Courses
The drawing experience and its usefulness across disciplines. Drawing is seen as a vehicle for thinking, seeing, and communicating. Formal elements of line, value, shape, texture and space are worked individually and in common. Includes drawing from direct observation and invented images. Studies include illusions of space and shape via figure and form analysis. Through the use of thumbnail sketches, students analyze and improve composition techniques and methods. Constant reference to historical and contemporary drawing practice from many traditions.
- Prerequisites:
- None
- Type:
- hybrid studio/critique
From the complexities of art and design, Visual Language I will isolate a series of topics for examination, discussion and development. These topics are fundamental to all of the disciplines within the field of art and design. The topics in this course include: learning about terms and concepts common to all of the visual arts (for example, composition, space content, color); exploring material, media and presentation skills (traditional and digital technologies included); initiating an historical and contemporary context for art and culture (issues surrounding the history and the institutionalization of art, and issues in contemporary art making); and, furthering a student's own sense of direction in the arts. Through prescribed projects students will progressively define and articulate their subjective interests, expressive ideas, and visual affinities.
- Prerequisites:
- None
- Type:
- hybrid studio/critique
An Introduction to the central tenets of three-dimensional art and design. Understanding 3D form is essential for all majors including sculptors, architects, and industrial designers, and is necessary for successful 2D images. Through design and construction of assigned projects, students explore the conceptual and technical fundamentals of form study: scale, volume, mass, and space. Using a wide range of materials in conjunction with varied building techniques, students creatively investigate the 3D form and its position in space.
- Prerequisites:
- None
- Type:
- hybrid studio/critique
A wide variety of electives offered by assorted departments within the college.
- Prerequisites:
- None
- Type:
- hybrid studio/critique
This is the second semester of the drawing experience and its usefulness across disciplines. Drawing is seen as a vehicle for thinking, seeing, and communicating. Formal elements of line, value, shape, texture and space are worked individually and in common. This course includes a number of options across the different disciplines of the college. See Drawing II Menu Options list for titles of the sections and check cross-listed course numbers for more specific descriptions.
- Prerequisites:
- Drawing Studio I
- Type:
- hybrid studio/critique
Color, in its many nuances, is a constant learning process, a progression of exploration and critical observation for visual artists and designers. This class will focus on using color, its vocabulary, theories and on its formal, cultural, expressive, and pictorial qualities. The class will begin with a hands-on study of subtractive color and light as we mix paint and apply colors. Focus will be on the nature of color, its impact on composition, color relationships, and perception. Understanding hue, value, and saturation will assist students in learning how to mix, apply and use color effectively. In addition additive color will be introduced and we will study the integral nature of it as seen in the context of technology used in digital imaging.
- Prerequisites:
- None
- Type:
- hybrid studio/critique
Pulp made into beautiful sheets of paper will be used for artists books and journals filled with imagery. Students will explore Western papermaking techniques with Thai Kozo and Abaca fibers. Japanese book binding, the accordion, simple side-bound books and journals for personal mark making will be emphasized. Students will be drawing and painting with water-based pigments, hand and machine sewing, graphite, inks etc. In this class drawing skills, perception, and expression will be motivated by the extraordinary qualities of paper and the book as art for visual narrative.
- Prerequisites:
- None
- Type:
- hybrid studio/critique
In this second semester of Visual Language, students are progressing towards a more sustained and independent inquiry into a topic of personal interest. This course emphasizes development and acquisition of the conceptual and material processes necessary in the successful realization of a project in any discipline. In Time students develop a major independent project. The objectives and outcomes of this project will be described through a learning contract to be developed in consultation with either instructor. Students will be expected to integrate and extend processes and media that were introduced in Visual Language I.
- Prerequisites:
- Visual Language I
- Type:
- hybrid studio/critique
Join us for a magical visit to Mexico City, Puebla and Cholula. From the Diego Rivera murals and Frida's home to the great pyramids at Teotihuacan and one of the most splendid anthropological museums in the world, Mexico City is unparalled as a magnet for artists across media. Puebla and Cholula have inspired artists from pre-Colonial times. We travel to south central Mexico and visit remarkable sites, including colonial palaces and homes, cathedrals and basilicas, museums and art galleries, local artists and ateliers and amazing markets. Talavera covered architecture native to Puebla and covered with polychrome patterns, introduces the second part of our journey. Puebla and the historic Hotel Colonial will be our hub after 4 days in Mexico City. Pre-Hispanic tombs and pyramids with intricate stone carved drawings, dozens of religious cathedrals and basilicas built by the Spaniards with unique paintings and patterned adornments, artisan markets with indigenous groups identified by traditionally patterned garments all provide a lush environment for art students and an opportunity for immersion in a culture very different from our own and our very close neighbor. Built as a drawing and mixed media course this program would have great appeal to students interested in design as well as fine arts and across discipliens in these areas. This would include at least students interested in photography, architecture, pattern, surface design, ceramics, drawing and illustration, painting, sketchbooks, art history, cultural studes. Course considers the breadth of drawing rather than a purely academic drawing focus. We will work with drawing as a thinking device, a means of observing and visual note-taking, of exploring multiple media.
- Prerequisites:
- None