Drawing and Composition

Art 20, 3 Units – Beginning Drawing and Composition

Art 21, 3 Units – Continuing Drawing and Composition

Art 24, 3 Units – Special Projects: Drawing

Course Summary: The figure is one of the most challenging problems for an artist and many spend a lifetime honing their anatomical skills and developing a personal style. We will explore the figure through gesture, proportion, line, contour, volume and movement. Perspective and foreshortening will enable us to create space in order to ”walk around the figure’. With our model we will study the skeletal system and basic muscle groups, how they overlap and attach to bone. Through an understanding of the amazing engineering mechanics of the body we will gain confidence to move on to depicting personality, mood and emotion in a particular pose. We will learn to render volume and contour with charcoal and pencil, pen / brush and ink, and toward the end of the semester experiment with watercolor and gouache (opaque w/c). We will spend some time on the dynamics of facial expression and hands (the one body part that makes or breaks an artist!).

 

Community-Based Art

Art 181, 3 Units – Artist as Citizen: Introduction to Community-Based Art Practices

Course Summary: Contemporary art practices required for public art:  Creative collaboration with other artists and local organizations; conceptual and technical approaches of a community-based art project.