Description

Looking to develop your creative talent in the fine arts? This program offers formal training in essential art techniques, supported by a talented faculty who provide individualized feedback on your work. Each class is packed with illustrations, examples, and hands-on exercises. Video tutorials show you how difficult techniques are accomplished and give you insights into the artist's thought process.

Study with students from around the world and share your ideas and creative inspirations. Program projects include drawing, painting, figure drawing, portraiture, watercolor, art-making concept development, and art history critique.

Upon successful completion of this program, you’ll be able to:

• Discuss and creatively explore the basic visual elements, fundamental composition, and visual communication techniques used by artists
• Draw with proper techniques, representing what you see through contour drawing, perspective, positive and negative space, and value
• Represent in still-life drawing the basic elements of form (line, plane, mass) in perspective and proportion
• Approach different kinds of digital photo shoots, including still-life, portraits, products, architecture, and action
• Identify and discuss the different ways that artists have approached the themes of nature, the human body, realism, religion, and power and protest throughout the ages
• Represent through figure drawing the characteristic shapes and proportions of the human face and body in frontal, profile, and three-quarters views

Depending on what electives you choose, you’ll achieve additional objectives.

Outline

This program consists of eight modules in the fine arts. Six programs are required, and you’ll choose two additional electives.

Required modules:

1. Introduction to Visual Arts
2. Introduction to Drawing
3. Drawing I
4. History of Art
5. Digital Photography I
6. Figure Drawing

Choose two electives from the following options: Painting I, Watercolor, Portrait Painting, Color Theory, Photoshop Basics, Digital Photography II, and more. Descriptions for the required modules are below.

Introduction to Visual Arts
What makes a painting work? What inspires a sculptor to create? In this module, you'll develop an understanding of the fine arts by exploring your own artistic creativity. You'll examine paintings, sculptures, and experimental pieces, learning to critique their composition and decode their social or political purpose. The focus is on understanding the elements that make up a visual message and building a vocabulary of fundamental terms and techniques.

Introduction to Drawing
Learn basic drawing techniques and how to see and think about form and space. You’ll get a better understanding of visual forms and representing those forms on paper. Class projects involve sketches of contours, negative space, and simple and complex forms.

Drawing I
Learn how to analyze what you see in the world around you and communicate it on paper. Through hands-on projects, guided by a professional artist, you’ll explore the critical concepts of line, mass, form, perspective, value, and composition, building a solid foundation for all your art and design work.

History of Art
Build a foundation in art history and gain a deep understanding of art and the artists who create it. Through engaging lectures and projects, you'll learn how to identify the mediums, materials, and techniques artists use and discuss the styles of important artists, art movements, and historical periods from antiquity through the mid-20th century.

Digital Photography I
Explore the interaction of photography techniques and environmental factors to create powerful digital images. You’ll learn the fundamentals of lighting, perspective, and set-up while exploring techniques for classic assignments: portraits, products, indoor and outdoor location shoots, and fast-action sports.

Figure Drawing
Learn how to make your figure drawings come to life. Following traditional methods, you'll learn the standard measures and proportions artists use to achieve naturalistic and expressive figure drawings. Illustrations and activities will guide you through the structure of the human skeleton and help you understand how the body's anatomy shapes its external form. The program builds progressively from the fundamentals to the challenges of portraiture, three-dimensional form, composition, and expression.

Demo

Additional Info

Languages

English

Course Length

200.00 hours

Duration of Access

All of our programs are self-paced and open enrollment, so you can start them when you want and finish them at your own pace. Most programs allow you 180 days after you register to complete them. If you need more time, extensions are available.

Instructor

You'll receive critique and feedback from a faculty of working professional artists. Instructors for this program include:

Carolina Caycedo
Carolina Caycedo is an emerging contemporary artist whose most recent exhibitions were at Blow de la Barra in London, UK, and Galeria Comercial in Puerto Rico. Her fine art and photography collections have been written about in The New York Times, Artfacts.net, Artecontexto, The Nation, and Art Dispatches. Photography from Carolina's bartering project, entitled "Daytoday," was featured at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City. Carolina has given talks about art at The Whitney Museum in New York; The Art, Memory, and City Seminar in Bogota; and the National University in Bogota. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Contemporary Artists Center in Massachusetts and at Foraneza in Puerto Rico. Carolina was born in London and educated in Colombia. She earned her B.A. in fine arts from Los Andes University.

Annika Connor
Annika Connor's paintings depict a fascination with beauty and decadence. They present the viewer with spaces to exist in, which are both alluring and unsettling. The paintings are infused with mystery and convey a sense of unbalance. Overall, they seem to be fragments from a daydream and portray a longing for a time of romance and pleasure. In 2002, Annika received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she studied painting and philosophy. Since then, Annika has worked professionally as a painter in New York and London and has participated in numerous exhibitions in California, Chicago, Atlanta, and New York. Reviews and publication of her work have appeared in Art Papers magazine, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Creative Loafing newspaper, C-Heads magazine, and in many other Internet and local publications. Annika Connor is Swedish-American with dual-citizenship status. She currently resides in Manhattan, where she maintains an active studio.

Palden Hamilton
Palden Hamilton is first and foremost a painter, having majored in painting for his B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He continued his education at the Art Students League of New York, where he trained in figure painting under prominent figurative painters Ron Sherr and William Beckman. He was awarded a Merit Award in Realism in 2003 and the prestigious Phylis T. Mason Grant in 2004. Palden currently applies these skills as a portrait artist in the Baltimore area, painting portraits in the tradition of his heroes: John Singer Sargent and Velasquez. He has recently been commissioned to paint Maestro Yuri Temirkanov, outgoing musical director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and present musical director of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Russia. Illustration is also dear to Palden's heart, his artistic talents having been discovered at an early age through his obsessive and ceaseless childhood drawings. Palden is also working on writing and illustrating a children's book.

Jordon Schranz
Jordon Schranz is a seven-year inhabitant of Brooklyn, New York, is represented by the Black and White Gallery in New York, New York. He has had one-man shows in both New York and Chicago, and he has participated in several group shows in the USA and internationally. His work is in several private collections as well as the collection of the Museum of Air and Space in Moscow, Russia. He focuses on the idea of social and political interaction and how the media influences it. In addition, Jordon regularly stages, performs, and promotes avante garde, free jazz, and experimental music performances and is a recording artist on the Black Saint record label with his group, The Eastern Seaboard. Jordon is currently leading the development of a fine arts program at Sessions. Jordon earned his B.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art.

Prerequisites/Audience

To enroll, you’ll need a computer with an Internet connection (a 56.6 Kbps modem or faster is recommended). You’ll need basic computer skills, but no prior art knowledge is required.

Requirements/Materials Included

This program is compatible with the Windows Vista operating system.

• A Windows or Mac-based computer that meets manufacturers’ requirements for the required software below
• Access to the Internet
• Drawing supplies (detailed in each course)
• A digital camera (adjustable ISO and adjustable white balance features recommended)
• A digital imaging application such as Adobe Photoshop

Additional supplies may be required depending on your choice of electives.