In addition to traditional tools and materials, students work with digital imaging as a means for creating projects. Technical skills alone do not make an artist. Students practice creative brainstorming, identifying and developing ideas, organizing visual elements, comparing themes and variations, expressing ideas with abstract form and figurative subject matter, and choosing and discarding ideas. This underlying visual language functions in visual art much like vocabulary and syntax in writing. Through it, students give structure and expression to their art independent of subject matter.
Students learn how visual perception gives rise to the underlying language of vision.
The language of vision includes the visual elements, their organization, and resulting visual effects. Students also discuss the meaning of their work to themselves, among their fellow students, and within and across different cultures. Students bring their personal experience, their knowledge of art history, other arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences to bear on the meaning of their art. I, II and III provide students with an overview of the history of art. These courses introduce important developments and critical issues that define art practice today.