It can be daunting to choose a certain number of your artworks to include in a portfolio submission. Do you pick your favourites? Do you pick other people’s favourites? Do you only pick new works? Read the tips below to help chose your absolute best selection of art works for any submission.

Pay attention to what they want

This is the #1 golden rule of submissions! Sending a submission that does not comply to guidelines given is a quick way to make yourself look unprofessional, and could get you ignored. If guidelines state they want 5 images only, do not send 10 thinking they should see more. Choose your best 5 works and present them in a professional manner.

Avoid redundancies

In the interest of keeping your submission interesting and fresh, avoid sending in multiple images which are very similar to each other. Your portfolio will end up looking much more engaging if you avoid this.

Quality over quantity: only send your best work

If you are asked to include 10-20 works in a submission, remember that quality is more impressive than quantity. If you have works you are no longer interested in showing, don’t like anymore, or don’t represent where you are as an artist, don’t include them. It’s much better to send 10 outstanding works, than 10 outstanding works and 10 mediocre ones.

Ask other people what they think

You may have an idea of what works you want to include, but it never hurts to get a second (or third, or fourth!) opinion. Borrowing some fresh eyes can give you a different perspective on your selection of images, and which ones might work best for your submission.

Compose a selection that represents your practice well

Chose your images carefully to make sure your portfolio makes sense as a whole. This doesn’t mean everything needs to be from the same body of work, in the same medium, from any particular time period, or any other cohesive grouping; it just means that each piece should represent an element of your artistic practice which is relevant.

Do you have any strategies for choosing images for a portfolio submission? What works and what doesn’t work for you? 

Image credit: Rainer Topf

Happy summer everyone! My deepest apologies for the lack of new content on the site recently… I’m going to blame it on the sunshine and swimming. I am currently working on several new topics for posts, as well as a project involving artists which I am very excited about. In the meantime, I offer you a list of excellent art websites run by people who DO update their content regularly. Happy art making!

PS: you can always suggest topics for new posts by emailing me, or by leaving a comment below.

Joanne Mattera Art Blog

Joanne’s blog is a well rounded read that is useful to artists and fans of art alike. She writes excellent reviews of art shows (which include images), as well writes a practical art advice in a series called Marketing Mondays.

Alyson B. Stanfield’s Art Biz Blog

The Art Biz Blog offers concise, focused, useful advice to artists in the departments of creativity as well as business, marketing, and self-promotion.

Artsy Shark

Artsy Shark has a huge library of posts for artists on topics such as art licensing, inspiration, networking, websites, and more. The author Carolyn Edlund consistently delivers relevant advice for emerging artists.

Chris Tyrell’s Art Marketing Blog

Chris Tyrell writes a very engaging and unique blog about self-marketing, copyright issues, pricing, and much more. All the posts are informative but also great to read because of his unique style.

Am I missing any fantastic art resource blogs here? Feel free to share links and tell us why they are great!