Painting PA-120 Painting I and II Carlos Villa (PA-120-1) Bruce McGaw (PA-120-2) Dewey Crumpler (PA-120-3) Prerequisite: None This course combines beginning and intermediate instruction in painting. Students will become familiar with the foundational tools and techniques of painting, and gain an expanded understanding of the painting process through demonstrations, experimentation, readings, and critique discussions. The course content will focus on a comprehensive understanding of pictorial dynamics including composition, materiality, and color. Students will demonstrate an appreciation of how the crystallization of experience, medium, and information can construct a bridge between private experiences and shared public awareness, and learn how to begin, sustain, and complete a work of art. The specific focus of the course will depend on the instructor and will vary from semester to semester. Satisfies Painting I Requirement PA-200 Painting II and III Pegan Brooke (PA-200-1) Brett Reichman (PA-200-2) Jovi Schnell (PA-200-3) Prerequisite: PA-120 This course provides intermediate and advanced instruction in painting. Through individual and class critique discussions, students will apply the varied conceptual processes involved in the practice of painting as a means for independently generating and resolving meaningful visual ideas. The course will broaden personal painting processes and visual vocabularies in relation to technical and conceptual options. Students will display an awareness of contemporary visual culture reflected through the aesthetic and formal qualities of their work, and will verbally articulate the technical, formal, aesthetic, and conceptual goals for a painting or painting project. Students will learn the significance of creating a series or sequence of works, which will develop an idea over time. Through research, students will increase their knowledge of the historical and contemporary conditions of painting together with their own positioning within these discourses. The instructor will determine the specific content and focus of the course. Satisfies Painting Elective
PA-207-1 Better Painting through Chemistry: Tools and Techniques Matt Borruso Prerequisite: PA-120 How is a mixture of crushed rocks and oils transformed into a painting? We will explore the seemingly magical process that makes this metamorphosis possible. This course examines the formal aspects of constructing a painting from the ground up and considers the application of materials as a conceptual strategy. It also encourages experimentation with paint as a substance for manipulation in tandem with more traditional methods. As a class, we will make paintings with an eye toward the unlimited possibilities that the medium holds. The powerful physicality of paint can take shape in the form of super-thin washes, layers of translucent oil glazes, or thick goopy impastos. No matter the style—whether photorealist or faux-naive—a confident understanding of the tools of the trade will provide a solid foundation for a lifelong painting practice. Studio time will be punctuated by demonstrations on stretcher bar and panel construction, ground preparation, underpainting, mediums, paint mixing, color theory, and more. Readings will include excerpts from What Painting Is by James Elkins, Dear Painter, Paint Me, edited by Alison Gingeras, and more. Satisfies Painting Elective PA-211-1 Night Painting Fred Martin Prerequisite: PA-120 For over five decades, the nighttime painting class has been a staple of SFAI’s painting curriculum. This is because the night offers a rich set of metaphors for the undistracted solitude of the painting process as well as a momentary respite from the demands of the daytime regime, allowing students to discover the unseen things that hide in the shadows of the natural ones. Ideally, the night is a time for getting things done, so this advanced class demands that students work hard on developing an extensive body of work focused on what interests them the most. A minimum of fifteen works of art—paintings, suites of drawings, studio journals—will be required to pass the course. During the last class meeting of every month, there will be a critique that examines the production of the previous four weeks. Satisfies Painting Elective PA-220-1 Eye of the Beholder Judie Bamber Prerequisite: PA-120 This course will focus on developing technical skills and conceptual ideas as they relate to the practice of painting from observation. Through a series of project assignments, accompanying readings (to locate the assignments in a historical, political, and cultural framework), slide shows, and group discussions, the class will consider what it means to be making paintings from observation at the beginning of the 21st century. Working from a wide array of sources that include studies, photographs, and in class set ups, students will develop their existing painting skills in order to realize and employ more convincing representations, whatever their subject might be. Satisfies Painting Elective
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