Natalia Poehner drawing a self-portrait in her studio

BFAPainting & Drawing

Transcend the boundaries of the medium and engage with critical issues through an imaginative and expansive fine arts exercise.

On this page

Overview

Develop your voice equally an artist

Faculty and students talk over the radical, interdisciplinary thinking at the heart of CCA's Painting & Drawing plan. Watch more videos.

Accept your work in unexpected directions

We provide aspiring fine artists with a supportive community and rigorous culture of critique. Students develop their technical and conceptual skills in drawing and painting studios while sharing and debating ideas with kinesthesia, peers, and visiting artists. With a broad notion of what fine arts can exist in the earth, and the opportunity to make all kinds of art objects, our students prepare for MFA programs besides as lifelong careers as practicing artists.

Studios & Shops

Plow an idea into textile form

Mary Graham performing as part of a painting + projections class.

Inspiration for taking bold leaps

We're one of the best painting and drawing programs in the country for artists who enjoy working across disciplines, including photography, sculpture, film and video, textiles, and operation. From oils on canvass to sculptural environments, nosotros provide the materials and resource y'all need to brand compelling arguments through objects and exhibitions. Our dedicated painting studios and cartoon studios, which are large multipurpose rooms, encourage interdisciplinary approaches to fine fine art. Students synthesize ideas and materials, collaborating with peers and exploring conceptually rigorous work.

Claire Nichols next to a self-portrait during a senior critique.

Space for cocky-generated projects

During their junior twelvemonth, students have their ain pocket-sized studio space for defining their voice and developing ideas. Seniors, who focus on how artworks from all their upper-level studios interrelate, have larger spaces for completing their thesis projects. The community comes together in the primary painting and drawing studios for tutorials, creative person talks by kinesthesia, and various student-led events, such as Effigy Drawing Night. With a supportive civilization and dedicated spaces for reflection throughout their studies at CCA, students learn to develop and maintain a thriving practice.

Vision and tools for contemporary practice

As students work toward a cohesive body of work, they develop and hone the following core skills:

  • Think critically to synthesize ideas and materials
  • Conduct research to expand cloth vocabulary
  • Codify creative questions or solutions in dialogue with historical and/or contemporary contexts
  • Identify the appropriate artistic class
  • Leverage visual literacy skills to deepen context of work within the larger cultural exercise of fine art
  • Develop technical skills consequent with entry-level professionals
  • Actively engage with pressing cultural, political, and social problems
  • Demonstrate leadership through community projects
  • Document and present work for public contexts and awarding purposes

A painting student documents their work

A CCA student takes photographs of their work for documentation.

Across the studio and into the world

The fine arts programs at CCA host a diverse group of visiting artists each year. Yous'll be exposed to new trends and practices in gimmicky arts, which helps you confidently engage with the ideas you lot're most passionate near. Most of our cartoon and painting studios take students to Bay Area museums, galleries, and nonprofit spaces, many of which are within walking altitude of our San Francisco campus. These opportunities encourage you to think critically about your contributions to the field and help yous make meaningful connections to arts professionals in the globe at big.

Students paint a model who is posing on a platform.

Electives that empower you to explore

Students interact with dissimilar kinds of artists and draw inspiration from the diverse range of fine arts and design practices at CCA. We encourage yous to pursue many electives and push button beyond your comfort zone in classes outside of our plan. You tin brand films, manipulate textiles, sculpt, illustrate, take photographs, and experiment with letterpress and screenprinting. The more than materials and resource you gather, the more robust and fulfilling your studio feel can exist at CCA. While our main motivation for creating a flexible curriculum is to help you hone an independent artistic practise, we also want y'all to feel empowered to intermission the rules.

Materials and resources

  • Easels
  • Halogen lights and options for staging
  • Rolling painting walls
  • All-encompassing props
  • Painting racks for storage
  • Large tables and palette tables
  • Studio space for juniors
  • Special collections at CCA libraries
  • Private studio space for senior thesis work

Boosted shops, labs, and studios

Kinesthesia

Work with renowned practicing artists

Our fine arts faculty exhibit and publish widely. They mentor students through material and conceptual experiments, drawing from their experiences in mixed media, video art, abstract painting, photography, printmaking, and more.

Linda Geary talking with students in the Nave painting studios

Linda Geary, Chair of Painting and Cartoon

Chair Linda Geary'due south work ranges from book-sized to monumental and is inspired by material processes and reinvention. She'south been featured in exhibitions at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Mills Higher, Kadist Foundation, Oakland Museum of California, and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Motion picture Annal. Writing about Linda'due south piece of work is included in Artforum, Huffington Post, Art Applied, San Francisco Relate, and elsewhere. In 2013, Geary co-organized Painting Expanded, a one-day symposium at CCA that included presentations and panel discussions with internationally recognized artists from around the U.S. View part one and part ii of the symposium to larn nearly ten artists' diverse approaches to painting.

Faculty stories

Curriculum

We think with our easily

Shape an exciting and diverse studio practise

Our program has an exploratory curriculum construction that includes—and goes beyond—the traditions of painting and drawing. For example, students can work across disciplines through our sequence of open studio electives, expanding in scale and discovering new materials. From tactile research and conceptual development to critique and presentation, students get easily-on feel with every aspect of art production. View sample courses.

Investigate ideas through every dimension

Before diving into their chosen major, every undergraduate participates in the First Year Experience. Students explore a wide range of materials and tools over the class of ii semesters. Faculty from different disciplines guide studio projects, group critiques, and theoretical discussions, setting students up for success throughout their major coursework.

BFA Painting & Drawing

Core Studio

Drawing i
3.0 units
2nd, 3D, and 4D
nine.0 units

Painting & Drawing Major Requirements

Painting 1-4
12.0 units
Drawing 2
3.0 units
Materials and Methods
iii.0 units
Digital Tools
3.0 units
Painting/Drawing Workshops
6.0 units
Junior Tutorial
3.0 units
Media History 2: Living Painters
3.0 units
Senior Project
6.0 units

Additional Studio Requirements

Interdisciplinary Critique
3.0 units
Upper Segmentation Interdisciplinary Studio
3.0 units
Critical Ethnic Studies Studio
3.0 units
Studio Elective
12.0 units

Humanities & Sciences Requirements

Writing 1
3.0 units
Writing ii
3.0 units
Introduction to the Arts
iii.0 units
Introduction to the Modern Arts
3.0 units
Foundation in Critical Studies
3.0 units
Media History 1: Dead Painters
3.0 units
Critical Ethnic Studies Seminar (2000 level)
3.0 units
Literary and Performing Arts Studies (2000 level)
3.0 units
Philosophy and Critical Theory (2000 level)
3.0 units
Social Scientific discipline/History (2000 level)
3.0 units
Science/Math (2000 level)
3.0 units
History of Art and Visual Culture (2000 level)
iii.0 units
Humanities and Sciences Elective (2000 or 3000 level, at least 6 units must be 3000 level)
12.0 units

Total 120.0 units

Careers

Build a sustainable fine art exercise

Students graduate from the Painting and Drawing program with the disquisitional thinking, leadership, and visual literacy skills to forge their ain singled-out paths. With feel in a diverseness of mediums and methods, alumni embrace a lot of footing in their independent practices, including illustration, curation, and glasswork, to name just a few avenues. Alumni are also prepared to take an entrepreneurial arroyo to their careers. They understand how to work with gallerists, navigate the nuances of the art market, and deliver on production and exhibition schedules. About importantly, alumni proceed to evolve their creative voices, finding unique ways to incorporate their lives and interests into groundbreaking piece of work.

Potential career paths

  • Professional artist
  • Arts educator
  • Business organisation owner in the artistic field
  • Cultural innovator
  • Creative person's studio assistant

News & Events

What's happening in our community?

How to Employ

Bring your creative vision to life

A painting student using her hands to apply pigment to canvas

Our students are open up-minded, creative, and critical. They thrive with a salubrious balance of faculty mentorship and private, undivided time and space for creating, whether they call back of their practice in terms of brush and sheet or something more expansive. Our goal is to provide you lot with the critical, conceptual, and technical skills you need to flourish as an creative person.