In my previous article about Diversifying Revenue and generating more passive income as an Artist, I did mention in the part where I talked about art licensing that you need to have a well-done portfolio in order to pitch your services to companies, clients, and other people who might be interested in your art.

So for this post, I’m going to cover the following points:

  1. What is an artist’s portfolio?
  2. How to create an artist’s portfolio?
  • Content
  • Labels and descriptions
  • Style and harmony
  • How to make your portfolio reflect your persona
  • Accustoming your portfolio to your client
  • Portfolio templates

1- What is an artist’s portfolio?

An artist’s portfolio is a document that speaks for you and your work in the places you’re not present. It serves as a personal bio and a collection of an artist’s top choices of artworks that would reflect and showcase their style, technique, and way of creating what they create. 

As an artist, you’ll need a portfolio every time you’re willing to work on a project, show a sample of what you’ve created to a potential client, or even for a gallery submission. You can either put a selection of your best artworks or a detailed, in-depth look at a specific area of work.

You can print your portfolio into a sort of book or catalog and have it on display in galleries, museums, associations, or even your own workshop. But if your set of clients can be easily found online, then I’d recommend you create an online portfolio that looks like a website or a lookbook.

2- How to create an artist’s portfolio?

One thing I would like you to do is to think of your portfolio like the menu of a restaurant. Imagine walking into a luxurious restaurant, you usually find a couple of cuisine specialties, simple, concise, beautiful, and easy to pick from. While, when eating at a cheaper restaurant, you find a huge variety of sandwiches, Asian food, french food, Italian, and more knowing damn well that the quality of all those dishes will be average or above average at most. 

What do you want the impression people get from your portfolio to be? Are you a high-end restaurant of specialty? mid-range? or drugstore?

The choice is of course yours fully and I am here to only guide you through the technical side of it. 

I have gathered all the tips you’ll need to create your own portfolio, from the content of your artist’s portfolio to the platform you might consider using. I have also included some helpful links to make your life easier, so let’s get started.

Content

  1. About You

The first thing you need is a short bio that speaks for you. I assure you that the people reading your artist’s portfolio do not care about your whole life events, so you better keep it focused on your career as an artist, your wins, what makes you special, your inspirations, and what you relate to but nothing too long.

  1. About your work

The next step is to obviously have a set of chosen artworks that would speak for you as an artist. Don’t just put every artwork you have ever created in there; make sure you choose those that would attract your potential customers, clients, or projects. Or the set of artworks you connect with the most.

  1. Your contact

Now that people know more about you and your work, give them something to communicate with you if they want to. Leave a contact number, email, and address. Or if you’re active on social media, leave your handles there. Or you can make a QR code that leads directly to your website or store.

Clear labels and descriptions

If your paintings/designs or artworks of any sort are titled, make sure you add that to every element you list. Not only that, but you should also add a little description (not too much rambling) about your work, the technique you used, the inspiration and so on. One very important thing I’d want you to keep in mind here is that you should call for a little storytelling in this section, if you can manage to tie the meaning or the emotional value of your artwork to a personal experience you’ll have your clients attention for a longer period of time.

How to make your artist’s portfolio reflect your persona?

Make it stylish and harmonious

If you’re an artist, Tradition has it that your portfolio should also be art. It shall match your art style, look like you and have a similar feel and vibe to its content. Make sure your portfolio is also branded.

Read this: Personal Branding for Artists: Create your own personal brand

You may find this article helpful as well: Fun Art Exercise to find your Art Style

Tell people more about you

It’s not only about your artwork, it’s more about you actually. 

Your clients should know that you haven’t created your best art yet, there’s always room for growth and change, and your portfolio should show this. Tell your story, talk about your technical ability, and show your potential. A passive attitude is not cool nor humble, it’s just destructive.

Just like a CV for a corporate job, accustom your portfolio to your desired project/client

This especially goes if you’re a T-shaped artist. This means you have expertise in many different art fields, or you have different art styles and techniques. 

So instead of overloading one portfolio and making it very chaotic and disturbing, you create micro-portfolios where you specify one style of work so you can serve your potential client/business/project… Divide your work into different portfolios and keep them all on hand, so you can always edit and add more content to each one of them.

Let’s move to create an artist’s portfolio together

That was the theoretical part of creating a portfolio. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time you start experimenting and creating your actual portfolio. So let’s do that together.

How to make your own portfolio?

Dear artist, The very first step is your platform choice. Do you want to have a website of your own? or do you feel like sticking to a more collective space like: 

The choice is always yours, but if you want my advice, I’d recommend you start somewhere where there’s already an audience (aka the websites I mentioned above). That way, you’re not only creating a portfolio for your work, but you’re also getting exposure and becoming part of a community.

Here’s a step-by-step How To Create a portfolio on Behance.  

If you end up deciding to create your own website to showcase your portfolio, here are some easy-to-use platforms that require no coding skills. 

Note that: these platforms aren’t all free, but they are all very easy, fast, and flexible to use for beginners and require no coding knowledge at all.

If you would prefer to use a template to create your own artist’s portfolio then export it in a PDF version and keep the editable file on hand. I have my portfolio template for sale here. 

Conclusion

Stop procrastinating and create your artist’s portfolio today! Thank me later and enjoy creating <3