6 In-Person Sessions

Sundays, April 6–May 18, 2025 (Skip date: April 20, 2025)

12:30 PM–4:30 PM

Registration opens January 2, 2025

REGISTER ONLINE

This course is a continuation of Intro to Acrylic Painting. It is intended for students familiar with the fundamental principles, materials, and techniques of painting, who want to explore these topics in greater depth, as well as engage with more advanced concepts. The class will deal with fundamentals such as color, composition, and the “space” of a painting (“flat” vs. “3D” painting), but will also introduce the concept of abstraction and experimental techniques. You will gain a deeper understanding of painting as a language on the level of both technique and ideas, progressing towards the development of an independent painting practice.

This is primarily a studio class, designed to allow you to learn through painting. The class will take place in the large, skylit painting classroom in the historic Cooper Union Foundation Building, and will include opportunity to work from a live model. By combining lectures, focused painting projects, and hands-on instruction, you will apply the knowledge you gain to tackle the challenges that come with commanding new approaches to painting. We will also study the work of great painters from history, enabling you to apply their ideas and innovations to your own work.

As previously mentioned, this class is intended for intermediate-to-advanced painters. The curriculum is designed to be flexible in order to accommodate the differing needs of individual students, but some background in drawing is preferred, and familiarity with the materials of an intro-level painting curriculum is required. 

Course Materials

• Clothes that you don’t mind getting paint on.
• Acrylic paints and brushes (See Materials List below)
• Painting Surfaces: Several small, pre-primed canvas boards (Fredrix, etc.)
• Painting Materials: Palette, containers, rags, palette knife, spray bottle
• Something for transporting paintings: There will be no painting storage in the classroom.
• Small Sketchbook: For sketches and studies
• Various Painting Surfaces: To be announced in advance of specific assignments.
• Drawing Media: Pencils/pens and charcoal. Newsprint and sketching pad.

Please bring a smock, apron or wear clothes that you don't mind getting paint on to class. 

Required Materials 

All items can be purchased from www.dickblick.com, or at a Blick store

Paints (250 mL Blick Studio Acrylics, one or more of each)

• Titanium White
• Primary Yellow
• Cadmium Red Light Hue
• Alizarin Crimson
• Phthalo Blue or Cerulean Blue Hue
• Ultramarine Blue
• Burnt Umber
• Yellow Ochre
• Red Oxide
• Optional: Dioxazine Purple/Violet, Emerald Green

Brushes

• Utrecht Natural Chungking Pure Bristle Brushes, Long Handle set of 4, or assorted brushes of your choice
• Gesso Brush

Painting Surfaces

• Canson XL oil and acrylic painting pad
• Painter’s Tape
• 1 or more Blick studio stretched cotton canvas in the following sizes: 11 x 14, 18 x 24, 30 x 40 inches

Painting Tools and Accessories

• Painting Palette. Richeson Grey Matters or Canson XL Paper Palette recommended
• Blick Palette Knife
• Artist’s Acrylic Gesso, Utrecht or Blick, Pint or larger
• Several Plastic Cups or Container
• A portfolio and/or a bag(s) to carry materials and paintings, no painting storage is available on campus

Week 1: Intro

• Introductions. Prior experience and your goals/reasons for taking the class.
• Syllabus/overview of the course and introduction to materials.
• Start a painting of your choice

Week 2: Drawing and Color

• Make a painting from a drawing (not life) in which you use color interpretively.
• Make a painting about color. Use color relationships to create form, space, and mood (Matisse and Impressionism).

Week 3: Direct vs. Indirect Painting

• Discussion of surfaces and mediums
• Transparent vs. impasto painting techniques. Paintings as Window vs. Painting as Object.
• Illusionism vs. Materiality

Week 4: The Space of a Painting and Working from the Figure (Model)

• Using the principles of color theory and color relationships to create space in a painting
• Color as light. Seeing darks and shadows in terms of color.
• Make a painting from the model
• Apply principles of color space and “naturalistic” color to painting from the model.

Week 5: Figure/Ground and Abstraction

• Discussion of Flat” vs. “3D” painting.
• Figuration vs. Abstraction. Hans Hoffmann and “Push and Pull.”
• Make an “Abstract” painting based on a fragment or figurative source, which emphasizes a particular idea or content.

Week 6: “Synthetic” Painting and Pop Art/Photoshop

• Synthetic Color and the Contemporary Palette
• Discussion of Photoshop and digital imaging technology in relation to painting.
• Make a “Synthetic” painting based on the idea of layers/digital space, in which you apply advanced principles of color and painting space.
• Students will not need access to computers/imaging software for this lesson.