Animation

Animation students will explore image, motion, character, and narrative storytelling through an introduction to traditional and 2D digital techniques. Students will be challenged to create work from their personal experiences, and to work collaboratively. Portfolios will include concept drawings, storyboards, and completed short animations.

Architectural Design

This course introduces design principles and representation conventions of architecture. Students learn techniques in model-making and drafting with an emphasis on physical models and hand-drawn plans. Projects allow students to address proportion, scale, materials, and other important factors in the design process. The course also focuses on prototyping conventions while actively examining and experimenting with the behavior of basic architectural materials. Final projects explore students' personal design aesthetic while solving and designing challenges related to building architectural structures. Final portfolios include drawings, models, and exercises related to architectural prototyping.

Ceramics: About the Wheel

This course explores the use of wheel throwing in ceramics as a process of innovation and exploration. The potter’s wheel is an ancient tool, but its potential for exploration of new forms and idea development cannot be underestimated. Students will be asked to address and explore how the potter’s wheel can be used as a tool but not as an end in and of itself. The wheel will be explored as a jumping-off point for questions about form, function, design and the potential of ceramics in sculptural applications. Students will have access to MICA’s state of the art ceramics studio and a wide range of ceramics materials. A number of firing and finishing options will also be covered.

Fiber: Color and Structure

The inherent properties of fiber (textiles, fabric, yarn, felt, etc.) and its long and rich history as a medium for both fine and applied arts, are the focus of this course. Students investigate the expressive potential of textile through the exploration of a variety of techniques. Age old processes of stitching, binding, wrapping, and dying are used to create richly layered fabrics with sculptural form. Working in MICA's well equipped Fiber Arts Center students establish goals for final projects that combine their unique artistic vision with fibers special expressive quality.

Figure Drawing

In this course, students work from live nude models to investigate the technical challenges and expressive potential of a range of drawing media and approaches. In addition to investigating the technical challenges of the human form, students work through a progression of drawings that investigate how different approaches to the figure can address mood, spirit, intensity, social/political views, and emotion. Students produce a portfolio of figure drawings that range in style from the traditional to more contemporary and conceptual approaches that embody a student's personal artistic vision.

Figure Painting in Oil

This course focuses on building proficiency for painting the human figure. Working from a live nude model, students learn proportion and anatomy as well as paints formal/expressive elements such as paint form, texture, movement, color, composition and their application to the execution of student's personal artistic vision. Students produce a portfolio that includes ambitious artwork that confronts the demands of large-scale format painting, portraiture, narrative painting, and the intensity with which paint expresses ideas.

Film and Video

This class explores the fundamentals of making a movie. Students work in MICA's state-of-the-art production facilities, located in the former Centre Theatre, an old Art Deco theatre that now houses sound studios and a sound stage, screening rooms, editing labs, and many other resources for filmmaking. Our film centre is also located directly across the street from the historic Parkway Theatre, home of the Maryland Film Festival where students have access to a variety of cinematic inspirations. Students in this course learn how to use a variety of professional cameras and lighting equipment as well as audio recording techniques, video editing, and post-production. Students can work in groups or go solo as they create a final portfolio that may include a short film, narrative film, or documentary.

Game Design

Students will explore games from a unique perspective that can only be found at an art and design college.  Students will question how games are used to entertain, educate and create meaning, as well as focus on building the fundamental technical skills needed to become a game designer.  Through this course students will learn how to visualize, plan, and begin developing their own interactive projects.  Final portfolios feature a finished digital game. Although programming is explored in this course students do not need any previous programming experience.

Graphic Design

Type, image, composition, color, and concept, are among the essential tools used by graphic designers to solve visual challenges related to the creation of posters, websites, logos/branding, product packaging, and signage. In Graphic Design, students take on "real world", design industry challenges. Students find their own voice as they develop designs with commercial, social, public, and political impact. Final portfolio pieces include design solutions for logos, books/brochures, poster design, and product packaging that combine words and images to penetrate people's hearts and minds.

Illustration

Illustration tells a visual story, provides visual interpretation, or creates a visual explanation of a narrative, concept, or process. Illustrators create images for posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, video games, and films. Students in Illustration: Telling a Story apply approaches to contemporary illustration as a means for creating or supporting a narrative/story. Students consider issues of character development, sequential imagery, storytelling genres, and the relationship between text and image. Final portfolios include a range of work incorporating several different drawing and painting media.

Interdisciplinary Art

This course focuses on combining various media and the intersection of visual art, creative writing, movement, and music/sound. Students explore a variety of art-making formats and concepts that can incorporate, drawing, painting, book arts, photo, video, sculpture, collage, performance and more. Emphasis is on personal expression through visual art and narrative approaches. Students have access to a variety of art-making and fabrication tools. Final portfolios emphasize projects that engage a variety of media approaches, innovation, and finished work with strong conceptual components.

Photography: Digital Storytelling

Students gain insight into digital camera operation, file formats, and the impact of digital technology on contemporary photographic practice. Students explore storytelling through photography, it's history and impact. Finally, students propose a final portfolio project and create a body of narrative images in series. This format allows students to explore the history and foundation of photography, as well as the future of digital photographic technology and the power of a camera to communicate ideas.

Printmaking: Relief Printing

Relief printing can be simple and direct, resulting in bold graphic images. With this method, ink is transferred to paper from the surface of linoleum cuts, woodcuts, or found objects. Students explore the development of their own ideas in this medium from both technical and personal points of view. Large and small-scale prints are produced. Students will create works in both Black and white as well as at least one project in color.

Product Design

Have you ever thought of developing your own marketable products and wonder how design professionals develop and scale-up their ideas? Maybe you want to try new materials and fabrication processes,or you need to expand your skills to include 3-D making. Bring your imagination and your 2-D skills and we will show you how to transform them into 3-D forms. Push your creativity by an encounter with the rigor of design thinking and explore the intersection of the maker movement and the field of product design. Class is held in MICA's newest fabrication lab – the Dolphin Design Center. Explore traditional as well as 21st century materials and processes, exciting demonstrations, learn transferable skills and enjoy plenty of hands-on, making-time. This is the perfect class to expand your 3D portfolio for applying to art and design programs throughout the world.