Animal, Vegetable, Mineral (ARTS 3032 V)
Term: 2026-27 Academic Year Fall
Description
This course will be rooted in observational drawing. Students will either build or expand a working knowledge of drawing techniques using traditional drawing materials and working on paper as a substrate. Assignments will take students out into the field, in addition to studying inventive still lifes in the classroom. Students will be introduced to contemporary artists who use drawing at the center of their practice. In addition to classroom drawing exercises, students will think critically about animal (including human), vegetable, and mineral with three conceptual prompts provided and will result in a longer
drawing. Each prompt will be rooted in a short reading from one of the following texts, inviting us to think more metaphorically in a larger drawing. Excerpts from the following texts will be provided: Robin Kimmerer’s Gathering Moss, Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Examples of a drawing prompt within each strand of the course could include: the gaming preserve, the zombie, the leper (animal); megafauna, herbaria, moss, compost (vegetable); and luxury, magic, pills (mineral). As much as possible, students will cull images from life, or their own photoshoots or archive; using images from Pinterest or the internet will be discouraged. From the classroom and homework, the students’ greatest strengths and interests will develop and a conference project will emerge—resulting in either ten small-sized, three medium-sized, or one large painting on a topic of their own choosing. Homework assignments, individual and class critiques, and building a language to talk about drawing and ideas will be an important and required part of class.