National Young Arts Foundation:

NATIONAL YOUNGARTS FOUNDATION

Deadline: October 18, 2013. YoungArts identifies and nurtures emerging artists in the visual, literary, and performing arts and provides scholarships, master classes, and monetary awards. Applicants aged 15–18 or in grades 10–12 are welcome to apply. YoungArts provides emerging artists with life-changing experiences with renowned mentors, national recognition, and other opportunities throughout their careers to help ensure that the nation’s most outstanding emerging artists are encouraged to pursue careers in the arts.

Deadline: Oct. 18, 2013/ fee $35

Portfolio Requirements

  • Portfolio must include a total of ten (10) of your best works from the last two years. A written statement that describes your point of view as an artist and your career aspirations.
  • Five (5) of the ten requested should reflect a cohesive idea or technique or theme.
  • The remaining five (5) should either support the first five or reveal another strength.

Submission Guidelines

  • Your work must be original. Any work that suggests visual plagiarism (i.e., a direct copy of another artist’s work), will be disqualified.
  • You may submit a detail of a piece but you may not submit more than one detail per work. Each detail counts towards your total of ten (10) pieces in your submission portfolio. That is, if you choose to submit 5 pieces, and show details for each of these, you have reached your limit for 10 works/pieces/images submitted.
  • Each image must be submitted separately. (10 images in total)
  • Number each electronic submission and provide the following in the space provided during the upload process: Title, Year Created, Size, Medium
  • Do not place your name or any other identifying information anywhere within your files.
  • Images 1-5 should reflect a cohesive idea, technique or theme.
  • Images 6-10 should either support the first 5, or reveal another strength.
  • If you have previously submitted the image(s) to other competitions, it is your responsibility to obtain permission to submit said image(s) to YoungArts.
  • Do not submit Images created with camera phones (most camera phones will not produce an image at 300 dpi, and images are altered in many photo software programs).
  • Do not submit Images designated as “web-ready”
  • No Slideshows, PowerPoint presentations, Animations, Movies
  • No Audio with your pictures
  • Do not embed Images into Microsoft Word

Evaluation Criteria

  • Portfolios should demonstrate original thinking, an artistic commitment, a willingness to take creative risks and demonstrates skillful muse of materials.

Submission Technical Specifications

Photographing Images:

  • Position the camera to take an image as “tight” as possible to the original.
  • Use as much natural light as possible, minimizing the amount of flash needed for the image. The best photographs are taken with indirect sunlight with no glare or shadows on your artwork.
  • When photographing flat works of art, use a neutral or non-distracting background, avoid covering the art work with a surface such as glass or acetate that will produce a glare.
  • Objects not related to your art work should not be included in your picture.
  • Images may not be digitally manipulated or altered other than color or contrast correction.
  • Images are to be nothing more than digital representations of original artwork.

Formatting Images:

  • Image Print Size: at least 4 x 6 inches at 300 dpi
  • Image File Size: Maximum of 6 x 9 inches at 300 dpi
  • Image File Size: Minimum of 500 KB / Maximum 4 MB
  • Image File Format: JPEG (JPG)

Images Created Using a Digital Camera:

  • Set camera for "JPEG" format
  • Set camera for "fine" or "extra fine" resolution, not "web" or "normal"
  • Use a 6+ megapixel camera that has a high resolution setting.
  • Image pixel size camera setting: Minimum 1200 x 1800 / Maximum of 1800 x 2700

Scanning Photographs/Slides:

  • Scan slides at 100% at a minimum of 1500 dpi.
  • Scan photographs at 100% at 300 dpi if photo is 4 x 6 inches or larger (8 x 10 photographs use 250 dpi.
  • Photographs larger than 6 x 9 decrease the dpi by 50 for each additional size scale. (i.e., scan photographs at 100%, but at 250 dpi for 8 x 10 or 200 dpi for 9 x 12 inches).
  • Scan photographs at 100% using at least 600 dpi if photo is smaller than 4 x 6 inches.