------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Cabot University
Course Code: AS 110
Course Name: Drawing-Rome Sketchbook
Semester & Year: Summer II Session 2025
Syllabus
Instructor: Nan Liu
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 9:00am-12:45 pm
Total No. of Contact Hours: 42
Credits: 3
Prerequisites:
Office Hours:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Course Description:
This course is designed to use the city of Rome as the resource: each class meets at a different site around the city. Through sketching on-site, students apply various drawing mediums and techniques to record their daily visual experiences. The instructor will give brief discussions of the sites and conduct demonstrations of drawing techniques on-site. Students focus on the quick description of the form, capturing light and the volume in space, and understanding linear perspective in space. Through sketching, students can create drawings based on their artistic vision.
Summary of Course Content:
Each class meets at a different site of the historical site around Rome. Students make drawings from observation. Students use their sketchbooks to record the visual images they are seeing. At the beginning of each class meeting, the instructor will introduce basic drawing terms and concepts, demonstrate drawing techniques, and briefly discuss the site.
During the class, students select points of view that appeal to them, and the instructor gives personal advice based on each student’s drawing. Group critique will happen at the end of each class. There will be a final group critique last Friday in the JCU classroom.
Drawing terms, concepts, and techniques will be introduced which include line, value, chiaroscuro, core of shadow, mid-tone, shadow, casted shadow, high-light, linear perspective, vanish point, horizon line, foreground, midground, background, viewfinder, proportion, contour line drawing, continuous tone drawing, hatching and cross-hatching drawing, gesture drawing, and so on.
Drawing issues will be addressed, including focal point, visual contrast, space, light, texture, balance, creating space and visual drama through various kinds of contrast, rendering form in light and dark, using different types of lines to create form, faces, and figures from classical status and so on.
Students explore various drawing mediums, including graphite pencils, charcoal and charcoal pencils, pen and ink, colored pencils, pastels, and crayons.
Additional information:
- This course involves working from direct observation. Working from photographs is not permitted.
- This course may include visits involving an entry fee. These visits are held to a minimum and should not cost you more than 25 euros over the session.
- The core activity is drawing directly from observation. You cannot meet the course requirements without working many hours outside of class.
- The class meets rain or shine.
- This course aims to help students get started, students not only practice and master the fundamental drawing techniques and concepts but also develop individual artistic creativity.
- Students must come to class on time because that is when most crucial class information, such as assignment requirements, drawing demonstrations, and new drawing terms and concepts, are given.
- Students must dress appropriately: proper footwear, no bare shoulders, and no short skirts allowed in churches, hats, and sunscreen.
- Be sure to plan your morning itinerary so you can arrive at the site before class time. Be alerted to the announcements of changes to the preliminary schedule below.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the course, students should be able to master the basic drawing techniques and concepts, be capable of careful observation, and represent nature through quick sketches and more extended studies. Familiar with significant sites in Rome. Be able to apply various drawing mediums in drawing and sketching.
Textbook:
None
Required Reserved Reading:
None
Recommended Reserved Reading:
None
Grading Policy
Assessment Methods:
|
Assignment
|
Guidelines
|
Weight
|
|
Completed sketchbook of drawings done over the term
|
Grading is based on a judgment of the contents of the sketchbook created over the semester and on the work done at the site. The quantity of work produced is of great importance. Making a large body of work by itself practically guarantees progress. Commitment, range of experimentation, resourcefulness, inventiveness, expressiveness, acuity of observation, concision, complexity, improvement, spatial clarity, and other technical skill and artistic quality aspects are also considered.
|
60
|
|
Attendance and punctuality
|
Unjustified absences erode the grade, as repeated late arrivals.
|
10
|
|
Progress over the session
|
A clear demonstration that the concepts, techniques, and issues involved in drawing have been grasped and understood.
|
30
|
Assessment Criteria:
1. Mastery of basic techniques and concepts
2. Personal efforts and improvement
3. Successfully completing all assignments.
4. Class participation and attendance.
- Superior: Excellent work in craftsmanship, concept and skill development. Work Shows creativity, thought and strong effort.
- Work that surpassed the project’s requirements. Artwork is of good quality and shows above average level of effort.
- Average work which is acceptable and fulfills the project requirements.
- Below average work. Poorly executed and shows a lack of effort.
- Incomplete projects resulting from excessive absences, or academic honesty.
Attendance Requirements:
ATTENDANCE REQUIRMENTS AND EXAMINATION POLICY
You cannot make-up a major exam (midterm or final) without the permission of the Dean’s Office. The Dean’s office will grant such permission only when the absence was caused by a serious impediment, such as a documented illness, hospitalization or death in the immediate family (in which you must attend the funeral) or other situations of similar gravity. Absences due to other meaningful conflicts, such as job interviews, family celebrations, travel difficulties, student misunderstanding or personal convenience, will not be excused. Students who will be absent from a major exam must notify the Dean’s Office prior to that exam. Absences from class due to the observance of a religious holiday will normally be excused. Individual students who will have to miss class to observe a religious holiday should notify the instructor by the end of the Add/Drop period to make prior arrangements for making up any work that will be missed. The final exam period runs until August 8.
Academic Honesty
As stated in the university catalog, any student who commits an act of academic dishonesty will receive a failing grade on the work in which the dishonesty occurred. In addition, acts of academic dishonesty, irrespective of the weight of the assignment, may result in the student receiving a failing grade in the course. Instances of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Dean of Academic Affairs. A student who is reported twice for academic dishonesty is subject to summary dismissal from the University. In such a case, the Academic Council will then make a recommendation to the President, who will make the final decision.
STUDENTS WITH LEARNING OR OTHER DISABILITIES
John Cabot University does not discriminate on the basis of disability or handicap. Students with approved accommodations must inform their professors at the beginning of the term. Please see the website for the complete policy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SCHEDULE
Provisional Schedule day by day, but stay alert for changes:
Week 1
Day 1(Monday, July 7): Introduction. Meet (this time only until the final critique) at the JCU art studio: New Campus, Lungotevere Sanzio 11, second floor, Painting/Drawing studio. Lesson: Line and value drawing. Sketching on the Castel Sant’Angelo bridge.
Assignment: Two drawings of the Castel Sant’ Angelo bridge. One drawing of the statues.
Day 2 (Wednesday, July 9): Meet at Santa Sabina on the Aventino—Lesson: devoted to solving problems of perspective.
Assignment: Two drawings focus on perspective.
Week 2
Day 3 (Monday, July 14): Meet at the Campidoglio (the Piazza of the Capitoline Hill, up the big stairs to the south of Piazza Venezia). Lesson: view-finding, looking down upon the forum and on the city.
Assignment: Two drawings focus on perspective.
Day 4 (Wednesday, July 16) Meet in Piazza del Campidoglio; we will draw inside the Capitoline Museum. You will need a MIC Card (5 euro. Can be bought at any communal museum showing a student ID from JCU). Drawing statues from antiquity. Entry Fee 15 Euro.
Assignment: 5 Faster line drawings from statues, two slower drawings with shadow.
Week 1 & 2 Assignment: 8-12 sketches (drawings), minimum 2 pieces (9.5x13” or larger) from each site. Use graphite pencil, charcoal, charcoal pencil, or ink pen.
Week 3
Day 5 (Monday, July 21): Meet at Spanish steps. Lesson: Drawing street life
Assignment: Two drawings of the Spanish steps from different points of view.
Day 6 (Wednesday, July 23): Meet at Piazza Navona (Fountain of Four Rivers). Lesson: drawing classical status, human proportion in figure drawing
Assignment: Two drawings of the Fountain of Four Rivers from different points of view
Week 4
Day 7 (Wednesday, July 28): Meet by the fountain of the Triton in Piazza Barberini. We will be looking at the Baroque by drawing from the fountain of the Triton by Bernini and in the church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini.
Assignment: Colosseum Eight views of the Colosseum or the Arch of Constantine. Three larger views and 5 in which you select a portion, as though zooming in on a part, without trying to draw the whole monument
Day 8 (Wednesday, July 30) Orto Botanico: meet at Guarini entry, and we walk from there. Entry fee 4/6 Euro. Observation of nature.
Assignment: 4 drawings of study of any plants (2 detail study, 2 study of the scene)
Week 3 & 4 Assignments: 16-20 (drawings), minimum two pieces (9.5x13” or larger) from each site. Use graphite pencil, charcoal, charcoal pencil, ink pen, or ink brush.
Week 5
Day 9 (Monday, August 4): Meet at Guarini entry, and we walk from there to Tiber Island—problems in the cityscape, landscape, riverscape, water, and atmosphere.
Assignment: Two drawings of the cityscape
Day 10 (Wednesday, August 6) Meet Guarini entry; we will go up the Gianicolo to draw views of Rome from above and to draw from Bramante’s Tempietto at S. Pietro in Montorio. Drawing architecture, round forms in perspective, and views over the city.
Assignment: Two views of Rome from above (at the Fontana dell’Acqua Paola or in the Garden of the Oranges on the Aventine or from the Balcony of the Pincio garden overlooking Piazza del Popolo).
Day 11 (Friday, August 8) Final meeting at JCU art studio. Group critique.
Week 5 Assignments: 12 drawings with cityscape, architecture, round forms in perspective, and figures in city, 4 black and white drawings, 8 color drawings on toned paper.
Outside Class Assignments:
Nature within the city or the markets in Rome.
The Market of Piazza San Cosimato in Trastevere or Campo dei Fiori in the center of old Rome (only opens in the mornings).
Assignment: Eight drawings with multiplicity and abundance with group figures.
Drawing with colored pastels or colored pencils on toned paper
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Supplies:
Students buy their own art supplies.
Sketchbook a bound (not spiral or glued) notebook, not less than 24x34cm( about 9.5x13”) (70-100 pages white paper) or larger size (11.7x16.5”) (1)
Sketchbook with Toned paper 9.5x13” or larger size (1)
A variety of pencils and pens:
Ink Pen (2-3) Sakura Pigma Micron Pen (05, 08), Pilot Fine Liner Pen, or Staedtler Pigment Liner Pen, or Pental Arts Hybrid Technica Pens or other brands
Brush Pen (1)-Pental Pocket Brush Pen (Japan)
Charcoal: Compressed Charcoal or Conte Crayon (Black, Brown, or Dark Brown, one piece each), Vine Charcoal Sticks (1 box, 6-12 pieces)
General’s Charcoal Pencil (2B Medium black and white one-piece each)
Graphite Pencil (2H, HB, 2B, 4B, 6B, one piece each, Faber-Castell or other brands)
Pastels or colored pencils (12 colors, 1 set)
Kneaded Eraser (Faber Castell or CretaColor)(1)
Staedtler Mars or (Mono Tombow) Plastic White Eraser or similar type (1)
Utility Knife or Pencil sharpener (1)
Art Box (Art Plastic Pencil Box 1)
Krylon Workable Fixative (1 bottle or other brand)
Art Supply Stores:
Poggi (two locations, one in Trastevere on Via Merry del Val, just off Viale Trastevere, and the other on Via Pie’ di Marmo, near the Pantheon). Also Vertecchi, a chain with many branches, including one near Piazza di Spagna. Drawing supplies are also commonly found in stationary stores (cartolerie).