give an assignment, I give a lot of choice. Most of the time, it is choice in media. Sometimes, I do the reverse and give the media with choice of theme.
As students start to work independently, I do encourage them to try new media. I might notice a student who has been working primarily in watercolor, and encourage acrylic. After a few independant assignments, I start to encourage a theme. Sometimes students can easily choose a theme. Other students need time to research, or even have me provide them with resources.

Here are some examples of student themes:

This is Ansa's work. In her senior year, she did a beautiful colored pencil drawing of the sun setting. The work was completed in her sketchbook. When she brought it to show me, I could see she was excited about the result. I encouraged her to continue observing and sketching at dusk. Eventually, she made a series of images at night using oil pastels.

This is Samantha's work. She had a few sketches of friends in her sketchbook that she did in pen. This was a big departure for her since she had worked mainly in oil and chalk pastels. Her previous artwork were all portraits of animals. She decided to continue with the portraits, but soon began to add text. I encouraged her to try acrylic paints. She continued to add layers to the work and eventually, she had several works like the third image.

This is Julianna's artwork. When Julianna was in Art III last year, she completed the work on the left. The assignment was to create a work on a large canvas panel. Julianna created an imaginary creature and then took the time to hand embroider the work. It came out great.
This project inspired her to work on another panel over the summer. The second image is another imaginary creature. After she completed these two works, she decided to make these creatures her theme.
This year, Julianna sketched more people and was drawn to some wood panels I recently purchased. She decided to paint one of the portraits on the wood panel. This developed into painting portraits onto slices of cut trees. Her artist statement discusses the quest for beauty. She is focused on the idea that sometimes people who have plastic surgery morph into people who look alien. She has continued to develop this theme her senior year. She has two classes a day with me and does some work at home.