ARTS 241: Intro to acrylic Painting
Five Modern Painters
Prof. Mike Glier

To learn the fundamentals of 2D design, as well as some of the concepts that inform modern painting, this class will engage the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Henri Matisse, Amy Sherald, Alma Thomas, and Stanley Whitney. All distinctly modern, the styles of these artists range from figurative to fully abstract. The class will spend two weeks on each artist, analyzing and copying a work in the first week and producing a visual response in the second. Students will meet twice a week online, once as a class for technical demonstration and slide presentations and again in small groups of 3 or 4 for reading discussion and critique. Some demonstrations and supporting materials will be available asynchronously. The goals of the class are to introduce students to basic painting skills like color mixing, brushwork, composition, and palette management, as well as concepts like color theory, modernism and self-expression in a cultural context. So that students may work in a domestic setting, the size of the assignments are modest and the materials like water-based acrylics, crayons, and paper are manageable. In order to post homework, students will need access to a digital camera.