Course Syllabus

JOHN CABOT UNIVERSITY

COURSE CODE: "AS 204-1"
COURSE NAME: "Painting"
SEMESTER & YEAR: Fall 2025

SYLLABUS

INSTRUCTOR: Michele Tocca
EMAIL: [email protected]
HOURS: W3:30 PM 6:15 PM
TOTAL NO. OF CONTACT HOURS: 45
CREDITS: 3
PREREQUISITES: This class requires a materials fee of €75/$85 to cover all basic art supplies.
OFFICE HOURS:

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course introduces the basic issues of painting and pictorial perception. Emphasis is on students' imaginative responses to a series of classic problems: the still life, figure study, portrait and others through the control of color and light and dark value, while building form in a coherent pictorial space. The course introduces connections between studio work and the history of painting, encouraging critical discussion.

SUMMARY OF COURSE CONTENT:

What is painting? What is its relationship to life and the world around? What distinguishes painting from other visual segments of the visible? The threshold between the seen and seemed, reality and imagination, is the program’s thematic framework through which students will be guided to familiarize with a variety of basic artistic questions and tropes concerning pictorial perception, subjectivity, metaphor, illusion with an emphasis on making.

The focus is on the genre of still life. The world of inanimate things has forever served artists to fully understand painting's technical, formal and expressive basics. Students are then invited towards the end of the semester to push the boundaries of the genre, proposing their own project.

Traditions and material approaches implied in oil painting will be introduced and explored over classes aimed at discovering the students' own personal responses to such techniques as alla prima, glazing, impasto. Painting’s constituent elements – shape, mark-making, colour, materials, surface – will be investigated via aspects of the creative process, from which to develop process-based tasks, studio time, presentations, discussions, readings and visits.

The course is therefore an immersion in what painting can add to the experience of the world, expanding it and encouraging lateral thinking with an attention to the fruitful differences with other fields of experience (environment, communication, information, technology).

Objective: The student’s goal is to activate an actual studio practice, giving evidence of the ability to choose formal and perceptive tools in order to study a subject; the awareness of the different phases of the making of a painting; the ability to make works that are fully engaged in painting’s material and poetic means. The student’s work continues after class, at home, e.g. via sketching, and/or in the studio.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Demonstrate a verbal understanding of fundamental traditions and problems in painting and apply this with growing skill in representing form within space.

Demonstrate a growing ability to apply colour theory, pictorial techniques and compositional strategies within your work.

Demonstrate an ability within your work to analyze the interdependency between form and content within paintings.

Demonstrate an ability to critically reflect upon your own work and the work of others via group critiques and visits to museums and galleries.

Demonstrate the activation of an actual studio practice.

TEXTBOOK:

NONE

REQUIRED RESERVED READING:

NONE

RECOMMENDED RESERVED READING:

NONE

GRADING POLICY
-ASSESSMENT METHODS:

Assignment	Guidelines	Weight
Midterm Review	Assignments and independent projects will be given throughout the course and will be presented and assessed during group critiques. There will be two formal critiques - one at mid-term and the other during final week. Students will be required to present their work to the class and to answer questions about their work by the professor. Students will be encouraged to comment on the work of their classmates. Attendance is mandatory. Failure to be present will result in a significant drop in assessment at the end of the term.	25%
Final Portfolio	The students present a final project, usually a small series of paintings, that demonstrate their independence and their awareness of each phase of the making of a painting. The students' final body of works must reflect an awareness of their identity and potential as practitioners, giving evidence of their ability to sustain a studio routine. Evaluation criteria include: experimentation, resourcefulness, inventiveness, expressiveness, acuity of observation, concision, complexity, improvement, intentionality, spatial clarity, awareness of processes, and other aspects of technical skill and artistic quality. They submit a portfolio featuring every work made since the beginning of the semester.	50%
Attendance, participation and initiative	Attendance is mandatory. Independent work will be expected from each student. Students should expect to spend at least three days a week on developing and finishing projects.	15%
Written Test	This short test happening towards the end of the semester is an opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge of: composition; painting techniques; colour theory and mixing; the history of still life. It is also an opportunity to give evidence of the ability to analyze paintings.	10%

-ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:
AWork of this quality shows excellent mastery of the course content along with exceptional levels of technical skill, artistic awareness, originality, resourcefulness, commitment, quantity of work and improvement. There has been excellent collaboration and leadership in group projects, and there have been no attendance problems.
BA highly competent level of performance with work that directly addresses the content of the course, with a good quantity of work produced.
CAn acceptable level of performance: the work shows awareness of the course content, but is very limited in quantity, quality, commitment and skill.
DThe student lacks a coherent grasp of the course material and has failed to produce much work.
FNegligent in attendance, academic honesty, engagement with the course content, or production of work.

-ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS:
ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS 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 misunderstandings 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 ____________

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

Week 1

.Introduction to course – Aims, expectations, rules, grading

.Conceptual Framework: The 'Seen' and 'Seemed', Still life, Translation

.Seminar 1: Drawing for Painting

Exercises (measuring, negative positive spaces, the acetate and proportion, midtone and intro to shading, mark-making types).

.Allocation of materials and studio induction (where things are, cleaning procedures...)

.Seminar 2: Lights and Shadows - Values, Volumes, Mass and Mapping

Object Study_The Pear pt. 1: Black and White Painting: How lights and shadows behave from observation.

Mapping shadows

.The Making of The Value Scanner and Gradients

.Seminar 3: Introduction to Colour Theory

The Qualities of Colour: Values, Chroma, Contrasts, Tints, Shades, Tones

The Basic Palette

.Object Study_ThePear pt. 2:Colour

.Object Study_Study of One 3D object

.Paint Induction: where things are, oils and thinners, where and how to wash brushes

.Free brushtrokes exercises

.Lecture 1: Oil Paint and the Palette: History and Use of Pigments

.Chromatic study of one object (extraction of colours to create a palette from observation)

-Understanding of gradation of colour on an object, mass, volume and space through colour (Painting with two objects)

-Chromatic study of a shadow and how it creates space (painting a background)

.Seminar 4: Intro to Composition

.Object_Study: 3-object composition (preparation of 1 composition). We prepare two monochromatic background for painting wet on wet. We focus on the notion of ground, imprimitura, grisaille, blocking-in

Demo: Wet on Wet and Alla prima

.Painting Session

.Completion of works

.Midterm Critique

Midterm Feedback

-----

Drawing session with real life objects

----

Seminar & Workshop 5: The Canvas (stretching, sizing, priming; painting studies and finish; introduction to pictorial series)

10.

Lecture 1: The History of Still Life

Demo: Glazing

....

.Second coat of rabbit-skin glue

11.

.Studio session (completion of glazing)

.One-to-one tutorials for final project

12.

.Seminar and Demonstration: Introduction to Impasto Painting

1.Painting from dark background

2.Painting from light background

13.

.Beginning of Final Project on self-made canvas

14.

.Seminar: Artist Statement and Portfolio

.Completion of Final Project

15.

Final Critique