YSAR+Course+Descriptions

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**Course Descriptions Index**

Process: Main Pages | Course Map | Other Pages

To make the Course Map section of our website more effective, on the refined prototype we decided to include course descriptions in the pop up for each course. This would give students a better idea of what the course was about as many of the names given to visual arts courses can be quite vague, which will not necessarily improve interest in the course without any further information.

Below are the courses and descriptions used in the course map section in order of course code.


 * FA/VISA 2021 3.0 Painting Approaches to the Human Figure**

Examines aesthetics and techniques through the study of various traditions and approaches to painting the human figure. Visual vocabulary and formal composition are developed through practical application and critical appraisal. Contemporary art concerns are discussed in slide presentations.


 * FA/VISA 2024 3.0 Painting: Composition and Colour**

Introduces composition and colour through a number of assigned painting projects on how to structure a painting. Emphasis is on formal elements, particularly colour, and combining them through a diversity of compositional means that cover a range of painting genres.


 * FA/VISA 2025 3.0 Painting: Approaches to Technique and Materials**

Explores a range of approaches to painting through a study of both traditional and contemporary techniques and materials. Students develop the technical and conceptual competency required for further exploration in painting, and discuss contemporary issues relating to the practice.


 * FA/VISA 2031 3.0 Sculpture: Introductory Wood and Metal Fabrication**

Engages students in three-dimensional, non-representational sculpture stressing individual approaches to creative problem solving. Introduces students to sculptural methodologies and skills employing additive and reductive processes. Discusses fundamental concepts of traditional, post-modern, and emerging sculptural production in relation to abstraction, as experienced through individual production. Compulsory supplementary fees apply. Mandatory safety equipment required.


 * FA/VISA 2032 3.0 3-Dimensional Construction**

Projects focus on three-dimensional construction processes such as plaster construction, wood construction and found objects. The primary aim of this course is to introduce students to sculptural practices that encompasses more than one material in the production of 3-dimensional objects.The theory and practice of 20th-century constructed sculpture is examined through discussions, slide lectures and course projects.


 * FA/VISA 2034 3.0 Stone Carving**

Develops understanding of form by combining primary sculptural method and traditional material. Investigations using stone identify principles of glyptic method and idea through dialogue, slide discussions and readings, resulting in visible signs of process and materialization of completed work. Compulsory supplementary fees. Mandatory safety equipment is required.


 * FA/VISA 2053 3.0 Time-Based Art: Crossing Boundaries**

Introduces students to interdisciplinary studio practice, emphasizing critical thinking and creative exploration. Projects may be developed through combinations of different practices, such as photo and text, bookworks, audio/video, and site-specific works. Technical workshops include introductions to Photoshop and Quicktime movies. Compulsory supplementary fees. Open to FES students formally registered in CAP.


 * FA/VISA 2055 3.0 Time-Based Art: Performance Art and Everyday Life**

Focuses on individual and group projects plus readings on time-based media, especially contemporary performance art. Students participate in exercises that promote original responses to the everyday environment, and are encouraged to use a variety of media in making works. Compulsory supplementary fees. Open to FES students formally registered in CAP.


 * FA/VISA 2056 3.0 Time-Based Art: Introduction to Video Art: Production**

ntroduces students to the creative practice of video art in a production studio environment, including both concepts and techniques. Classes include workshops on camera, lighting, video effects and sound recording techniques. Students create individual creative video projects. Compulsory supplementary fees.


 * FA/VISA 2060 3.0 Introductory Photography: Black and White**

Focuses on the creation and production of black and white photographs in this hands-on studio course. Camera, film and print skills are developed in conjunction with critical and aesthetic awareness. A 35 mm manually operable camera is required. Compulsory supplementary fees apply.


 * FA/VISA 2064 3.0 Introductory Photography: Colour**

Creating and producing colour photographs is the focus of this hands-on studio course. Camera, film and print skills are developed in conjunction with critical and aesthetic awareness. A 35 mm manually operable camera is required. Compulsory supplementary fees.


 * FA/VISA 2065 3.0 Introductory Digital Photography: Camera to Image**

ntroduces photographic practices in a digital environment. Explores camera, tools, techniques and conceptual approaches related to image capture and printing. A digital camera is required. Compulsory supplementary fees. Open to students formally registered in the Cross-Disciplinary Certificate in Digital Media.


 * FA/VISA 2070 3.0 Print Media: Lithography**

In this introduction to lithography, students are exposed to the ideas and aesthetics informing contemporary print media. Demonstrations and projects cover various approaches to this medium, including drawing, transfer and photographic or digital methods. An understanding of the material and conceptual possibilities of lithography will allow students to develop individual print practices. Compulsory materials fee. Mandatory safety equipment is required. Open to FES students formally registered in CAP.


 * FA/VISA 2071 3.0 Print Media: Intaglio**

Provides an introduction to intaglio, students are exposed to the ideas and aesthetics informing contemporary print media. Demonstrations and projects will cover various approaches to intaglio, including drypoint, etching and photo-etching. Compulsory materials fees apply. Mandatory safety equipment required. Open to FES students formally registered in CAP.


 * FA/VISA 2073 3.0 Print Media: Relief**

In this introduction to relief printing, students are exposed to the ideas and aesthetics informing contemporary print media. Demonstrations and projects include various approaches to relief printing such as woodcut, linocut and collagraph, and cover a range of techniques and material processes. Compulsory supplementary fees.


 * FA/VISA 2074 3.0 Print Media: Screenprinting**

In this introduction to screenprinting, students are exposed to the ideas and aesthetics informing contemporary print media. Demonstrations and projects cover various approaches to screenprinting with a range of techniques and material processes. Compulsory supplementary fees.


 * FA/VISA 2081 3.0 Drawing: Perception, Proportion, Structure**

Explores contemporary approaches to traditional genres such as the still life, portrait, landscape and architecture are developed in relation to formal drawing skills. Studio projects include observational drawing and the application of representational systems such as perspective. The creative process is stressed encouraging personal, imaginative solutions to class projects and home assignments.


 * FA/VISA 2082 3.0 Drawing: Approaches to Abstract Image Making**

Explores contemporary, non-representational approaches to drawing through studio projects and slide presentations. Develops conceptual methods for generating abstract imagery in conjunction with formal drawing skills and techniques. Stresses the creative process by encouraging personal, imaginative solutions to class projects and home assignments.


 * FA/VISA 3022B 3.0 Painting: The Spaces We Live In**

Offers thematic painting studio that focuses on contemporary concepts of space: the 'real' space of super-modernity as experienced in large urban centres and virtual or cyberspace. The conceptual ideas related to the theme are introduced through selected readings.


 * FA/VISA 3022C 3.0 Painting: Constructing the Human Figure**

Investigates the representation of the naked and clothed human figure in painting. Working from close observation of a life model, appropriated images and from their imagination, students explore questions of identity and social references while developing technical and compositional skills.


 * FA/VISA 3024A 3.0 A 2- and 3-Dimensional Practice**

Explores new forms of contemporary painting that extend the medium from a two-dimensional practice to a critical consideration of its limit/frame, different kinds of support/form, as well as its relationship with the surrounding architecture/environment.


 * FA/VISA 3024C 3.0 Painting: Shifting Boundaries of Abstraction**

Examines the recent shift of the boundaries of abstraction and figuration in pictorial experience. In a series of painting, students create new relationships between abstraction and figuration by using the visual strategies of convergence, interference and mutation.


 * FA/VISA 3025A 3.0 Painting: Pre 1950 Strategies**

Explores contemporary pictorial strategies from selected major art movements of the first half of the twentieth century.


 * FA/VISA 3030 6.0 Sculpture**

Investigates sculpture within contemporary art practices encompassing a complex inquiry of materials, process and concept.


 * FA/VISA 3031 6.0 Foundry**

Introduces foundry processes in the creation of sculpture with the purpose of exploring the creative potential inherent in metal casting techniques when students apply them to their studio practice.


 * FA/VISA 3035 3.0 Digital Sculpture**

Introduces students to the realm of possibilities for creating digitally produced objects, the challenges of creating sculpture using three dimensional printing technologies, and related conceptual concerns. Compulsory Supplementary Fees apply.


 * FA/VISA 3052 6.0 Time-Based Art: Video Art**

Examines video art practices, including video installation, media performance art, narrative structures and new challenges in documentary. Technical workshops are given in combination with seminars and discussion. Practical experience is gained in production and editing in digital format. Compulsory supplementary fees. Open to students formally registered in the Cross-Disciplinary Certificate in Digital Media.


 * FA/VISA 3060 6.0 Photography: Black and White**

Focuses on camera art, darkroom production and contemporary presentation approaches related to the creation of black and white photography. Skills, knowledge, aesthetic awareness and critical understanding are developed through creative projects. Safety equipment is required.


 * FA/VISA 3063 6.0 Photography Explorations**

Investigates mixed method photo-based practices. It addresses the necessary interplay of creative problem solving, conceptual thought, social and political theory and the evolution of technologies in contemporary art practice.


 * FA/VISA 3064 6.0 Colour Photography**

Focuses on camera art, image production and contemporary presentation approaches related to the creation of colour photography. Skills, knowledge, aesthetic awareness and critical understanding are developed through creative projects. Mandatory safety equipment is required.


 * FA/VISA 3070 6.0 Extended Print Practice**

Building upon knowledge gained from introductory printmaking courses, students will have the opportunity to work in various print media as well as investigate extended print media practice such as artists’‘ book, printed ephemera, print installation and digital imaging. Compulsory supplementary fees. Mandatory safety equipment is required.


 * FA/VISA 3072 3.0 Photo-Digital Processed: Intaglio and Lithography**

Considers a range of ideas and material practices in the area of photo-digital print media. Focuses on photo-intaglio and photo-lighography processes providing students with opportunities to develop an advanced body of work. Compulsory supplementary fees apply.


 * FA/VISA 3080 6.0 Drawing**

The object of this course is to give order to the acts of seeing and thinking. The student is required to select information from the phenomenal world so as to become capable of differentiating between the perceived and the known.


 * FA/VISA 3081 6.0 Investigative Methods, Resource Development and Notation**

Offers an examination and elucidation of the concerns of form as they relate to studio practice in drawing so as to provide a grounding in the understanding, use and exercise of basic systems of visual research and concept development.


 * FA/VISA 3083 3.0 Drawing from the Model**

Explores and develops drawing skills by concentrating on the figure and drawing from live models. Analytical and expressive skills are developed using a variety of drawing media.


 * FA/VISA 3084 3.0 Interpreting the Model**

Explores the human figure in contemporary art through studio projects and home assignments. Class work consists of observational and interpretive drawing, including drawing from live models. Form, composition, modeling and mark making are emphasized in relation to various drawing media.


 * FA/VISA 3085 3.0 Drawing: Image and Narrative**

Examines a variety of narrative structures through the drawing process to develop personal imagery and concepts applicable to a broad range of media.


 * FA/VISA 4030 6.0 Pushing the Sculptural Envelope**

For visual arts majors wishing to expand their knowledge of sculpture beyond 3000 level. Advanced course involving year-long projects, weekly discussion, group critiques, museum and gallery visits. High-level technical support and instruction in advanced techniques is available. Compulsory supplementary fees.


 * FA/VISA 4090D 6.0 Painting: Contemporary Explorations**

Provides a focused practicum for senior students that examines contemporary practices in painting. This course is structured around self-initiated projects under the direction of the instructor. Through the coupling of theoretical and practical explorations, the course facilitates students' ability to develop their individual projects within the contemporary context of representational and abstract art, popular culture and mass media.


 * FA/VISA 4070 6.0 Print Media**

Students will further refine skills and develop a greater understanding of contemporary print media practices. In consultation with the instructor, students will develop studio projects toward a portfolio of work. The incorporation of digital imaging and other media is encouraged. Compulsory materials fees apply. Mandatory safety equipment required.


 * FA/VISA 4090H 6.0 Advanced Explorations**

Offers a focused practicum for senior students to apply conceptual, technical and creative skills in the production of directed photo-based projects. Encourages the development of advanced skills in digital and/or film-based technologies, independent research and production.