Course Description
An intensive exploration of the mechanics and effect of color in the painted image. This course builds on basic color theory and Beginning Painting to give students tools for the sophisticated manipulation of color in their paintings and examines how color is perceived as a phenomenon and interpreted as content.
Athena Title
Paint Color and Application
Prerequisite
(ARST 1050 or ARST 1050H) and ARST 1060 and ARST 2100
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students in this course can expect to learn how to build and embed complex color relationships in their paintings. They will use both direct and indirect techniques of application and become familiar with their uses and effects. Students will become highly conversant in the language of pigments and mediums and will know how and when to use them for a specific outcome. Students will understand and be able to identify color- based optical phenomena. Students will also study the use of color as a sign and visual code in art and culture. After taking the class, they will be able to identify the mechanics and use of color in many historical and contemporary artworks. Students will make several projects that address different aspects of color and strategies for its use and will acquire language for discussing those works in critique.
Topical Outline
Using oil or acrylic paint, students will make use of representational and non-objective imagery to create several projects, each centered around a different topic or topics. Subjects include direct painting and developing complex color relationships, using opaque and transparent pigments, direct and indirect paint applications, color as an optical and physical phenomena, and the use of color as emotional and cultural signifier. Each project will be introduced with a visual lecture or field trip to a museum. There will be at least one other field trip to examine different cultural uses of color in the environment. Demonstrations include a wide variety of application methods, making color tests, indirect techniques such as glazing over grisaille and velatura layers, in addition to chromatic underpainting, and the selection of tools and mediums for manipulating color. There will be reading on the perception and signification of color. Students will discuss the effects of color in their work in critiques.