PAINTING & DRAWING

from 2023 Ox-Bow Summer Course catalog

by Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists' Residency

SUMMER ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

PAINT MAKERSPACE

with Laurel Sparks

PAINTING | 669 001 | 3 CREDITS $50 LAB FEE | MAY 28 - JUNE 10

This survey course provides students of all levels with the opportunity to work on their own projects and expand their painting skills. Students will have dedicated access to the painting studio and will be encouraged to experiment with various materials and techniques. Demonstrations may present techniques in acrylic or oil, sketching and planning processes, preparation of painting surfaces, and information on studio safety. The faculty will host presentations and lectures on relevant historical artists as well as contemporary painters, and students will engage in discussions, readings, screenings, and critiques with the group which illuminate painterly concerns and emphasize active decision making. Assignments are designed to build understanding of new methods, and students will conceive projects that reflect their interests. Instructors will be available to help facilitate individual, collaborative, and interdisciplinary projects and this course will culminate in a group critique.

RITUAL EMBRACE

with Ruby T

PAINTING | 674 001 | 3 CREDITS $50 LAB FEE | MAY 28 - JUNE 10

Based in drawing, this course nurtures individual studio practices of any discipline via ritual exercises in the Ox-Bow landscape. Both drawing and ritual are ancient strategies for expression and survival. Ritual and magic have in recent decades joined drawing as recognized methods of contemporary artistic production. How can we use drawing and ritual to strengthen our respective artistic practices and spark exciting and unexpected moves in the studio? For inspiration and guidance, we will look to the paintings, drawings, and earthworks of Torkwase Dyson, Hilma Af Klint, Ana Mendieta, and Howardena Pindell; the music of Pauline Oliveros and Juliana Huxtable, and the poetry Audre Lorde, CACondrad, and Demian DinéYazhi’. Readings will focus on the power, problems, and potential of ritual in contemporary art at large. An exploration of local primary sources will ground us in the geology and indigenous identity of Western Michigan, as well as its settler colonial legacy of land theft. Solo and collective actions include drawing moving water, transcribing the sounds of wind in the trees, and creating portraits by firelight. These, along with student-led rituals, will support the creation of individual final projects.

PAINT MAKERSPACE

with Rachel Eulena Williams

PAINTING | 669 001 | 3 CREDITS $50 LAB FEE | JUNE 11 - 24

DRAWING PLACE IN WATERCOLOR & GOUACHE

with Carrie Gundersdorf

PAINTING | 672 001 | 1.5 CREDITS $50 LAB FEE | JUNE 25 - JULY 1

This course explores materials and methods of transparent and opaque watercolor (gouache). Watercolor is historically associated with observing the natural world through works such as botanical and wildlife illustrations, J.M.W. Turner’s ethereal landscapes, Charles Burchfield’s transcendental images, and Joseph Yoakum’s reminisced locations. This course celebrates the ease and transportability of working in watercolor and gouache and transforms the landscape into the studio. We will use the Ox-Bow environment as a source of material for developing a personal approach to drawing the space around us. This course will help students build a basic understanding of watercolor and gouache – its materials: paint, brushes, and paper, how to mix color, layer washes, build compositions while masking out areas, and how to use mark-making to articulate surfaces. We will look at artists including John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keefe and contemporary artists, Dawn Clements, Shazia Sikander, and Amy Sillman. Exercises involving color, observation, and mark-making will help familiarize students with the medium. Students will demonstrate creating color with value, layering washes, and mixing color. They will learn to mask a foregrounded object, build a drawing with layers of color, and techniques for painting wet into wet.

FUNNY BONES

with Rachel Niffenegger & Scott Reeder

PAINTING | 673 001 | 3 CREDITS $50 LAB FEE | JULY 10 - 22

Is it cathartic to laugh in the face of death? In this class we will explore the use of humor as a subversive act in dark times. We will harness painting’s expansive potential for “off-brand” use and practical effects to create absurd garments, props, scenarios and installations within Ox-Bow’s landscape. Do you want to become a living statue on the meadow or host a moonlit karaoke party for ghosts? Using self representation as a inspiration point we will experiment with textile design, makeup and ai tools in service of creating in-the-flesh or digital avatars that are as serious or silly as you like. Artists of reference include Tala Madani, Ed Atkins, Tetsumi Kudo, Jacolby Satterwhite,

Mike Kelley, Ana Mendiata, Donna Huanca, Sean Norvet. Class consists of thematic based prompts that build to the development of personal projects supported by faculty mentorship. Special guests include Tyson Reeder (Club Nuts) and Jeremy Tinder (Paintallica/ Trubble Club) who will host an event in concert with students.

INTRODUCTION TO AIRBRUSH

with Turtel Onli

PAINTING | 675 001 | 1.5 CREDITS $50 LAB FEE | JULY 23 - 29

In this course, each participant will learn the basics and applied potential of the airbrush as an art making tool and unique esthetic. As a prominent figure in Chicago’s Wearable Art Movement, Onli is in a unique position to share the fascinating history of airbrush, as well as lead expert demonstrations on the preparation, use, maintenance, and care of the airbrush and its related equipment. This is a practical survey of basic methods and fundamental techniques for the use of the single or double action airbrush, compressors, and pigments in commercial, craft, or fine art applications. Onli will provide a one-of-a-kind reader copied from his own archive of airbrush related media and publications which will support discussion and provide basic vocabulary, list suppliers, and detail the history of airbrush. Artists reviewed will include A. Mauren Daniel Ellis, B.H.R. Giger, and Pater Sato. Screenings may include 1979’s “Alien” and suggested readings will include Cecil Misstear & Helen ScottHarman’s “Aerotechniques”. Considerations of safety and the environmental impact of pigments will be included and reinforced regularly during the workshop. Assignments will aim to build skill in free-hand explorations, simple stenciling, and masking methods. Each participant will be provided their own airbrush and compressor for the duration of the course and will successfully complete at least one dynamic work of art on the surface of their choosing.

Rachel Eulena Williams, Doubled Purple, 2020, Silkscreen, dye and acrylic paint on panel and canvas, cotton rope, 59 x 49 x 3 in.

COLOR

with Joseph Mario Romano & William Sieruta

PAINTING | 65 5 001 3 CREDITS | $50 LAB FEE JULY 30 - AUGUST 12

This course investigates a series of color problems to sensitize students to the interaction of color and color phenomena. Considering the problems of color use and color composition, the course emphasizes hue, value, and chroma and the application of such knowledge to the visual arts. A basic course for all disciplines in seeing and using color.

PLEIN AIR PLUS

with Josh Dihle

PAINTING | 659 001 | 3 CREDITS $50 LAB FEE | AUGUST 13 - 26

This course leapfrogs Impressionist landscape painting by adding techniques and influences garnered from folk artists of the American south, Medieval reliquary art, and contemporary approaches to painting surface. Students will develop outdoor observational painting skills that can be brought back to the studio and worked over with an expanded vocabulary of mark making and materiality. Taken together, the strategies introduced in this course will bind close looking and immersion in the natural environment with the inward gaze and reactivity of the studio. We will look closely at the work of Thornton Dial, Jay DeFeo, Gina Beavers, Chris Martin, Rashid Johnson, Charles Burchfield, and Lois Dodd. We will also broadly survey Northern European Medieval reliquary techniques and will make use of recent advances in painting materials. Students will produce five paintings that start outdoors and are completed in the studio. Students will also maintain a dedicated sketchbook/scrapbook.