Marion Wilson

This course will invite students to engage with the environment in a variety of art in both traditional and nontraditional ways. The course will begin with a short workshop of “en plen air” watercolor painting techniques, moving toward offsite field trips. Students will then engage with organic materials in the creation of both art materials and drawing and painting instruments. The course will end with a curated public-engagement project generated by the students. Students will complete projects that could include creating an archive, following a lifecyle, building an herbarium, or writing a field guide—all of which encourage students to work out of the studio and in the “expanded field.”

A three-part course, students will first use water-based media in both traditional and nontraditional ways to create evocative paintings on paper with pigments (both art and nonart) suspended in water. Watercolor is one of the oldest pigment-based media and continues to be used widely by artists, illustrators, designers, and architects in finished paintings or as preparatory studies and, thus, will be one focus of the class. This course will introduce some of the effects of layering, transparency, translucency, and absorbency inherent in the watercolor medium. We will use landscape, portraiture, and other subject matter to represent water, light, flesh, atmosphere, and solid earth. In conferences, students will be able to explore a specific theme or content. Students will also learn sustainable painting practices through organically created pigments. The second sequence of this course will use the human form while considering the ways the body has been represented and used in art of the 21st century. Feminist, Black, Indigenous, and artists of color have transformed the way we see and construct the world, as well as how the figure is used in art. Borrowing a conceptual frame, in part, from an exhibition curated by Apsara DiQuinzio at Berkeley Art Museum in 2022, course work prompts will include the following: returning the gaze, the body in pieces, absence and presence, gender alchemy. The course's third emphasis will be on the development and understanding of an artist's practice. Through studying visiting artists, the use of the watercolor blocks, and specific assignments, students will bring their practice out into the world. In fall and spring, students will meet biweekly with the instructor for individual conferences, alongside corequisite First-Year Studies Project (ARTS 1000), which will meet weekly as a group.

A three-part course, students will first use water-based media in both traditional and nontraditional ways to create evocative paintings on paper with pigments (both art and non-art) suspended in water. Watercolor is one of the oldest pigment-based media and continues to be used widely by artists, illustrators, designers, and architects in finished paintings or as preparatory studies and, thus, will be one focus of the class. This course will introduce some of the effects of layering, transparency, translucency, and absorbency inherent in the watercolor medium. We will use landscape, portraiture, and other subject matter to represent water, light, flesh, atmosphere, and solid earth. In conferences, students will be able to explore a specific theme or content. Students will also learn sustainable painting practices through organically-created pigments. The second sequence of this course will use the human form while considering the ways the body has been represented and used in art of the 21st century. Feminist, Black, Indigenous, and artists of color have transformed the way we see and construct the world, as well as how the figure is used in art. Borrowing a conceptual frame in part from an exhibition curated by Apsara DiQuinzio at Berkeley Art Museum in 2022, course work prompts will include the following: returning the gaze, the body in pieces, absence and presence, and gender alchemy. The course’s third emphasis will be on the development and understanding of an artist’s practice. Through studying visiting artists, the use of the watercolor blocks, and specific assignments, students will bring their practice out into the world.

This course uses water-based media in both traditional and nontraditional ways to create evocative paintings on paper, with pigments (both art and non-art) suspended in water. Watercolor and gouache are two of the oldest pigment-based media and continues to be used widely by artists, illustrators, designers, and architects. This class will specifically focus on color and the effects of layering, transparency, translucency, and absorbency. Students will be introduced to a range of brushes, sponges, paper types, paint media, and techniques. We will use landscape, portraiture, and other subject matter to represent water, light, flesh, atmosphere, and solid earth.  In a final section of this course, we will introduce sustainable painting practices by introducing organically created pigments. Artists surveyed include Charles Burchfield, Anselm Kiefer, Marcel Dumas, Winslow Homer, Egon Schiele, Vik Muniz, Dana Sherwood, Tattfoo Tan, Taylor Davis, Laylah Ali, and Marcel Dzama.

This drawing class creates works on paper in watercolor, ink, and collage using the human form while considering the ways in which the body has been depicted in art of the 21st century. Feminist artists and BIPOC artists have transformed the way we see and construct the world and how the figure is used in art. Borrowing a conceptual frame, in part from an exhibition curated by Apsara Di Quinzio at Berkeley Art Museum (2022), student assignments will include the following: returning the gaze, the body in pieces, absence and presence, gender alchemy, activism, domesticity and labor. In the first half of the class, students can draw directly with a model present in the classroom; the second half will introduce alternative substrates, including medical textbooks, fashion magazines, and collage. Artists will be introduced to the work of Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Holzer, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Luchita Hurtado, Sarah Lucas, Mary Minter, Kiki Smith, Lorna Simpson, Karen Finley, Kara Walker, Rona Pondick, Simone Leigh, Zanele Muholi, Wangechi Mutu, Mary Kelly, Janine Antoni, Carolee Schneeman, Kerry James Marshall, Lyle Ashton Harris, Bob Flanagan, and Féliz Gonzalez Torres.

This course offers both a traditional and a contemporary approach to drawing. Students will gain an overview of basic drawing terms and practices, including line, mass, light and shadow, and the use of black-and-white media. Sketchbooking is an important part of the class practice. Additionally, students will be introduced to principles of color through the use of watercolor, gouache, and ink. This class will introduce some basics of color theory, color mixing and the effects of layering, transparency, translucency, and absorbency inherent in the watercolor medium. We will use landscape, portraiture, and other subject matter to represent water, light, flesh, atmosphere, and solid earth. In your conferences, you will be able to explore a specific theme or content. In a final sequence of this class, students will learn about sustainable contemporary art practices, including organically created pigments.

This course uses water-based media in both traditional and nontraditional ways to create evocative paintings on paper, with pigments (both art and non-art) suspended in water. Watercolor and gouache are two of the oldest pigment-based media and continues to be used widely by artists, illustrators, designers, and architects. This class will specifically focus on color and the effects of layering, transparency, translucency, and absorbency. Students will be introduced to a range of brushes, sponges, paper types, paint media, and techniques. We will use landscape, portraiture, and other subject matter to represent water, light, flesh, atmosphere, and solid earth.  In a final section of this course, we will introduce sustainable painting practices by introducing organically created pigments. Artists surveyed include Charles Burchfield, Anselm Kiefer, Marcel Dumas, Winslow Homer, Egon Schiele, Vik Muniz, Dana Sherwood, Tattfoo Tan, Taylor Davis, Laylah Ali, and Marcel Dzama.

Using the human form as a site of inquiry, students will build their own vocabulary, image bank and method of working with acrylic paint. Each
assignment will begin with a prompt and a PowerPoint introduction of contemporary and historical artworks. Students will then develop an
individualized response to the prompt. While realism is an option, abstraction, distortion, metaphor and other ways of manifesting the body are
welcome. The emphasis of the class is on students developing confidence in their own voice and to build a committed, highly engaged studio
practice that engages risk. This class will use acrylic paint. Each assignment will begin with a series of fast paper paintings exploring color mixing,
composition and the material properties unique to acrylic before students moving towards a larger individualized response to the prompt. The
second half of the semester will introduce gels and mediums and off the stretcher skins and substrates. This is an intermediate level class and
assumes college level pre-requisites of drawing and painting. The assignment prompts will include but are not limited to curtain, skin, five
senses, intimacy, absence, morning, and dysmorphia. As much as is possible students will cull images from life, their own photoshoots or family
archive. From these prompts, the students’ greatest strength and interests will develop and a conference project will emerge - resulting in either
10 small/ 3 medium-sized or one large painting on a topic of their own choosing. Homework assignments, individual and class crits, and building
a language to talk about painting is an important and required part of class.