Fine Arts and Design Courses
ARH101 Art History I (3 credits) Fall Spring
This course is the first in a required three-semester sequence. It covers the history of art and architecture in both Western and non-Western cultures from Paleolithic to the Early Renaissance
ARH102 Art History II (3 credits) Fall Spring
This course builds on ARH101 Art History I and covers the history of art and architecture in the West from the Early Renaissance (approximately 1500 CE) to the Late Realism (Early 1900s) periods.
ARH131 History of Graphic Design (3 credits) Fall Spring
This course explores the history of graphic design from the earliest communication technologies to the present, with a focus on the Modern era. It will examine changes in style and technology within the field and considers the relationship between graphic design and its cultural, political, and social contexts.
ARH203 Art History III (3 credits) Fall Spring
This course builds on ARH101 Art History I and ARH102 Art History II. It covers the history of art and architecture in Western and non-Western cultures from the Impressionism period (late 1800’s) to Contemporary art (the present).
ART101A Perspective A (2 credits) Fall
This course focuses on differentiating between art’s “generalized perspective”, “narrow perspective” in the 14th century, “linear perspective”, and other methods of scientific perspective in art. Understanding perspective is critical in order to accurately represent a three-dimensional subject using a two-dimensional medium from a variety of perspectives.
ART101B Perspective B (2 credits) Spring
This course builds on ART101A Perspective A. It introduces the basic principles of shadow perspective, as well as theories and methods of drawing perspectives in projection.
ART102A Art Anatomy A (2 credits) Fall
This course is the first part of one-year lecture in Art Anatomy. It introduces the basic structure and movement of the human body. Art anatomy enables students to accurately depict the structure of the portrait, to convey the facial structure and shape of human beings, and to draw the artwork closer to reality.
ART102B Art Anatomy B (2 credits) Spring
This course builds on ART102A Art Anatomy A and focuses on the study of the human torso. The essential task is to learn and master the human body structure so that human body can be realistically and objectively rendered from a variety of perspectives.
ART103 Introduction to Sculpture (2 credits) Fall Spring
This course is an auxiliary course for students majoring in painting. By learning three-dimensional art, students can strengthen their understanding of two-dimensional space in painting and their knowledge of art anatomy.
ART105 Photography (2 credits) Fall Spring
This is a beginning level course on photography. It will introduce photographic theory, techniques, applications, composition, and history. The course will include hands-on demonstrations with the camera as well as basic digital image editing techniques.
ART107 Dynamic Composition (2 credits) Fall
This lecture course develops an awareness of the fundamentals behind dynamic symmetry including Baroque Diagonal, Sinister Diagonal, and Reciprocal Lines, within the Armature (framework) of a composition. These are used with the golden number (ratio) to produce realistic and aesthetic representations of subjects inside two and three-dimensional compositions.
ART111 Visual Literacy I (2 credits) Fall
This course covers the principles, elements, and foundations of design and the formal aspects of visual composition through readings, discussions, exercises, and laboratory applications. This is a visual design theory course that introduces the core concepts of visual design — visual elements, principles of design and creative process. Composition issues and strategies are explored through examples, exercises, critiques, and creative projects.
ART112 Visual Literacy II (2 credits) Spring
This course builds on ART 111 Visual Literacy I and further expand into the basic elements of design and its practical applications in flat compositions as well as in tridimensional compositions. The course format will include lectures, field trips, discussions, activities, video presentations, and readings.
ART410 Mural Art (2 credits) Fall
This course introduces the basic theories and methods of mural art. It lays a foundation for students to create large-scale painting.
ART351 Fine Arts and Design Internship (2–3 credits) Summer
Internships provide entry-level, off-campus career-related experience. Internships may also be used as an opportunity to explore career fields. This course provides students with a supervised, practical learning experience in a work setting that is relevant to their program of study. Through course assignments and workplace tasks and projects the student will apply, connect, and extend in-class academic theory and skills for a professional development.
ART451 Senior Project (4 credits) Fall Spring
This course provides senior students with practical experience in the development of a refined, intelligent, professional artwork as well as exposures to professional practices for artists. Students will be led by a mentor to work on their project. Throughout the course, students will participate in regular class discussions facilitated by a department faculty, so that they can share their experiences and learn from their peers.
ART 461 Senior Internship (4 credits) Fall Spring
During this course, senior students can gain work experience through participation in internships off campus such as museum, gallery, design studios and so on.
DRP101R Drawing I (4 credits) Fall
This studio course introduces the essential elements of drawing such as “block-in”, or linear drawing, shape, proportion, gesture, form, as well as how light actually affects the subject and how to depict a three dimensional object on a two dimensional surface. Students will learn how to accurately translate visual information into two dimensions while addressing fundamental properties of composition, light direction, and value organization. (This course has to be repeated once with credits awarded.)
DRP102 Painting (4 credits) Spring
This course is designed to introduce the basics of painting to students with background in classical painting. Students will be challenged to think pictorially, adding in elements of anatomy, structure, perspective, and composition alongside color. This will further aid students in understand the importance of combining the usage of color, composition, and a grand tonal harmony.
DRP103 Quick Sketch Techniques (2 credits) Fall Spring
This course introduces quick sketch theories and techniques. It attempts to help students develop the ability to use a simple line to draw a dynamic or static image of human and objects in a short time. With its extension, quick sketch may stimulate potential creativity.
DRP201R Drawing II (4 credits) Fall Spring
This course introduces a variety of approaches to drawing the human figure including drawing figure plates, and from live and skeletal models. Students will study the fundamentals of figure drawing including how to measure and understand the dynamic movements and gestures of a figure in a pose. The goal of this course is to create natural and realistic works of art with exceptional technical skill in the style of 19th century academic art. (This course has to be repeated once with credits awarded.)
DRP202 Still Life Painting (2 credits) Fall
This course will look at the history of the genre from its origins all the way up to its modern form. Students will compose and paint a series of still life for the sake of developing the fundamentals of drawing, light, color, composition, and concept.
DRP203 Landscape Painting (2 credits) Spring
This studio course introduces different landscape oil painting principles, techniques, and genre. It will provide students with logical and practical aids to understand how to approach the difficulties of landscape painting. We will also discuss the basics of landscape painting such as paint application, color harmony, atmospheric perspective as well as glazing techniques.
DRP204 Small-scale Painting (2 credits) Spring
In this course, students will learn to develop a series of thumbnail oil sketches to better understand the fundamentals of value relationships, color design, composition, perspective, and overall pictorial harmony. Students will also analyze Old Master works by breaking them down into a series of studies, each focused on a single element.
DRP301R Drawing III (6 credits) Fall Spring
This studio course helps students develop a command of techniques in multi-figure narrative drawing. The focus of this course is to train students' ability to present stories and compose certain ideas or feelings. Students will learn to compose a large number of figures into a final drawing that shows some type of action in a moment of a narrative. Emphasis will be placed on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression. (This course has to be repeated once with credits awarded.)
DRP310R Composition I (2 credits) Fall Spring
This is the first course of a 2-sequence course. This course attempts to help students develop a command of oil painting composition. The emphasis of this course is on theme composition and factors of concept development to application are studied and practiced. (This course has to be repeated once with credits awarded.)
DRP321 Portrait Painting (2 credits) Fall
Portrait painting is an essential training for students in fine art. This course introduces the theories, sketching methods, and techniques of portrait oil painting. Students will gain the ability to grasp strong likeness of the model, lay down paint in the right way and understand color and flesh tone.
DRP322 Half-length Portrait Painting (2 credits) Spring
This course is designed to allow students to learn to develop a fully composed portrait composition while learning to express accurate proportions of the head, neck, bust, and hand. Starting with Old Master paintings for inspiration, students will set the scene with a model, costume, surroundings…etc. Learning to edit ideas and choose shapes, colors, and textures that create harmony and balance will be an essential part of this course.
DRP323A Nude Painting A (2 credits) Fall
This course is an advanced course. Students will learn to synthesize the procedures, techniques and experience gained in drawing the figure as they approach painting the figure in full color. Students will learn to modulate the properties of hue, value and chroma from the block-in to value and color studies, under-painting, all the way to the final pass.
DRP323B Nude Painting B (2 credits) Spring
This course is an advanced course. Students will practice further enhancing their understanding of the nude figure by incorporation more difficult poses, the use of the skeleton model, and écorchés. Students will focus on the large structural masses of the body and how they move together to support the gesture. Paint and color handling will be discussed in depth.
DRP324R Full-Body Painting (2 credits) Fall
In this course, students learn to synthesize the techniques and experience gained in Nude Painting as they paint the figure in clothing within an external environment. This will challenge the students to think about the figure in perspective, composition, and large tonal families. This is an important course for basic training in the fine arts program. (This course has to be repeated once with credits awarded.)
DRP341 Intro to Illustration (2 credits) Spring
This course equips students with the fundamental skills in storytelling through digital illustration. It will cover the technical skills that are essential for an illustrator, including perspectives, color and lighting, composition, figure, and portrait drawing. At the same time, students will be guided to explore how to articulate ideas and convey emotions through artworks. By the end of this course, students will have completed a variety of tasks – including a story-driven illustration of their own.
DRP401R Drawing IV (6 credits) Fall Spring
This studio course helps students develop a command of techniques in multi-figure narrative drawing. The focus of this course is to train the student’s ability to present stories and compose certain ideas or feelings. Students will learn to compose a large number of figures into a final drawing that shows some type of action in a moment of a narrative. Emphasis will be placed on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression. (This course has to be repeated once with credits awarded.)
DRP410R Composition II (2 credits) Fall Spring
This is the second course of a 2-sequence course. In this advanced course students will continue improving their oil painting techniques and artistic level and expand their horizon from theme composition to free creation. Students will levitate their artistic creativity by reflecting their inner world and casting it into the outer world. (This course has to be repeated once with credits awarded.)
DSG101 Design Studio I (3 credits) Fall
This is the first of a 4-sequence studio course. This course is an intensive exploration of the fundamental principles of graphic design through a series of periodical studio assignments and critiques – supplemented by short readings, lectures, and the odd screening or field trip. The studio focus of this course is on the effects of line.
DSG102 Design Studio II (3 credits) Spring
This intermediate level course expands the skills and knowledge acquired in Design Studio I. In this studio course, the focus is on the effects of space, supplemented by short readings, lectures, and the odd screening or field trip.
DSG103 Typography Design I (3 credits) Fall
Typography is a foundation course for the graphic design curriculum. This is a studio course, introducing the art of visual communication: the visual realization of a most basic element of communication – THE WORD. The history of typographic forms, principles of composition, and the expressive potential of type will be explored through readings, research, workshops, and projects. The course will include lectures, field trips, discussion, activities, video, and course readings.
DSG104 Typography Design II (3 credits) Spring
This course explores the methods for designing and communicating complex information of a typographic nature. Course readings, lectures, exercises, presentations, and projects provide a framework to expand the student’s thinking and practice related to forms of typographic expression. Effective typography includes laboring to explore and balance the relationship between the details and the vision—working iteratively in order to create materials that are functional, expressive, compelling, and appropriate.
DSG151 Image Making (3 credits) Fall Spring
This course will introduce digital art image making, editing and design techniques as a foundation upon which an effective visual language is built.Expressing, evaluating, and communicating ideas with visual images is a primary focus of this course.
DSG201 Design Studio III (3 credits) Fall
This is the third of a 4-sequence studio course. This course is an advanced level course that expands the skills and knowledge acquired in Design Studio II. In this studio course, we focus on the effects of Texture. Students continue to develop an understanding of the conceptual, technical, and theoretical issues related to design through the completion of assignments, discussions, and critiques. – supplemented by short readings, lectures, and the odd screening or field trip.
DSG202 Design Studio IV (3 credits) Spring
This is the last of a 4-sequence studio course. This course is an advanced level course that expands the skills and knowledge acquired in Design Studio III. It will focus on the effects of value and color. Students continue to develop an understanding of the conceptual, technical, and theoretical issues related to design through the completion of assignments, discussions, and critiques. – supplemented by short readings, lectures, and the odd screening or field trip.
DSG203 Typography Design III (3 credits) Fall
This course is an advanced investigation into typography and text for verbal and visual expression. Analysis of meaning and structure, design composition, and communication to specific audiences is studied.
DSG215 Design with Color (3 credits) Fall
This course introduces color theory and how to apply it in design work. Students will experiment and explore color and color relationships through a series of exercises designed to strengthen their understanding of historical and contemporary color theories.
DSG241 Brand Identity (3 credits) Fall Spring
This course will provide the student with a working knowledge of branding and logo design. The student will be able to effectively design a brand that communicates its purpose statement and identity. Color theory and visual communication skills will be developed through this course.
DSG321 Motion Graphics Studio I (3 credits) Fall
This is an introductory course to motion graphics for upper-level undergraduate graphic design majors who have a strong foundation in typography and print design. This course introduces the theories, techniques, and practices of motion graphics and the integration of design, photo imaging, sound, video, and animation.
DSG322 Motion Graphics Studio II (3 credits) Spring
This course provides advanced instruction in creating motion graphics. Through utilizing 3D elements, advanced effects, music, color theory, layout and storyboards, students will be trained in advanced workflows in a studio-like environment with an emphasis on creativity, finish, and aesthetics.
DSG331 Environmental Graphic Design (3 credits) Fall
This course is an introductory course to the Environmental Graphic Design. Students will study the means and methods of wayfinding system, signage, placemaking, exhibit design, and mapped and themed environments through class exercises and projects.
DSG332 Advertising Design (3 credits) Spring
This course covers the basic concept, theories, and principles of advertising design. Students will study key factors, strategies and a variety of media and expressive techniques in order to create advertising materials including print ads, package with promotions, advertising campaign and more.
DSG334 Web Design (3 credits) Fall Spring
This course introduces the basic concepts, principles, and technologies of web creation. Students will learn basic HTML, CSS and Cascading Style sheets and use a variety of design software to organize, create, publish, and manage a web site.