National Portfolio Day at OCADU & Toronto

Hello again! I'm about a week late on this post, but at least I'm getting it in right? 
Last weekend I went to Toronto for National Portfolio Day, held annually at OCADU. It was my first time going back to TO in a REALLY long time so it was super exciting, and my first time getting my art critiqued by someone else that wasn't a teacher or my peers.

I was beyond nervous about the assessment because I'm really not that confident in my art, (sorry, you're not going to get pics of my art yet!) but it went a lot better than I thought! This post is mainly about my experience at the event, so it'll just be a lot of text and not much else euhehe. Please keep reading if you'd like to hear about my experience!


I got to the OCAD campus at around 7 since we drove straight from my house to Toronto at around two in the morning. My parents are insane  There were people already lining up in front of the doors of the main building, but I was warned by a representative who came to a university fair a few weeks back at my school, that there would be people that are willing to wait in line as early at five o'clock.
I didn't start lining up until 8 am, because I realized that the line was starting to get a little busy even though the doors didn't open up until noon. If you ever plan on doing one of these things, please being a little chair or something to sit on, something to do, or some company because lining up gets tiring and boring real fast! AND DRESS WARM. I ended up getting mad shivers two hours in to lining up and it wasn't fun.
I was one of the first thirty or so people in line, but as the hours drew closer, I began to realize that people were butting. I wasn't too bothered at first, since it was just a few kids coming in and meeting their friends, but all of a sudden I ended up being one of the first hundred in line. In all honesty, I was fuming. The girl behind me and her mom were also not impressed by this situation, but there really wasn't much we could do about it.

Fast forwarding to when the doors opened to let all the art kids in, I visited OCADU first to get my "portfolio" assessed. By portfolio, I mean not really-a-portfolio portfolio. I brought my sketchbook and six other pieces that I really didn't consider to be 'portfolio worthy' since I spent less than a day on each of the pieces and to be honest, didn't put my ~*passion*~ and 120% of my effort into them. There were a lot of other students with super huge canvases and really well done pieces of art so I felt pretty dumb bringing my stuff in a little folder since they looked like they put so much thought and effort into their pieces, and well, I didn't. 

Anyway, I waited for about five minutes in line, and a lady directed me to one of ten or so tables in the auditorium that the university profs were sitting at. It was a fairly quiet atmosphere, but it was relaxing. The man who evaluated me was really nice and super chill about the whole thing. I told him how nervous I was about this and he assured me that everything would be fine and told me not to worry because it's supposed to be a fun and enriching experience.
The first thing I did was shake hands with him and then pull out my samples and sketchbook. He went to the sketchbook immediately ans began to flip through it and asked me a lot of questions about my art and what I was planning to do with it, and also asked a few questions about my sketchbook  organization, where my sketches originated from (life drawing, photographs), and why I had some of the things I had in it.
Next, he looked through my portfolio samples. He told me he really enjoyed my variety of mediums and my graphic design stuff because it was really strong and it looked like I knew what I was doing. He mentioned that there's stuff that they can teach me, but I 'definitely have potential' so he said I had an offer for OCAD! He said he'd love for me to come back in February for a portfolio interview, because the professors would enjoy having me in their classes, although he wouldn't be there next year because he's retiring huhu.

After I shook hand with him and thanked him, I went to Emily Carr. Mainly because it was the only name I knew, but I knew nothing else about it except that it's apparently super prestigious. I later found out in line that it was in Vancouver, BC so I figured I'd be only going there to have them talk about my art and where I improve. The line took a little more than an hour to wait in, but I realized that it was because the evaluation was a lot more in depth than OCAD's and that there were only four professors in the room talking to each of the students. I filled in a form that
 a volunteer gave me, and notices that there was a little report card / rubric that they were assessing us with which made me super anxious.
Emily Carr's evaluation was a lot more nerve-wracking than OCAD's, because a lot of the kids who walked out of the interview room, walked out with unpleasant faces. It also seemed to be a lot more uptight than OCADU.
When it came to my turn, I sat down on the chair across from the lady and became a nervous wreck. Rather than having her grab at my works like OCAD's prof did, she expected me to go through my stuff and explain my work. which I didn't do oops 
After I flipped through my sketchbook and my art pieces, she went through them again to have a closer look and ask me some questions about my work: who is that, where'd you get your inspiration from, what medium did you use, etc.
She mentioned how (once again) that she saw that I was strong in graphic design, that I had good technicality skills, and liked that I had a variety of themes and mediums in my portfolio. She said that I my main weakness is on the conceptual side of art, and that I should be focusing on the meaning behind my pieces. She also mentioned that if I wanted to apply to Emily Carr not happening, to focus on their theme and expectations.

I planned on doing a third evaluation if the second one was super critical, but since it wasn't I passed on going to another one. The lines were getting ridiculously long, and I was losing my patience so my family and I left after being in the building for an hour and a half hehe.

Aaaaaand that concludes my account for NPD. Overall, I think that it was a really good experience and was worth going to. I learned where my strengths and weaknesses were, and got a pretty good confidence boost when I heard that I had an offer for OCAD. Although Emily Carr was critical, I feel like I needed that for some motivation to make a strong portfolio. Getting the conceptual side down for me will definitely be a challenge, but I hope to get the hang of it before portfolios are due, otherwise I'm up the creek without a paddle.

My little brother and I at OCAD. He's so much taller than me TT TT