Summer Art Intensive Courses

All of The Summer Art Intensive instructors are professional artists and are assisted by dedicated Cooper Union School of Art undergraduates. All necessary materials and software are included in the tuition and will be provided in class as needed. Tuition amounts that are listed below include the non-refundable registration fee of $270.

Class size is limited to 16 students

Age Requirement: 15–18

The Cooper Union Summer Art Intensive 2025 Courses

Animation & Drawing

Tuition: $4,350.00

Instructors: Casey Gallagher (Animation) | Delia Cademan (Drawing)

Teaching Assistant: TBD

Animation is a powerful and ubiquitous form of storytelling, and its reach continues to expand rapidly in the hands of curious and creative minds. The medium is highly sought after for its ability to captivate and inspire the viewer, not only in entertainment but also in journalism, education, and advertising. You may not even realize it, but it’s found in almost every corner of our lives. In this course, students will learn the basic skills of animation. The aim is to equip each student with the tools so that they can fully express their creative vision. Students will participate in lively discussions, technical demos, and individual and group workshops. They will create several short animations and one long animation using a camera and a mic, employing digital software like Photoshop and Premiere Pro. Students will leave with a rich understanding of animation’s historical background and its contemporary significance, in addition to the technical and conceptual skill sets that will lay a foundation for their artistic practice. 

In drawing class, students learn to handle materials, techniques, and concepts; explore form, space, mark-making, communication, planning, and develop a lexicon of marks and techniques to use in both assigned and self-directed projects. Through lectures, demonstrations, exercises, critiques students gain confidence and develop personal vision in art making. 

Drawing Intensive

Tuition: $4,350.00

Instructor: Christian Hincapié

Teaching Assistant: TBD

Students in the drawing intensive class explore the fundamentals of line, form, space, composition and content using a variety of materials and approaches. Through a series of exercises and carefully considered assigned projects students build technical proficiency and confidence from which to move into personally meaningful and experimental approaches. Pencil, charcoal, pastel, pen and ink/brush and ink, as well as non-traditional tools will be used.  

Graphic Design & Drawing

Tuition: $4,350.00

Instructors: Jaamal Benjamin (Graphic Design) | Amy Bravo (Drawing)

Teaching Assistant: TBD

This graphic design summer course is designed for young artists and designers interested in exploring creative visual communication. The curriculum focuses on design principles through image-making, poster design, and zine production, blending traditional and experimental techniques. Students will engage in research, participate in lectures, and complete hands-on exercises that develop technical and conceptual skills.

Dedicated studio time allows for in-depth project work, supported by software demonstrations that introduce industry-standard tools. Class trips provide contextual inspiration, while guest speakers share professional insights and experiences. Collaborative critiques (crits) are integral to the course, encouraging constructive feedback and peer learning.

By the end of the program, students will have produced a portfolio of innovative work, gained a deeper understanding of graphic design principles, and developed a creative voice to express their ideas visually.

Painting (NEW!)

Tuition: $4,500.00

Instructor: Alannah Farrell

Teaching Assistant: TBD

Being human contains multitudes; our experiences of our inner and outer worlds as we see them are ever-changing and indescribable in their complexity and entirety. Painting is one way humans take on the monumental, impossible challenge of sublimating all we know, feel, see, dream, aspire to, experience, question, and confront over time and funnel it into an image that perhaps mirrors, hides, denies, loves this multiverse, or seeks to discover something altogether new.

In this class, we will learn the basics of color theory and what an intuitive understanding of color can teach us: how color interacts with other formal elements and how color can vary across personal, cultural, and psychological landscapes. While working in water-based paint, acrylic, and watercolor, we will learn techniques that apply to most paint mediums. Students will explore different brushes and tools and experiment with their uses. Discussions around work, readings, and in-class exercises will break up each six-hour day as students focus on several longer-term paintings they may exhibit in the Cooper Union Foundation building at the end of the course. 

Students work in the dedicated skylit painting studios in Cooper Union’s historic Foundation building, visit contemporary NYC exhibitions and learn about having a professional studio practice- a life dedicated to painting- and how that can foster community from several visiting artists.

Studio Practice

Tuition: $4,350.00

Section 1 Instructor: Andrew Ross 

Teaching Assistant: TBD

Section 2 Instructor: Babe Adams

Teaching Assistant: TBD

Develop critical thinking and a unique voice in your portfolio!  

This class is designed for rising high school seniors (between junior and senior years) with art-making experience who are interested in eventually attending college and focusing on the arts. Students in this section of the Summer Art Intensive will be given personal workspace among their peers with lockable storage in the sky-lit communal painting studios. The program will guide students through a process of self-realization, beginning with research and exercises to inspire personal growth as an artist. Finding meaningful subjects motivates productiveness and nurtures your passion. 

A set of materials is provided for students but depending on the direction projects take, there may be the need for students to acquire more materials on their own. Students interested in working in digital media may want to bring a laptop. In this class, students will/can work with a variety of art mediums. 

Please note that published instructors may change without warning in rare cases. If instructors are unexpectedly unable to teach another instructor of equal or better qualifications will be sought out and hired. Change of instructors in itself will not be considered reasonable cause for withdrawal from the program. 

 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.

   

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