Open Studies Course Registration

This online, self-directed studio course supports illustrators of all skill levels working in both traditional and digital media. While pursuing their own projects, participants will receive feedback on artistic challenges and professional practices, such as collaborating with clients. Through critiques, peer exchange, and faculty guidance, the course emphasizes community, connection, and individualized support to help illustrators grow their practice.

Explore historical and experimental photographic techniques including lumen prints, cyanotype, kallitype, pinhole photography and more! Students will also learn to create digital negatives using inkjet printers, and blend analog & digital methods to produce handcrafted images. Projects will include personalized items like tote bags, and the development of a unique portfolio, all supported by MICA’s state-of-the-art analog and digital facilities. Experimentation and creative exploration are encouraged throughout as students explore various techniques outside of the photographic norms.

This course is the sequel to Painterly Painting. It is designed for the inquisitive student who wants to incorporate more spontaneity and freshness in their painting. Painterly Painting II will dig deeper into exploring your personal signature as we investigate instinctive decision-making, and the mark-making potential and expressionist range of oil painting. Grounded in the fundamentals, assignments will extend focus on representational painting across the genres of still life, figurative, and landscape painting. Class objectives will revolve around an expanded development and study of surfaces and layering, grounds and supports, and color interaction and mixing. The course goal revolves around student-driven self-fulfillment and the innovative results that spring from spontaneous discovery and intuitive decision-making. Formal demonstrations and slide discussions will be used throughout the class. Through open dialogue and supportive group critiques, students will be encouraged to generate a personal direction for their work. This class provides an opportunity to improve technically while gaining a fluid, unconstrained skillset, as we explore the medium’s many expressive possibilities. Students of all levels and experience are welcome.

This studio workshop invites students to immerse themselves in the practices of the Impressionists, studying the innovative approaches of artists like Monet, Renoir, and Pissarro. Through guided exercises and personal projects, participants will experiment with color harmony, expressive brushwork, and the capture of natural light and atmosphere. Alongside painting practice, the course provides historical and artistic context, allowing students to see how Impressionism reshaped the visual arts and continues to influence painting today. Formal demonstrations and slide discussions will be used throughout the class. Through open dialogue and supportive group critiques, students will be encouraged to generate a personal direction for their work. This class provides an opportunity to improve technically while gaining a fluid skillset grounded in the expressive possibilities of an Impressionistic approach. Students of all levels and experience are welcome.