Fleming College

An examination of the evolution of materials and styles for drawing and painting will be included in this course which provides an introduction to the use and development of drawing and painting processes in art history, from cave painting to the impressionists. Students will participate in researching works from historical and contemporary periods to determine their own personal interests for further studies. Studio exercises will allow the students opportunity to mimic drawing and painting styles from the masters. Studies will also explore examples of composition within the two dimensional realm of the paper or support. In class group discussions will provide a platform for the practice of observation and critical reflection.

This course provides an overview of the dynamic shifts in the artistic eras of drawing and painting, beginning with the activity of the impressionists up to present contemporary practices. Students will participate in researching key works to determine their own personal interest for further studies. Studio exercises will allow the students opportunity to mimic a variety of drawing and painting styles from the masters, as well as study examples of composition. Group discussions will provide a platform for the practice of observation and critical reflection. An examination of the evolution of materials and styles for drawing and painting will be included in this course.

As a major design element, colour often carries the first impact of a drawing or painting. The properties of colours and how they behave within colour systems will be explored in both theory and studio practices. Through extensive colour samplings students will be introduced to basic techniques for application and colour mixing with watercolour/acrylic paints. Students will use valid colour terminology while exercising their ability to perceive, describe, and match colour properties of value, hue and intensity as well as identifying their role in evoking three-dimensionality in the picture plane. Colour systems from real life, fine arts and design sources will be researched, analyzed and sampled to establish mood and meaning in expressive applications.

This course will begin with a review of the observable properties of all visual art objects with respect to their form, function, context and subject matter. This will afford clear differentiation between objective and subjective criteria when using both the design and critical processes. Using materials already introduced in the program up to this point, studies in subject matter will manipulate representational, abstracted, and non-representational works in the achievement of differing focal points, visual pathways, spatial depth, and considered contrasts in design. The main emphasis of course activity will be to enable the student to use the design process and language to reference the principles and elements of design in developing and analyzing samples of two-dimensional compositions. A basic reference to the content or meaning which results from different design solutions will allow the student to begin to address their own responses to visual signals in drawings and paintings. Repeated practice using previsualization tools such as thumbnail sketches and collage will support activities to gather, choose, arrange, and test ideas.

In this introductory course to the VAF Studio Certificate, students will use techniques to build skills for 'seeing' in conjunction with basic techniques and methods of representational drawing with dry media. As these versatile techniques will enable the artist to utilize any type of subject matter, in class studies will include landscape, still life, botanical forms, manufactured objects and the human figure. Studies will include use of line, value, proportion, movement and texture, for the purpose of representing three-dimensional forms on the two dimensional plane.

Continued studies in representation and realism will accompany an introduction to abstraction from observed subjects such as landscapes, life model, and found objects using such strategies as distortion, exaggeration, simplification, repetition and rearranging of observed aspects of the subject. Non-representational and expressive matters will also be explored in relation to the properties of the drawing materials, now expanded to include an introduction to inks and watercolour. Foundation material covered in Drawing - Tools and Techniques I provides the platform for line, value and preliminary colour studies using wet media: contour types, gesture, controlled, expressive, texture generations etc. Students will also begin to apply strategies for layering in the drawing process.

Practicing artists can choose from many different paths to advance their personal and artistic goals in artistic practice, education, presentation skills, and promotion and marketing as entrepreneurs. Each student will establish their own specific focus for continuing their artist's practice. In class sessions will involve online research, writing, digital photography, presentation, and critical discussion. Pre-course assignment work will provide the data for artist documents and digital images of their work for the development of a portfolio. Students will show their work in an established campus venue as a culmination to their certificate program experience. Certificate students who have already completed the first two semesters of the Visual and Creative Arts Diploma Program will complete this course mainly as independent review and revision of their portfolio and artists documents in collaboration with faculty.

In this course students will progressively build practical relations and applications of watercolour and thin acrylic media techniques. They will use this experience to explore intermixing water based media. A wide variety of traditional tools and techniques to depict different subject matter and backgrounds will be studied through studio exercises. The need for practice of techniques and managing paint will be emphasized throughout the course. Students will study the composition of paints and the structure of brushes and supports.

Students will continue to expand their application and understanding of painting mediums by using acrylic transparent glazes and explore oil media. The properties and applications of building layers with oil paint towards a multidimensional work will be explored throughout the course. Using a model, students will be introduced to wet on wet with oil painting. Intent and method are the two main principles explored through practice, pallet set up and use of varied mediums including: acrylic mediums, acrylic paint, oil paint, walnut oil, gouache, watercolour and ink.

Choosing from all that they have tested and sampled in the program so far, students will execute a group of small works in drawing and painting media. Focusing on the layering of the 2D surface, students might employ techniques and tools from both painting and drawing. The assignment will be planned in collaboration with faculty. The focus of assessment will not be project work but will be on the students' efforts in establishment of a starting point, maintenance of professional work ethic, volume of product/attempts, and specific realizations and reflections on this Studio experience.

At this level, students will be challenged to design and execute a focused realm of project work implementing a broad range of paint and drawing media in both traditional and non-traditional applications. Working now in a focused series of choice, students will experience the challenges and satisfactions in process centred art making. These self-assigned works will be planned in collaboration with the faculty. The course will emphasize ongoing critical discussion at all phases of the studio work. Students will need to use design and studio vocabulary to discuss possibilities in materials, process, and subject matter in the starting of the work as well as achieve at least some level of intended meaning. The notion of 'finished' as pertaining to artwork will be introduced and explored in relation to ongoing paintings and drawings. A final group discussion will review the experiences of the individuals and will accompany a small but considered exhibition of the course works. The project work will not be the focus of assessment, but the evaluation will be on the students' efforts in establishment of a starting point, professional work ethic, volume of product/attempts, and effective reflection.

Applying the conceptual framework and preparatory works developed in Subject & Meaning II, students will develop a small 'body of work' for a final exhibition. Building off of our foundation from Subject & Meaning II, this course will continue the discussion around the development and the process of a series, as opposed to the final `resolution' of a series. Students will explore interdisciplinary drawing and painting, including materials, media and the broader scope of performance, language, photography, sculpture, digital imagery, etc. This course will require students to demonstrate a professional work ethic, a reasonable volume of product/attempts, and effective self-reflection on all aspects of this Studio experience.

The freedom from accepting conventional interpretations of artworks is accompanied by the responsibility to look and think for one's self to identify and communicate one's own personal response. As this meaning is made through choices in subject matter, context and formal properties, it is important that all three are considered in the painting process. Postmodern practices using hybrid media can also support this constructed meaning. Printmaking, collage, repetition, installation, and light can be combined experimentally with traditional paint and drawing materials. Students will now begin to focus on the challenges of identification and generation of meaning in their own studio works as well as in examples of historical and contemporary drawing and paintings.

This continuation of "Subject and Meaning I" extends the inquiry into practices that include abstracted and non-representational subject matter as well as visual narrative. Students will be researching and presenting examples, as well as testing their ideas through studies and series as opposed to focusing on the completion of `finished' works.