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Course Description

Four blowfish in shades of pink, peach, and coral, swimming in a cluster.

Instructor: Caleb Turner

Offered in Summer, Fall, and Spring.

CalArts' Portfolio Development Workshop for Artists and Animators is an eight-week online intensive designed to help you explore concept design and visual development for animation, and enhance your application portfolio for college animation programs. The focus here is less on making perfect drawings and more on giving you an open arena to explore and learn to love drawing while broadening creative ideation and output.

Each week, the instructor will introduce different illustration styles and examples from films to inspire new work and teach you about visual composition and storytelling. Weekly assignments based on these resources give you the opportunity to produce exaggerated character designs that can be used as concepts for future animations, 3D models, graphic novel ideas, and gallery work.

Portfolio Development Workshop class sessions and critiques are not live streamed. You are free to access the class materials each week at your convenience. You will work on your assignments on your own time and upload them to the class module on Canvas, a CalArts online learning platform, by a set deadline. At the end of the week, the instructor will give you direct feedback on submitted assignments with video critiques. Lectures and video critiques are pre-recorded.

Prerequisites

You must be 14 years old or older to take part in this workshop.

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Enroll Now - Select a section to enroll in
Section Title
Portfolio Development Workshop for Artists and Animators
Type
ES Online Asynchronous
Dates
Sep 29, 2025 to Nov 28, 2025
Delivery Options
Online-Asynchronous  
Course Fee(s)
Tuition non-credit $1,100.00 or $250.00 deposit Click here to get more information
Section Fees
Adobe Creative Cloud $250.00 Optional
Section Notes

For an example materials list, click here.

THIS COURSE IS ACCESSED THROUGH CANVAS

The Canvas platform provides an instructor-led learning experience. These class sizes are small to facilitate discussion and engagement with your instructor and other students. You have access to recorded content from CalArts instructors and may complete the course work at your own pace with set deadlines. The instructor is available in live sessions to answer your questions and provide individualized feedback on assignments.

Most Canvas online courses qualify towards a CalArts Certificate.