Since the 1960’s, social justice poster art has been at the heartbeat of contemporary social movements. Social justice posters champion the demands of everyday people, resist the status quo, and activate social and cultural change. This medium asks illustrators to study people’s history, examine their positionality in the present, and engage with possible futures.

Students will learn about the history of social justice poster art through lectures and a visit to RISD and Brown’s protest poster collections. In-class demonstrations, activities, discussions, and assignments will culminate in the creation of two large poster illustrations: one on historical movements and another reflecting current events.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Elective

Folktales are stories originating in popular culture, often passed down through word of mouth and pictures. This course will explore a range of methods and approaches to illustrating traditional and contemporary folktales. We will explore how the narrative’s meaning shifts or is created through the illustrator’s visual choices. Students are encouraged to bring their own personalities and stories to their projects and to experiment with the materials they prefer. We will look at various illustrated folktales in each class to widen our understanding of the visual folktale in both a historical and present-day context.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $20.00 - $60.00

Elective

With the wave of new technology, it's convenient to investigate data online and from secondary sources rather than direct observation or experiencing objects in our surroundings, museums, or archives. This course will teach profound skills to use material cultures such as everyday objects, personal collections, artifacts, and written records as a learning tool. Through a variety of projects, students will discover how material culture can serve as both inspiration for narrative and a medium for artistic expression. Students will develop skills to interpret and analyze objects, unravel the stories they hold, and subsequently, narrate those stories using their preferred artistic mediums. The course will encompass a broad range of subjects, including objects' cultural significance and symbolism, hands-on experience, multi-sensory engagement, and interdisciplinary insights. The class will visit the RISD Museum and Special Collections. Each class is structured into distinct segments, starting with the exploration of object narratives and concluding with the acquisition of new art-making techniques. Each week, students are required to participate in art-making projects and submit analyses of objects. There will be seven assignments including two small written narratives of objects; and a final project that will result in a larger visual narrative inspired by material culture.  

Elective

Why do stories of journeys always hold such fascination? Do you carry an unforgettable “on-the-road” story? Who are the travelers, and where do their paths lead? What do they gain or lose along the way? There are countless ways to address these questions.

This course delves into the road trip narratives through graphic novels, emphasizing the importance of both text and imagery. As a relatively accessible medium, sequential arts welcome readers to follow the emotional, mental, and physical transformation of the protagonists throughout their journey.

The entirety of this class dedicates to creating a polished 5-10 page short comic, with the first half focusing on the development of narration, and the rest on its realization in visual language. The class also explores beyond the 2-dimensional presentation of illustration, valuing interdisciplinary approaches including photography, collage, sculpture, etc.

We will dissect selected road movies, literature, and graphic novels which offer a glimpse into author’s creative processes and techniques, examining how the masterminds explore themes of adventure, self-discovery, and human connection. By spontaneous in-class exercises, character portrayal, world-building, and storyboarding, students will progressively craft their own captivating stories of journeys.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Elective

Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

Illustration is visual communication: meaning made visible. Visual thinking, the creative process by which all successful illustration is developed, constitutes the development of an articulate images through thorough, iterative exploration of ideas. This class emphasizes process over finish, idea over application and significance over style-exploring both ways of seeing and ways of showing. Coursework will encourage conceptual invention and application fundamental to an understanding of what the practice of illustration is and can be. The object of the course is to strengthen the students' inventive talents and interpretive skills - and thereby to augment their ability to articulate complex ideas with clarity, eloquence and power.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

This course will be a survey regarding the concepts, techniques and methodology of illustration specifically designed for Freshman students who are considering illustration as a major. Students will examine illustration genres, including book, editorial and corporate illustration, while working with a variety of methods and materials.

Elective

The convincing depiction of form in three-dimensional space is one of the great conceptual and philosophic breakthroughs of Western art. In this class, the first half of the sophomore drawing sequence, our main focus will be the study of form in a spatial context. We will use observational and projected systems of perspective in construction of our images. Emphasis will be placed on exploration of conceptual and physical viewpoint, effective composition and convincing light and shadow to shape expression, engage the viewer and create a unified pictorial image. The class will promote acute observation of existing spatial situations, the invention of convincing imagery from imagination, and the successful integration of the two. Exposure to traditional and contemporary drawing masters and practices will provide inspiration for experimentation, personal expression and artistic growth. A series of perspectival studies will build into longer projects integrating observation and invention and concerns for figure and ground. Students will come to grasp the elegance and power of perspective as an approach to drawing, tempered with an awareness of its limitation and alternatives. Several black and white media in addition to charcoal (mixed media, collage, monoprint, caran dache, pastel, etc) and various ways of working (line weight, cross-hatching, additive, subtractive) may be explored.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

The convincing depiction of form in three-dimensional space is one of the great conceptual and philosophic breakthroughs of Western art. In this class, the first half of the sophomore drawing sequence, our main focus will be the study of form in a spatial context. We will use observational and projected systems of perspective in construction of our images. Emphasis will be placed on exploration of conceptual and physical viewpoint, effective composition and convincing light and shadow to shape expression, engage the viewer and create a unified pictorial image. The class will promote acute observation of existing spatial situations, the invention of convincing imagery from imagination, and the successful integration of the two. Exposure to traditional and contemporary drawing masters and practices will provide inspiration for experimentation, personal expression and artistic growth. A series of perspectival studies will build into longer projects integrating observation and invention and concerns for figure and ground. Students will come to grasp the elegance and power of perspective as an approach to drawing, tempered with an awareness of its limitation and alternatives. Several black and white media in addition to charcoal (mixed media, collage, monoprint, caran dache, pastel, etc) and various ways of working (line weight, cross-hatching, additive, subtractive) may be explored.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

The convincing depiction of form in three-dimensional space is one of the great conceptual and philosophic breakthroughs of Western art. In this class, the first half of the sophomore drawing sequence, our main focus will be the study of form in a spatial context. We will use observational and projected systems of perspective in construction of our images. Emphasis will be placed on exploration of conceptual and physical viewpoint, effective composition and convincing light and shadow to shape expression, engage the viewer and create a unified pictorial image. The class will promote acute observation of existing spatial situations, the invention of convincing imagery from imagination, and the successful integration of the two. Exposure to traditional and contemporary drawing masters and practices will provide inspiration for experimentation, personal expression and artistic growth. A series of perspectival studies will build into longer projects integrating observation and invention and concerns for figure and ground. Students will come to grasp the elegance and power of perspective as an approach to drawing, tempered with an awareness of its limitation and alternatives. Several black and white media in addition to charcoal (mixed media, collage, monoprint, caran dache, pastel, etc) and various ways of working (line weight, cross-hatching, additive, subtractive) may be explored.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

The convincing depiction of form in three-dimensional space is one of the great conceptual and philosophic breakthroughs of Western art. In this class, the first half of the sophomore drawing sequence, our main focus will be the study of form in a spatial context. We will use observational and projected systems of perspective in construction of our images. Emphasis will be placed on exploration of conceptual and physical viewpoint, effective composition and convincing light and shadow to shape expression, engage the viewer and create a unified pictorial image. The class will promote acute observation of existing spatial situations, the invention of convincing imagery from imagination, and the successful integration of the two. Exposure to traditional and contemporary drawing masters and practices will provide inspiration for experimentation, personal expression and artistic growth. A series of perspectival studies will build into longer projects integrating observation and invention and concerns for figure and ground. Students will come to grasp the elegance and power of perspective as an approach to drawing, tempered with an awareness of its limitation and alternatives. Several black and white media in addition to charcoal (mixed media, collage, monoprint, caran dache, pastel, etc) and various ways of working (line weight, cross-hatching, additive, subtractive) may be explored.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

The convincing depiction of form in three-dimensional space is one of the great conceptual and philosophic breakthroughs of Western art. In this class, the first half of the sophomore drawing sequence, our main focus will be the study of form in a spatial context. We will use observational and projected systems of perspective in construction of our images. Emphasis will be placed on exploration of conceptual and physical viewpoint, effective composition and convincing light and shadow to shape expression, engage the viewer and create a unified pictorial image. The class will promote acute observation of existing spatial situations, the invention of convincing imagery from imagination, and the successful integration of the two. Exposure to traditional and contemporary drawing masters and practices will provide inspiration for experimentation, personal expression and artistic growth. A series of perspectival studies will build into longer projects integrating observation and invention and concerns for figure and ground. Students will come to grasp the elegance and power of perspective as an approach to drawing, tempered with an awareness of its limitation and alternatives. Several black and white media in addition to charcoal (mixed media, collage, monoprint, caran dache, pastel, etc) and various ways of working (line weight, cross-hatching, additive, subtractive) may be explored.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

The convincing depiction of form in three-dimensional space is one of the great conceptual and philosophic breakthroughs of Western art. In this class, the first half of the sophomore drawing sequence, our main focus will be the study of form in a spatial context. We will use observational and projected systems of perspective in construction of our images. Emphasis will be placed on exploration of conceptual and physical viewpoint, effective composition and convincing light and shadow to shape expression, engage the viewer and create a unified pictorial image. The class will promote acute observation of existing spatial situations, the invention of convincing imagery from imagination, and the successful integration of the two. Exposure to traditional and contemporary drawing masters and practices will provide inspiration for experimentation, personal expression and artistic growth. A series of perspectival studies will build into longer projects integrating observation and invention and concerns for figure and ground. Students will come to grasp the elegance and power of perspective as an approach to drawing, tempered with an awareness of its limitation and alternatives. Several black and white media in addition to charcoal (mixed media, collage, monoprint, caran dache, pastel, etc) and various ways of working (line weight, cross-hatching, additive, subtractive) may be explored.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

The convincing depiction of form in three-dimensional space is one of the great conceptual and philosophic breakthroughs of Western art. In this class, the first half of the sophomore drawing sequence, our main focus will be the study of form in a spatial context. We will use observational and projected systems of perspective in construction of our images. Emphasis will be placed on exploration of conceptual and physical viewpoint, effective composition and convincing light and shadow to shape expression, engage the viewer and create a unified pictorial image. The class will promote acute observation of existing spatial situations, the invention of convincing imagery from imagination, and the successful integration of the two. Exposure to traditional and contemporary drawing masters and practices will provide inspiration for experimentation, personal expression and artistic growth. A series of perspectival studies will build into longer projects integrating observation and invention and concerns for figure and ground. Students will come to grasp the elegance and power of perspective as an approach to drawing, tempered with an awareness of its limitation and alternatives. Several black and white media in addition to charcoal (mixed media, collage, monoprint, caran dache, pastel, etc) and various ways of working (line weight, cross-hatching, additive, subtractive) may be explored.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration