AP Drawing — Cheatsheet
Formulas, exam-day tips, and key terms on one page.
On the exam
- Some of your 15 images should show **studies, experiments, and reworked drawings** — not just polished finals. Deliberately photograph preparatory sketches and before/after pairs so the *investigation* is visible. A portfolio of 15 finished, unrelated drawings reads as a sketchbook show, not an inquiry, and loses the investigation row.
- Treat the **written evidence** as scored real estate. State your inquiry as a question, connect specific **mark-making, media, and ideas** to it, and point at an experiment or revision. Writing that merely names a subject and states a goal ("make it realistic") throws away easy points on the investigation row.
- Sequence your submitted images so the chain is legible: put an experiment beside the result it produced, and a "before" beside its reworking. Readers should be able to follow the reasoning by looking, not by inferring. Unordered images make a developing investigation look like an assortment.
- Never build a submission from remembered specifications. Image counts, character limits, accepted file formats and deadlines are set by the College Board and can change year to year — confirm the **current** requirements on the official AP Drawing course page and with your teacher, and leave time to fix a mismatch.
- Readers only ever see your **photographs**, never the drawings. A superb drawing shot with glare across the darks, crooked, or with washed-out value is judged as the flawed image it appears to be. Budget real time to shoot the 5 works well — flat, even light, no sheen, accurate value — because poor documentation quietly costs points on both rows.
How to get a 5
- The Drawing portfolio requires a focus on mark-making, line, surface, space, light and shade, and composition.
- Practice drawing from direct observation, not just from photographs, to better understand form and light.
- Don't be afraid to leave some areas 'unfinished' or looser to create emphasis and contrast with highly detailed areas.
- Your written commentary is important; use specific drawing vocabulary to describe your process and intent.
- State the inquiry as a question about a drawing variable you can actually change — mark type, value range, ground, edge quality, cropping — not about a subject. A variable makes experiments possible, and the 60% section is scored on visible experimentation.
- Build comparison grids. Nine studies of one subject in which only the mark changes, with pose, light, scale, and time held constant, is far stronger evidence than nine unrelated drawings, and it photographs into a single powerful image.
- Photograph the work in progress before you rework it. Once a drawing is resolved, the earlier state is gone forever, and a before-and-after pair is the single most efficient way to earn revision credit.
- Squint at every drawing before calling it finished. Most lost skill points come from value structure rather than from rendering: if the big masses do not separate when you squint, the drawing will read flat and muddy no matter how careful the detail.
- In the written responses, name the element responsible for each problem and each fix. "I lifted a band of light along the far cheek to restore a turning edge, and the head recovered its volume" earns credit that "I kept working on it until it looked better" cannot.
Key terms
Mark-making — The character of the marks themselves — pressure, speed, direction, tool. The thing this portfolio is most specifically scored on.
Line quality — Variation within a line itself — weight, speed, continuity, pressure, and tool character. A line that thickens where a form turns toward the viewer and thins where it recedes is doing descriptive work; a uniform outline is not.
Hatching & Cross-hatching — Techniques used to create value and texture using sets of parallel and intersecting lines.
Stippling — Creating value and texture by using small dots.
Contour Line — A line that defines the edges and surface ridges of an object.
Gesture drawing — A rapid drawing capturing movement and weight rather than outline. Used to establish the whole before any part is refined.
Linear perspective — One-, two- and three-point systems using a horizon line and vanishing points to construct convincing depth.
Atmospheric Perspective — Creating the illusion of depth by reducing color saturation, value contrast, and detail in the background.
Foreshortening — Compressing a form receding toward the viewer. Drawing what you measure rather than what you know is the whole difficulty.
Chiaroscuro — Strong contrast of light and dark to model form and create drama. Requires deciding on a light source and holding to it.
Tooth — The surface texture of paper; paper with more tooth holds more charcoal or pastel.
Fixative — A spray used to preserve dry media drawings (like charcoal or pastel) and prevent smudging.
Portfolio structure at a glance (Drawing) — Sustained Investigation: 15 images, 60%, plus two written responses. Selected Works: 5 works, 40%, each with brief written identifications of materials, processes, and ideas. Everything is uploaded digitally through the AP Digital Portfolio.
The two Sustained Investigation written responses — 1) Identify the questions that guided the investigation — about 600 characters. 2) Describe how the work shows practice, experimentation, and revision guided by those questions — about 1,200 characters.
What counts as drawing skill — Mark-making, line quality, composition, surface manipulation, and the use of light and shade — used purposefully to serve intent. Any medium qualifies, including painting, printmaking, and digital work, if it demonstrates these concerns.
Value structure — The planned distribution of lights, mid-tones, and darks across a whole composition. A full range creates depth and emphasis; a compressed range flattens form. Diagnose flat or muddy drawings by squinting to see whether the big value masses separate.
Additive vs. subtractive drawing — Additive: marks are deposited on a light ground (graphite, charcoal, ink on white paper). Subtractive: a mid or dark ground is laid first and lights are removed with erasers or chamois, so light itself becomes the mark and edges stay inherently soft.
Sighting for proportion — Choose one measurable unit in the subject (a head height, a hand length), then compare every other distance and angle against it. Establishing large relationships before detail keeps error from accumulating outward from small features.
Chiaroscuro and the light logic of a form — Model form with a consistent light source: highlight, light, halftone, core shadow, reflected light, cast shadow. Inconsistent light logic reads as error even when individual passages are well rendered.
Cropping and composition — Cropping is a content decision: cutting into a figure creates tension and implies continuation beyond the page, while centering with generous margins reads as stable and complete. State the intended effect in the written response.
Inquiry vs. theme (Drawing) — Theme: "portraits of my grandmother." Inquiry: "How does changing my mark alter how much a portrait seems to withhold?" Only the second names a variable, generates experiments, and can be answered or reframed.
Synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas — The process should produce the meaning. Subtractive charcoal in a project about loss is synthesis because drawing is removal; the same subject rendered in careful additive graphite would need a different justification.
Process documentation — what counts — Timed study grids that isolate one variable, thumbnails and value studies, photographed sketchbook pages with annotations, work in progress, and before-and-after pairs of a revision. These occupy some of the 15 Sustained Investigation image slots.
Academic integrity rule — Work based on another person’s photograph or drawing must move well beyond duplication into substantially new work, with the source cited. Redrawing a photograph in a new medium is not transformation, and unattributed copying can invalidate the portfolio.