Sustained Investigation

What this unit covers

The topics below follow the published Drawing course framework for Unit 1. This unit is worth 60% of the exam, so budget your time against that rather than against how long the unit takes to teach.

Lessons in this unit

• Building a Guiding Inquiry for Drawing13 min · 3 objectivesExplain the Sustained Investigation and how an inquiry drives a body of drawing · Distinguish a testable drawing inquiry from a broad theme or subject · Draft a guiding question rooted in a drawing problem of mark, line, light, or composition
• Practice, Experimentation & Revision with Mark, Line, Light and Composition14 min · 3 objectivesDefine practice, experimentation, and revision as distinct engines of investigation · Use mark-making, line quality, light/shadow, and composition as levers for experiments · Show revision as decisions driven by inquiry rather than fixing mistakes
• Documenting Process, the Written Evidence & Academic Integrity14 min · 3 objectivesAssemble the 15 SI images so they read as a developing investigation · Write the required written evidence to make the inquiry and process explicit · Cite sources correctly and avoid plagiarism and prohibited AI use
• Generating Ideas: Sketchbook Practice, Artist Research & Your Own Reference14 min · 3 objectivesUse daily observational sketchbook drawing to generate an inquiry rather than illustrate one · Research artists for transferable mechanisms of mark, value, and composition instead of imagery to copy · Build a personal drawing question from reference material you made yourself
• How a Drawing Inquiry Evolves: Series, Variables & Knowing When to Stop15 min · 3 objectivesStructure an investigation as deliberate series rather than isolated finished drawings · Predict what changing scale, medium, viewpoint or duration reveals about an inquiry · Record decision points and distinguish an exhausted direction from a difficult one
• Drawing Media & Mark-Making in Depth15 min · 3 objectivesDescribe what marks each major drawing medium can and cannot make · Use toned grounds, erasure, layering and fixative as deliberate drawing processes · Match medium, paper and mark to the intent of a drawing rather than to habit
• The Technical Core: Value, Light, Space & Composition15 min · 3 objectivesControl a full value range and group values into a light family and a shadow family · Describe form using core shadow, cast shadow, reflected light and edge quality · Build space with linear and atmospheric perspective and compose so structure carries meaning
• Reading the SI Rubric, Documenting Drawings & Managing the Year14 min · 3 objectivesIdentify what the Sustained Investigation focus areas ask for and what lifts a middling row to a high one · Photograph drawings so value, edge and surface survive into the submitted image · Plan a year that produces experimentation and revision rather than a late batch of finished work

Every term in Unit 1

All 49 terms we publish for Sustained Investigation, with definitions. Reading them through is the fastest way to find the ones you cannot define — then drill those in cram mode until you can produce them without the prompt.

Charcoal: vine, compressed, pencil

Vine is light and erases completely; compressed is dark and grips; charcoal pencil gives control at small scale. Using all three in one drawing is a decision about hierarchy.

Graphite grades

H grades are hard, light and hold a point; B grades are soft, dark and blunt quickly. A drawing built entirely in HB tends to sit in the middle values.

Conté and chalk

Sanguine, sepia, white and black conté on toned paper is the classical three-value method. Reaching the lights by addition rather than erasure changes the whole approach.

Ink and the irrevocable line

Ink cannot be lifted. It forces commitment, which is why it improves observation faster than pencil for many students.

Brush and wash

Diluted ink laid in tones. The white of the paper must be planned from the start because it cannot be recovered.

Silverpoint and metalpoint

Drawing with metal on prepared ground; the line cannot be erased and tarnishes over time. Unusual enough that it reads instantly as investigation.

Pastel: soft, hard and oil

Soft pastel blends and lifts; hard pastel holds an edge; oil pastel is waxy and resists water. They layer badly together, which is itself worth testing.

Toned ground and the middle value

Starting on a mid-tone means working toward both light and dark. Most students find their value range widens immediately.

Frottage and rubbing

Taking texture from a surface by rubbing. A fast way to introduce found texture and a legible experiment in a series.

Transfer and monoprint drawing

Drawing on the back of a sheet laid over inked ground gives a line you cannot fully control. The loss of control is the point.

Working large with the whole arm

Above about half a meter the shoulder rather than the wrist drives the mark. Scale change alters the mark before it alters anything else.

Drawing daily as a practice

A sustained investigation is easier to evidence when work is frequent. Sporadic making produces a portfolio with gaps a reader can see.

Keeping a sketchbook as documentation

Photographed sketchbook pages are legitimate process images when they show a decision being made.

Time-limited studies

Thirty-second to five-minute drawings force selection. A page of them evidences practice more clearly than one long drawing.

Working from life vs from imagination

Both are permitted and they exercise different skills. Alternating between them within an inquiry is a clean experimental structure.

Copying a master drawing

Legitimate as study and as documented practice, provided it is identified as a copy. Presenting it as original work is an integrity violation.

Writing an inquiry as a question

An inquiry is a question you investigate through making, not a subject you depict. "Trees" is a subject; "How can erasure and reworking make a drawn surface record time?" is an inquiry.

Inquiry that can actually generate work

Test it by asking what the next five drawings would be. If you cannot name them, the inquiry is too vague or too closed to sustain fifteen images.

Revising the inquiry mid-portfolio

Allowed and often a strength, provided the written response explains what prompted the change. An inquiry that never moves usually means you were illustrating rather than investigating.

Sequencing the fifteen images

Order them to show development, not chronology. If the sequence would read identically shuffled, the portfolio is a collection rather than an investigation.

What a process image should show

A stage, a test, a failed attempt or an in-progress state that explains a decision. A finished piece photographed twice is not process documentation.

How many process images to include

There is no fixed number, but images that only show the same work at completion waste slots. Every image should answer "what did this teach me".

The 1200-character written response

The Sustained Investigation asks two written responses with a strict character limit. Write them long, then cut to the load-bearing sentences — the limit is what forces precision.

Naming the materials, processes and ideas

Readers look for all three. Listing materials without the ideas they served, or ideas without the processes that tested them, leaves points on the table.

Evidence of experimentation

Trying a material or method to see what it does, including when it fails. A portfolio of confident finished work with no visible testing scores below one that shows the search.

Evidence of revision

The same problem attacked again after a result. Show the earlier attempt as well as the later one, or the revision is invisible to a reader.

Practice vs experimentation vs revision

Practice is repetition to build skill; experimentation is testing an unknown; revision is reworking after evaluation. Readers want all three and students usually show only the first.

Drawing from observation vs from photograph

Both are permitted. Working from your own photographs is safest, and working from someone else's requires substantial transformation and acknowledgment.

Substantial transformation, defined

Change in form, content or meaning. Changing medium, cropping, flipping or converting to grayscale are not transformations, and redrawing a found photograph accurately is the clearest violation.

Citing a source image

Name it plainly in your documentation. Acknowledgment costs nothing and its absence is what turns a permitted use into a violation.

Generative AI in the portfolio

Artwork may not be produced with generative AI. This is a rule about the work itself, not only about the writing.

Scale and the drawn surface

Working much larger or smaller changes the mark, the arm movement and the viewing distance. Changing scale is a legitimate experiment and reads clearly across a sequence.

Surface as a variable

Toned paper, gessoed board, newsprint, vellum and mylar each take a mark differently. Changing surface is one of the cheapest ways to generate genuine experimentation.

Erasure as mark-making

The eraser is an additive tool on a toned or charcoaled ground. Drawing into darkness rather than onto white is a whole method, not a correction.

Working in a series

Several drawings answering the same question with one variable changed. The clearest structure a Sustained Investigation can have.

Documenting a failed drawing

Include it and say what it showed. A failure explained is evidence of investigation; a failure hidden leaves a gap the reader fills unfavorably.

Writing about a decision, not a feeling

"I chose charcoal because it could be pushed and pulled after being laid down" is a decision. "I liked how charcoal felt" is not scorable.

Photographing graphite

Graphite reflects. Light it at an angle rather than head-on, and check the image at full size for glare across the darkest passages.

Sustained Investigation

15 images showing practice, experimentation and revision driven by one inquiry, plus written responses. Two-thirds of the portfolio score.

Inquiry in drawing

A question the drawings investigate, not a subject. "Hands" is a subject; "how much can a hand be reduced before it stops reading as a hand?" is an inquiry.

What readers score in the written responses

Whether the writing identifies a real question and whether the images show it being tested and revised over time. Rendering skill alone is not the criterion.

The commonest written-response mistake

Describing the subject rather than the question. "I drew my street at night" earns nothing; "I tested whether removing all outline still let the space read as deep" does.

Practice, experimentation, revision

Practice builds skill, experimentation tries something that might fail, revision remakes with intent. Readers look for all three across the 15 images.

Documenting drawings

Flat, square to the camera, evenly lit, white-balanced against a white card, cropped to the paper edge. Graphite is reflective, so raking light causes glare.

Photographing on toned or textured paper

Set white balance to the paper, not to white, or the whole drawing shifts color and the values read wrong.

Scope of an inquiry

Narrow enough to test in 15 images, broad enough to sustain a year. If one drawing answers it completely, it is too narrow.

Process images in drawing

Underdrawings, stages of a build-up and abandoned starts are all legitimate images and often better evidence than another finished piece.

Materials, processes and ideas

The prompt asks about all three. Naming a material without saying what it let you do is a wasted sentence.

Writing about a drawing that failed

Strong evidence, provided the writing says what it taught you. Readers score investigation, not a perfect record.

What examiners penalize here

• 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.

Practice Drawing

Our practice bank is drawn from across the whole course rather than filtered to one unit, which is closer to how the exam asks anyway — it will not tell you which unit a question is testing.

Questions about this unit

All 2 units of AP Drawing

1. Unit 1 · Sustained Investigation
2. Unit 2 · Selected Works