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PHOTO 5302-01
SOPHOMORE LAB
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Sophomore Studio is focused on the of each student's expressive vision so that she/he can create photographs with compelling content. Through group critiques and individual meetings with the instructor, students will refine their skills as photographers and learn how to verbally articulate issues in their own work as well as the work of others. The greater part of the class will geared towards creating an open an dynamic environment where students engage in the give and take of constructive feedback on their progress. The critique schedule will be enriched by readings, multimedia lectures and class field trips throughout the semester. Attendance at all department visiting artist lectures is required.
Major Requirement | BFA Photography
PHOTO 5305-01
JUNIOR STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Junior Studio continues the process begun in the Sophomore Studio but moves it to a more ambitious and sustained level of production and critical feedback. Students will be expected to work more autonomously and will explore their ideas with more focus and depth, with the goal of working toward the successful production of several bodies of work over the course of the year. Group and individual critiques will continue to form the basis of the course curriculum, supplemented by visiting critics, field trips and class exercises. Attendance at all departmental visiting artist lectures is required.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00 - $200.00
Enrollment is limited to Junior Photography Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Photography
PHOTO 5307-01
SENIOR STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Senior Studio brings together the advanced skills and ideas about image-making that each student in the major has developed over the previous two years. Students are expected to work independently on their individual projects with the expectation of a culminating body of work to be presented in a public exhibition during the spring semester (Degree Project). As in Junior Studio, group and individual critiques with faculty and visiting artists will continue to form the basis of the course curriculum. Attendance at all departmental visiting artist lectures is required.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00 - $250.00
Enrollment is limited to Senior Photography Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Photography
PHOTO 5311-01
ADVANCED DIGITAL IMAGING
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to give junior majors a thorough and deep understanding of the intermediate-level workflow for film capture and scanning and digital camera RAW file capture. Both workflows allow students to produce the highest quality inkjet prints on large-format printers. This course will touch on many topics, including advanced tonal and color correction techniques, image sharpening, digital camera exposure and Raw file processing, inkjet and Lightjet printing and automated batch file processing. While this course is primarily technical, students are expected to pursue their ongoing personal work to fulfill assignments, culminating in a final portfolio of 10 finished digital prints that demonstrate mastery of the techniques learned in the course. Students entering the course should be proficient in the use of the Macintosh platform and basic Photoshop operations and have a good understanding of processing and printing in black and white photography. Transfer majors must demonstrate these proficiencies to the satisfaction of the department before being permitted to enroll in this course.
Prerequisite: PHOTO-5308 for undergraduates.
Major Requirement | BFA Photography
PHOTO 5312-01
THE IMAGE AND SPACE AND TIME
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course will wrestle with the mercurial and ever-evolving subject of Time-Based art. What is Time-Based art? Is it simply art with durational elements that unfold over the course of the work? Is it art that depends on time to define itself? Is it art that can only exist within the confines of regulated space? Is it art that stands firmly in the aftermath of what preceded it? Is it art that keeps time, wastes time, witnesses time, changes time, rearranges time, or records time? In this course, we will explore and welcome work being made under the broad umbrella of Time-Based work, such as: documentary photography, video art, experimental film, performance art, recorded happenings, social practice, and sculpture made with temporal dimensions. The course will operate as a studio course, with students being asked to present work for critique regularly, as well as weekly discussions of historical and contemporary investigations and demonstrations of Time-Based art.
Elective
PHOTO 5314-01
LIGHTING: CONSTRUCTED REALITIES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course will focus on basic lighting techniques and principles that will provide students with the skills necessary to feel comfortable in a variety of lighting situations. Students will not only gain an understanding of how light can be manipulated and controlled but also how it can be used to communicate information. The course will serve as an introduction to the studio and to various kinds of tungsten and strobe equipment.
Estimated Materials Cost: $150.00 - $200.00
Elective
PHOTO 5318-01
ANTIQUE & ALTERNATE PROCESSES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In the photographic art world today, exciting new forms of print production have expanded expressive choices for artists, often combining processes from the earliest days of photography with the latest advances in digital media. In this course, students will explore a number of vintage and experimental photographic processes, including cyanotype, wet collodion, platinum/paladium printing, albumen, gum bichromate and liquid light. The goal of the course is to broaden the student's repertoire of photographic printmaking techniques and allow for experimentation with hybrid forms that combine old and new methods in innovative ways.
Estimated Materials Cost: $150.00 - $200.00
Elective
PHOTO 532G-01
GRADUATE CRITIQUE I
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is an ongoing discussion of individual work with special reference to current issues and concerns in contemporary art. Each student will be required to show and discuss work. Grades by participation.
Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.
Major Requirement | MFA Photography
PHOTO 5350-01
INTRO TO DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In this course, students will be introduced to the basic principles of digitally capturing, processing, and printing photographs that are really worth making. We'll cover all the important functions that most digital cameras have in common and we'll go through the fundamentals of using Photoshop to refine and manipulate images. Students will learn their cameras' controls well enough to use the manual settings with confidence, and how to make the automatic features work for them instead of against them. We'll consider what makes a good photograph both technically and creatively, and we'll critique prints made on the Photo department's high-quality Epson printers. Students will need to provide their own digital camera with raw capture capability (DSLR or equivalent), and a portable hard drive (formatted for Mac), both of which they should bring to the first class. (Hard drives will be needed before week 2). Students registered for the course who are in the market for a new camera are welcome to contact the professor for camera purchasing advice.
Elective
PHOTO 536G-01
GRADUATE CRITIQUE III THESIS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is an ongoing discussion of individual work with special reference to current issues and concerns in contemporary art. Each student will be required to show and discuss work. Grades by participation.
Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.
Major Requirement | MFA Photography
PHOTO 541G-01
GRADUATE SEMINAR
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Graduate Seminar works in complement with Graduate Critique to provide a forum in which students assemble in discussion, analysis and reflection around a set of ideas, practices and histories that are of substantial relevance to photography, its history and its contemporary forms. The content of the seminar will vary from year to year, but students will be expected to read, research, discuss, write about and/or present on the material addressed in class. The seminar will interact with the department's Visiting Artist lecture series, with the SEI Lecture Series, and with MCM events at Brown. Attendance at those lectures is highly recommended.
Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.
Major Requirement | MFA Photography
PRINT 2711-01
ART OF THE MEZZOTINT
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Expanding on the fundamentals of Intaglio, this course will explore the Mezzotint technique that was developed in the mid- seventeenth century. This technique is unique because it achieves tonality by roughening a metal plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth, called a "rocker". The plate will print with a strong and even velvety black. At this point, the burs created by the rocker are then scraped and burnished away to create arrange of tonality. Students will learn how to rock a plate, develop their drawings, transfer their designs on a copper plate, use a rocker, sharpen a rocker and printing methods. Mixed Media etching methods with mezzotint images will be explored as additional mark making possibilities and color layering. Emphasis will be placed on sound technical execution, image making, and the development of students’ personal artistic language. Technical demonstrations, individual and group critiques will be used throughout the semester to encourage students’ artistic practice. Let’s “Rock” and “Roll”!
Estimated Cost of Materials: $120.00
Elective
PRINT 3215-01
INTAGLIO: ALTERNATIVE PRACTICES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Intaglio: Alternative Practices builds bridges from experience in the medium of intaglio by presenting advanced and innovative platemaking and printing processes using copper, plexiglass, and polymer plate types. Coursework will cover topics such as: custom stop-outs, extended etches, ink interfacing, toner transfers, and extensions into the digital realm utilizing the Benson Hall “Tech Lab” resources. Demonstrations and assignments will focus on the virtues of plating material, not solely as printable matrices, or carriers of transferrable visual information, but also as finished objects. The semester will be driven by demonstration, guided in-class work, independent work focused on experimentation, and conversation geared toward alternatives to substrate (paper), matrix (copper, polymer, plexi), and medium (ink). The semester will culminate in a self-directed final project that requires students to generate a grouping of works that successfully combine a selection of the processes covered which includes a substantial set of proofs, studies, plating tests, and pertinent supplementary visual/technical research.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $125.00
Elective
PRINT 4522-01
PRINT INSTALLATION AND CONTEMPORARY PRINT MEDIA
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Printmaking's inclusive nature allows for many different approaches and opportunities. Motivated by historic, sociological, political and media driven revolutions, printmaking has undergone significant shifts throughout history. The current world of image proliferation and rapid technological innovations have pushed the traditional boundaries of printmaking even further in the contemporary art world. Many of today's artists are creating large-scale installations utilizing the printed multiple in many distinctive ways. Through process and scale, students will examine the interrelated nature of form, multiples, expression, and meaning. The course will explore permanent, temporary and site-specific installation based art.
Elective
PRINT 4523-01
PRINTMAKING AND THE POLITICS OF PROTEST
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Printmaking and The Politics of Protest examines the role of prints and printed matter in
the context of political protest, the power of images, and how artists as well as non-
artists have asserted and supported social justice and sustainability issues through art.
While exploring the historical and structural basis of inequality, students will learn
different theoretical paradigms and techniques for visual analysis in order to understand
how visual media can inscribe and dismantle power and be a catalyst for change while
mediating numerous social, economic, cultural and political differences. More
importantly students will form recognition of their positions in an increasingly pluralistic
world while fostering an understanding of social and cultural differences. This will be
investigated through some of the following methods: lectures, exhibitions, guest
lectures, video, historical art and media, group research initiatives, and the discussion of
and creation of images that define and explore issues impacting our lives.
Elective
PRINT 4608-01
LITHOGRAPHY
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course offers basic black and white lithographic technical applications on lithostone and lithoplate to those students who are at the beginning level. Contemporary techniques, and technical short-cuts will elaborate on traditional processing. Experimentation is encouraged throughout the semester while emphasis is placed on the development of personally innovative imagery and concept. Informal group and individual critiques are conducted in conjunction with group mid-semester and final critiques. A professionally portfolio of assigned prints is due at the end of the course.
Course may be repeated for credit.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00
Major Requirement | BFA Printmaking
PRINT 4610-01
SCREEN PRINT
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Students will stretch their own screens and will be introduced to a wide range of stencil techniques (cut film, paper stencil, crayon and glue, tusche and glue, and photo). Students are urged to experiment with stencil and printing techniques to produce a portfolio of editioned prints.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $175.00
Major Requirement | BFA Printmaking
PRINT 4615-01
WORKSHOP: LIGHT TO INK
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The use of light-based print processes is ubiquitous in contemporary printmaking. Light to Ink will lay a foundation of knowledge within the printmaking medium for using light as a part of the image-making process. The class is designed to introduce students to the basics of Printmaking using either hand made, digital or photo-made matrixes. The class will learn to make prints using the traditional print methods of intaglio, lithography and screenprint and build a base of information about the production of the film transparencies from which the matrix is made. Students will be taught the skills necessary to take the photo, computer, or handmade image from a one or a series of positive transparencies to a finished print. From Light to Ink is a starting point for growth and exploration in photo printmaking and an introduction to printing in intaglio, lithography and screenprint. No prior knowledge of printmaking is required. This class is most appropriate for sophomores, juniors and first semester seniors.
Open to Junior, Senior or Graduate Painting Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Printmaking
PRINT 461G-01
GRADUATE PRINTMAKING I: HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND PRACTICE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Students in the graduate printmaking program will utilize graduate level research and scholarship as an impetus for growth within studio practice. Investigation into historical cycles of printmaking will be fostered through assigned texts and exploration of primary resources available at RISD, especially The RISD Museum. A dialogue stemming from intensive studio work will be developed in varied formats by faculty, visiting artists and peers throughout the semester.
Major Requirement | MFA Printmaking
PRINT 4622-01
SENIOR PRINT WORKSHOP: SEMINAR
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course offers a glimpse into the realities of pursuing a professional career in printmaking (and the fine arts). Various aspects of developing and maintaining a studio career will be covered including: CV, artist statements, and the effective preparation of competitive applications of all forms. Career Services serves as an important resource. Students will be expected to produce new work and related scholarship consistently, and frequently during the course of the term, with the goal of submitting the following prior to receipt of final grades: full and distributable CV, artist statement, short-form artist statement abstract, presentation of past/present/future work, a business card design ready for print, completed artist interview (with colleague from class), a well documented, hi-resolution, and fully-edited for submission, portfolio of at least 15, and up to 20 images of recent work, which includes detail and installation views, and a fully-detailed image list/inventory. During the course of the class students will also prep mock applications to at least 2 of the following (graduate school, artist residency, grant funding, etc.), and at least 1 of these applications will be brought to finalization and submitted to the institution of choice. Course will include in-progress critiques of recent work, group discussions, lectures, and presentations.
Open to Senior Printmaking Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Printmaking