VISUAL ARTS

We are surrounded by objects, the myriad things of our world. A still-life is a creative pictorial representation of selected and arranged objects. In this studio art class, students will work with oil paints to paint two to three different still-lives they construct themselves according to specific project prompts. Our prompts for this term will revolve around various ideas of symbolism in the still life genre. We will study the art of many centuries of still-life painters for examples and inspiration regarding these different symbolic themes, from vanitas and death, to the bounty and beauty of nature, food and feasts, the mundane objects of house and home, to the excesses of consumer culture, the surreal and uncanny, and more; as well as to pinpoint characteristics of various styles of representation in this genre, from hyper realistic, to naturalistic, to abstract. Students will collect and compose, and bring objects to class, with symbolic meanings and qualities specific to the thematic project prompts, to paint from direct observation during studio class time. Students will learn fundamentals of oil painting such as color theory, paint mixing, and paint handling. Students will also learn to stretch and prime a canvas. Homework for this class will involve art research, the collecting and composing of objects, sketching, and supplemental studio hours. Prerequisite: Intro to Art, Drawing, or permission of instructor. This class may be taken multiple times for credit. (winter term/one-third credit)

Have you ever wished to make representations of people in clay? In this class, students will have the opportunity to make figures and portraits and explore different methods of constructing these sculptures. The first method students will use is slab construction, and in the second, they will employ an armature (internal support structure) to build their piece, that they will then remove to hollow out the figure for firing. Students will learn the basic proportions, mass relationships, and gestures of anatomy. They will also explore the use of clay in figurative and portrait sculpture from prehistory until today, and fashion a range of smaller body-form studies inspired by the examples we study, from naturalistic to abstract. Each student will also learn to make a plaster mold of one of their sculpted body forms and slip cast a series of clay replicas using their mold. All clay projects will be fired in the kiln and some projects will be decorated with stains, underglazes, transfer decals, and glaze. Students will conduct art historical research, creative planning, and complete supplemental studio time for homework. (fall term/one-third credit)

Animation is a powerful and ubiquitous form of storytelling. The medium is highly sought after for its ability to captivate and inspire the viewer. We will explore Disney’s twelve key principles of animation and each student will make a series of hand-drawn flipbooks to explore select principles in depth. Then, students will learn how to make animated short videos. We will use various Adobe programs (Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, and/or Animate), and combine some traditional analog art techniques with 2D digital animation processes. Students will make three short video animation projects: an animated GIF, a stop-motion animation, and a digitally drawn 2D character animation. Students will plan their projects through a process of brainstorming and storyboarding, following their own individual interests in storytelling and artistic style, while embracing improvisation and chance discoveries in production. Students will learn select post-production techniques in film-editing and sound. Students will research historical and contemporary artist/ animators who express their ideas through this versatile art form and experiment with how to apply their insights from this research to their own class work (winter term/one-third credit)