Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

The course includes lectures, demonstrations, slides, video/films and possible field trips. Homework will include expanded solutions to problems introduced in class and there will be some written assignments.

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

• Solve expanded assignment objectives using a variety of acquired strategies for expressing visual ideas through the watercolor discipline and its associated processes, materials and techniques.
• Understand, and interpret at an intermediate level, the watercolor discipline through examples of contemporary, historical and diverse cultural perspectives.
• Implement a heightened perceptual awareness of the physical world and its visual structure via painting practices in pursuit of an individualized vocabulary.
• Apply critical self-awareness to inform a personal approach to visual expression.

• Apply water media techniques including paper stretching, color mixing and use of transparency in painting applications.
• Create original watercolor paintings in an expanded variety of compositional and perceptual strategies.
• Generate ideas/concepts with an increased awareness of the intended content of the work produced.
• Utilize an expanded vocabulary specific to watercolor painting when participating in class critiques and discussions.
• Assess and self-critique personal work to strategize creative solutions.
• Generate personal work with a developed awareness of historical and contemporary artists working in the watercolor tradition.

• Execute watercolor paintings from direct observation and other sources incorporating a range of expanded technical methods and historical approaches.
• Complete outside painting projects which emphasize personalized and complex solutions to concepts introduced in class.
• Complete writing assignments which address, articulate and interpret artistic concepts such as watercolor methodology, individual expression, awareness of cultural context and recognition of significant artists from the discipline.
• Participate in critiques through application of developed vocabulary and aesthetic processes in review of individual’s own and other's work.

Themes

• Methodology, process and modes of representation
• Observation and perceptual awareness
• Visual distillation

Concepts

• Color relationships and applied color theory
• Light source and volume
• Compositional structure

Issues

• Increased Understanding of proportion
• Relationships of volumes in space
• Manipulation of color and affect visual relationships
• Unique methods of self-expression

Skills

• Knowledge of watercolor terminology with respect to methods and techniques
• Vocabulary of painting tools and processes
• Ability to transcribe and represent forms in space
• Relate personal work to historical and contemporary examples watercolor painting
• Apply color theory in visual expression
• Decipher form through visual analysis
• Applied Critical skills and analysis
• Interaction of color based on translucent layers