Art Education & Fine Art (BFA)

Understanding the full breadth of a program can help you prepare for success. Get insights into the history of art education, pedagogy, visual arts standards, advocacy, managing a classroom, and professional readiness.

Effective teaching starts with healthy psychological principles. Explore educational practices, student development and characteristics, learning processes, and teaching strategies to better understand your students and yourself. (This course is cross-listed with ARE 600, GLA 600, and LA 305.)

Create lessons and curriculum for art classrooms, museums, and community settings. To support your Midpoint Review, you will organize your artwork, lessons, and journal reflections into an Art and Process Portfolio.

Learn to engage your students' critical thinking in a variety of settings. As part of your required fieldwork, you'll gain experience leading engaging discussions about art in classrooms, museums, or community settings.

Students in this final Art Education course will synthesize knowledge from previous coursework with comprehensive field experience in an art education setting, i.e., turn theory into practice. Students will develop their own personal Art Education philosophy and mission statement as well as an advocacy plan. The course will also support preparation for their Final Review which will highlight their accomplishments as both an artist and an educator.

Explore the full array of curriculum-based technologies being used in today's art education settings. 21st-century teachers need to be fluent in technology literacy. This course fulfills a California Art Teaching Credential requirement. (This course is cross-listed with ARE 615.)

Learn the indication of form, color, light and shadow through still life painting. Create interesting compositions along with various concepts relating to all majors.

Know your print mediums. You'll learn traditional printmaking processes like etching, silkscreen, monotype, book arts, lithography, and relief printing to produce a portfolio and a book of prints.

Paint the human figure using oils or acrylics. You'll gain skills in value, color, form, shape, structure, and composition relating to the figure.

Humans have 206 bones and 650 muscles. You'll learn the dynamics of anatomical form and how it relates to figurative art through drawing from models.

Increase the quality, scope, and breadth of your imaginative compositions. Make better paintings through a better understanding of the creative process and a deep dive into composition, value, pattern, tone, staging, mood, and color theories.

Become an artist-entrepreneur. You'll increase your business acumen in resume and biography preparation, invoicing, commission work, grant applications, public relations, income tax, contracts, insurance, and portfolio assembly.

In-depth study of classical drawing principles on achieving heightened realism in imagery. Learn how to incorporate accurate geometrical construction and use the five-value system to analyze light and shadow on forms. Gaining skills in perspective, composition, and rendering of various textures and materials.

Learn to draw the human figure with accuracy. You'll draw from the nude model to develop an understanding of gesture, proportion, rhythm, balance, structure, and musculature.

Take a deep dive into color and design. Using traditional media, explore color harmony using different color schemes. Learn how psychology, simultaneous contrast, proportion, atmospheric depth, muting and toning, light temperature, design unity, and visual emphasis can enhance imagery.

Learn to sculpt the nude human figure. You'll explore human proportion, structure, geometry, balance, and anatomy to enhance your understanding of 3D form, volume, and space.

Combine essential camera and digital imaging skills to augment your imagery. Using a camera for reference, inspiration, and digital imaging to manipulate photo images, you'll learn to create narrative content, increasing your skills in a fun yet challenging environment. Phone camera or digital camera and computer access are required.