Designed to help students explore their artistic vision and begin to plan the way they would like to construct their own version of the drawing major. New drawing majors are assisted in forging a personal approach to visual exploration and expression. This course is strong on personal attention via frequent one-on-one discussions.

Art in Process is a class that offers students the chance to learn about multiple drawing-connected creative approaches. Each student cohort will rotate through different workshop modules, with the final four weeks of the semester devoted to individually driven projects where students will have the time to delve deeper into the skills learned. Participating faculty and classes offered have the potential to rotate and will be announced each semester.

Focuses on the creative and practical uses of drawing to support the development and production of interdisciplinary 3-D work. In this course, students will explore the use of both traditional and computer-aided drawing processes as a means of ideation, research, pre-visualization, design development, and presentation for work that often finds its final form in another medium. A wide range of drawing methods and media will be covered, including traditional drawing techniques, schematic drawing, and Rhino CAD. In addition to this focus on design-build approaches, students will use drawing as a tool to map ideas, develop stories, diagram events, and otherwise aid and communicate thought processes.

This course is geared towards students who have a sense of commitment to painting. It provides a communal studio experience, providing a supportive and critical environment where students can develop their own voice and direction. This course embraces varied mediums and broad approaches to painting. Students ideas and work grow through their own personal experience, as well as, the shared challenges and experiences of their classmates. This course includes individual and group critiques, and slide presentations.

Intensive study of the nude explores issues of form, structure, volume, movement, and composition. Expressive possibilities are also explored and practiced.

The great portraits in the history of western art are those which capture something essential about the sitter. They speak to us of an inner life, of a moment of emotion or reaction, or perhaps of the sitter’s relationship to us, the viewer. What makes one portrait “great” and another weak? Why have portraits such as Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” fascinated people for centuries? This course operates on the premise that all great portraiture depends on the artist’s thorough understanding of the human form, on their keen powers of observation coupled with their highly developed ability to depict what they see, and on their working knowledge of traditional principles of design. Students will build the foundation needed to create beautiful portraits. Coursework will consist of several extended drawings; students work from old master drawings as well as live models, accuracy of proportion, line, and form will be stressed. At the same time, students will study the anatomy of the head and neck, beginning with an emphasis on seeing the skull inside the head. Rhythms inherent in the head and upper body will be explained as the course proceeds. Copying old master drawings will provide students with the benefit of learning to see and draw as the great masters did. Homework will be done from both copies and life in the form of self-portraits. Students will work to achieve a likeness of their model at all times.

In this course, compositional elements are explored for their expressive and formal possibilities within the general framework of realistic space.

Explores formal optics of color perception/interaction along with the psychological implications in drawing. The first half of the semester will deal with review of color theory and introduction to various tools and techniques (dry, wet mixed media). The second half of the semester each student will develop a body of work that deals with a subject of their own choosing.

Explores natural subject matter through observation and aesthetically selective description. Emphasis is on light, composition, form, surface, space, and environment. Students use skulls, shells, birds, animals, live crabs, landscape, and flora, and take field trips to zoos, conservatories, and gardens. Slides of contemporary naturalists and old masters (i.e., Redoute, Ehret, Audubon, and Fuertes), and videos of Banks Florilegium, Robert Bateman, and Beatrix Potter are shown.

Teaches the ancient Asian art of sumi-ink. Students learn the traditional vocabulary of sumi ink while gaining an understanding of history and philosophy of ancient Eastern culture. Material and techniques include working with rice paper, sumi-ink, rabbit skin glue, and backing. Students address the different genres of line drawing, plant painting (the Four Gentlemen), calligraphy, still life, figures, and landscape.

Explores uses of a variety of wet drawing mediums including ink, watercolor, designer and acrylic gouache, tempura and casein. The focus will be on the techniques of line, area and mark-making from both observation and invention, as well as applying the appropriate techniques to concepts, with the opportunity for students to apply them to personal imagery. In addition, students will be encouraged to explore substrates, transparency & opacity, historical, traditional, and non-traditional and mixed media uses of these less toxic mediums and encouraged to connect them to other disciplines.

Mindfulness and the process of drawing go hand in hand. Whether working predominately from visual, felt, or thought perception, the relationship to one’s mind and body is crucial. This course will incorporate a variety of contemplative and artistic experiences to enrich and deepen one’s ability to create from a more holistic place, developing relevant skills and personal interests along the way. Traditional and non-traditional approaches to drawing will be addressed; various tools and techniques will be touched upon, including simple graphite, mixed media, and the use of digital technology. Fluctuating between structured and open problems, this course also explores physical movement including aspects of dance and yoga, mindfulness practices including breath awareness, stillness and walking. Working from visually observed reality and felt sensations, students will work both in and out of class, and will develop a written journal as part of their daily practice.

Emphasizes issues of representational drawing and draftsmanship that reach beyond their most familiar and traditional linear expression to incorporate greater range of mark-making and media as in works of such artists as Rembrandt, Boya, Tiepolo, and Diebenkorn. Students explore relationships between line and mass, observation, and experimentation.

Students who are involved in a personal direction or who are in a search of one receive individual critiques and participate in small group discussions of their work.

It is often said that if you can draw the figure, you can draw anything. Studies of the nude in western art dates back to the ancient Greeks and, in more modern times, to the 1400’s, the period known as the Renaissance. Drawing the nude is the ultimate exercise in learning to see line, proportion and form, and students’ ability to deal with these fundamentals of drawing will be greatly enhanced in this course. Inherent in the human figure are various rhythms which are best discovered through careful study of anatomy. This course will, therefore, be twofold in purpose: Ability to handle proportion, line and form will be enhanced through a variety of short and long studies. Extended poses of several hours will be standard throughout this course. Anatomy will be covered in depth and extensively. Students will learn to see the bones and muscles as they present themselves in bony landmarks, in contours, and in modulations of tone. Students will work from models in class, and from master drawings and the plaster casts in Main for homework.

Offers an opportunity to construct large scale drawings in an exploration of the interplay between space and meaning. Topics explored: sacred and secular space, myth in architectural space, the nature of form, matter and the authentic object. Time will be devoted to in-class work shopping and explorations, both in the studio and field trips. Research and inspiration will include the activity of space in painting, drawing, film, anime, video games, wherever meaning and constructed space are present. This course will privilege diverse cultural sourcing, personal journey and narrative, nontraditional construction of drawings and space, reflective engagement, the knowledge of the body.

Explores the activity of drawing at the intermediate to advanced level. The course will investigate how drawing relates to other media such as installation, performance, photography and new technologies. The course also explores contemporary drawing practices and theory. Through regular in-class drawing sessions that build upon the skill level of each participant, this course will consider drawing from various cultures and contemporary approaches.

The learning objectives of this course are geared toward a specific topic of current interest generally not covered in other courses offered by the department. These courses, typically not offered continuously in the department, provide students and faculty the opportunity to explore new content and course formats. The specific topic is announced in the course schedule.