RISD Undergraduate Degrees

The Painting Department prepares students to engage in an individual search for meaning and cultural representation through the development of strong visual skills, keen critical reasoning abilities and broad historical and social knowledge and understanding.

As a Painting major, you will develop the purpose, direction and confidence, along with the critical and technical skills necessary to express your ideas as an artist. The department encourages both the freedom and discipline that are essential to this process by offering flexible programs, a committed faculty with a wide range of aesthetic attitudes and a place where ideas rooted in the tradition of painting are examined and exchanged, challenged and refined. All of these elements, combined with the active involvement of your peers, create a stimulating atmosphere conducive to exploration and growth.

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• Painting I (fall)
• Drawing I (fall)
• Fundamentals: Materials and Color (fall)
• Painting II (spring)
• Drawing II (spring)
• Liberal Arts electives (fall/spring)
• Wintersession course (winter)

Sophomores
In the first year of the program, you will be introduced to basic concepts and techniques, and will begin to develop your own visual vocabulary.

• Painting III (fall)
• Painting IV (spring)
• Contemporary Art Seminar (spring)
• Painterly Prints or studio elective (fall/spring)
• Major or non-major studio elective (fall)
• Liberal Arts electives (fall/spring)
• Wintersession course (winter)

Juniors
As a junior, you will expand and strengthen your visual and technical skills through studio work that allows for in-depth exploration of content and meaning.

• Painting Workshop (spring)
• Major or non-major studio elective (fall)
• Experiments in Drawing (spring)
• Degree Project (spring)
• Liberal Arts electives (fall/spring)
• Wintersession course (winter)

Seniors
Having gained increasing control over the direction of your work and thought processes, you will produce an independently conceived Degree Project subject to evaluation by the Painting faculty, your peers and outside critics.