Personal Portfolio

Your Personal Portfolio is half of your Fine Art International GCSE, and it is the half you control completely. Nobody sets you a question. Your centre picks the theme, you pick the direction inside it, and then you have to prove across four A2 sheets that you can find sources worth using, push materials until they do something you did not expect, keep a record of your thinking while it is still hot, and land a finished piece that says what you meant it to say.

That freedom is exactly why portfolios go wrong. A folder can be full of pleasant drawings and still score in the lower bands, because pleasant is not the same as developed. This note takes you through what the four assessment objectives look like in charcoal, ink, print and paint, how to choose and edit a body of work down to the sheets you are allowed to submit, and how to photograph a sculpture or an oversized canvas so the examiner sees the work you actually made.