AP Art and Design Sustained Investigation Overview

The Sustained Investigation section of your portfolio exam should show a body of related works that demonstrate an inquiry-based sustained investigation of materials, processes, and ideas through practice, experimentation, and revision. This section is 60% of your exam score.

What You’ll Submit

• You’ll submit 15 images, some of which may show details and process documentation. 
• Images can include fully resolved works and forms as well as process works such as sketches, models, plans, and diagrams.

Choosing Your Images

• Select 15 images that demonstrate your inquiry-based sustained investigation of materials, processes, and ideas done over time through practice, experimentation, and revision.
• Ensure that your images also demonstrate skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas.
• Note that there is no preferred or unacceptable material, process, idea, style, or content.

When you upload your images, you’ll be required to identify the materials, processes, and any digital tools that you used, along with the dimensions and image citations. See details about digital image requirements in the AP Art and Design Digital Submission Guide for Students.

Completing Written Evidence

As part of the Sustained Investigation, you’ll also submit responses (Written Evidence) to the following prompts:

1. Identify the inquiry that guided your sustained investigation. Explain how you used tools, research, and experimentation (including digital or AI-assisted ideation, if applicable) to develop and refine this inquiry. If AI tools were used, describe how they expanded your questioning, reflection, or conceptual understanding, not how they generated outcomes (850 characters maximum, including spaces).
2. Describe ways your sustained investigation developed through practice, experimentation, and revision. Include how you may have used digital tools or AI for ideation, research, experimentation, or revision to support your creative process. Describe how your reflection and decision-making guided these tools, emphasizing authorship and ethical use (850 characters maximum, including spaces).

Your responses to the prompts are evaluated along with the images you submit:

• Answer each prompt separately. Do not merge or combine prompt responses.
• The most successful responses relate clearly to the images of work submitted and provide further evidence of inquiry-based sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision.
• You must identify all preexisting work(s) in the Written Evidence portion of your portfolio. Review the Artistic Integrity Agreement for more information. Using a preexisting image in either the Sustained Investigation or Selected Works without citation is plagiarism even if the preexisting image is copyright free or in the public domain.
• Although responses are not evaluated for spelling, grammar, or punctuation, make sure your responses are written clearly (e.g., don’t use extreme text speak or eliminate spaces between words).

Keep in Mind

As you create artwork over the course of the year, be sure to:

• Start formulating questions to guide your sustained investigation at the beginning of portfolio development, based on your own experiences and ideas. Document these guiding questions and continue to develop them throughout your sustained investigation.
• Visually, and in writing, document your ongoing practice, experimentation, and revision in your use of materials and processes as your work develops. Consider how these choices can best demonstrate a skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas.
• From this ongoing documentation of your work, select images and writing to include in your portfolio that most effectively demonstrate your inquiry-based sustained investigation according to AP Art and Design portfolio exam assessment criteria.
• The process documentation images that you include should provide insight on your inquiry, thinking, and making. Include detail images only when it’s important to see a close-up view of a work as evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision, or of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas.
• Carefully consider the sequence of images you submit to demonstrate your sustained investigation. There is no required order; images should be presented to best demonstrate an inquiry-based sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision.
• Also carefully consider the relationship of your images and the written information you submit. The written information you provide should be clear, specific, and concise, providing insight about your work.