BFAPainting & Drawing
Transcend the boundaries of the medium and engage with critical issues through an imaginative and expansive fine arts practice.
Overview
Develop your voice as an artist
Faculty and students discuss the radical, interdisciplinary thinking at the heart of CCA’s Painting & Drawing program. Watch more videos.
Take your work in unexpected directions
We provide aspiring fine artists with a supportive community and rigorous culture of critique. Students develop their technical and conceptual skills in drawing and painting studios while sharing and debating ideas with faculty, peers, and visiting artists. With a broad notion of what fine arts can be in the world, and the opportunity to make all kinds of art objects, our students prepare for MFA programs as well as lifelong careers as practicing artists.
Studios & Shops
Turn an idea into material form
Inspiration for taking bold leaps
We’re one of the best painting and drawing programs in the country for artists who enjoy working across disciplines, including photography, sculpture, film and video, textiles, and performance. From oils on canvas to sculptural environments, we provide the materials and resources you need to make compelling arguments through objects and exhibitions. Our dedicated painting studios and drawing studios, which are large multipurpose rooms, encourage interdisciplinary approaches to fine art. Students synthesize ideas and materials, collaborating with peers and exploring conceptually rigorous work.
Space for self-generated projects
During their junior year, students have their own small studio space for defining their voice and developing ideas. Seniors, who focus on how artworks from all their upper-level studios interrelate, have larger spaces for completing their thesis projects. The community comes together in the main painting and drawing studios for tutorials, artist talks by faculty, and various student-led events, such as Figure Drawing Night. With a supportive culture and dedicated spaces for reflection throughout their studies at CCA, students learn to develop and maintain a thriving practice.
Vision and tools for contemporary practice
As students work toward a cohesive body of work, they develop and hone the following core skills:
- Think critically to synthesize ideas and materials
- Conduct research to expand material vocabulary
- Formulate creative questions or solutions in dialogue with historical and/or contemporary contexts
- Identify the appropriate artistic form
- Leverage visual literacy skills to deepen context of work within the larger cultural practice of fine art
- Develop technical skills consistent with entry-level professionals
- Actively engage with pressing cultural, political, and social issues
- Demonstrate leadership through community projects
- Document and present work for public contexts and application purposes
A CCA student takes photographs of their work for documentation.
Beyond the studio and into the world
The fine arts programs at CCA host a diverse group of visiting artists each year. You’ll be exposed to new trends and practices in contemporary arts, which helps you confidently engage with the ideas you’re most passionate about. Most of our drawing and painting studios take students to Bay Area museums, galleries, and nonprofit spaces, many of which are within walking distance of our San Francisco campus. These opportunities encourage you to think critically about your contributions to the field and help you make meaningful connections to arts professionals in the world at large.
Electives that empower you to explore
Students interact with different kinds of artists and draw inspiration from the diverse range of fine arts and design practices at CCA. We encourage you to pursue many electives and push beyond your comfort zone in classes outside of our program. You can make films, manipulate textiles, sculpt, illustrate, take photographs, and experiment with letterpress and screenprinting. The more materials and resources you gather, the more robust and fulfilling your studio experience can be at CCA. While our main motivation for creating a flexible curriculum is to help you hone an independent creative practice, we also want you to feel empowered to break the rules.
Materials and resources
- Easels
- Halogen lights and options for staging
- Rolling painting walls
- Extensive props
- Painting racks for storage
- Large tables and palette tables
- Studio space for juniors
- Special collections at CCA libraries
- Private studio space for senior thesis work
Faculty
Work with renowned practicing artists
Our fine arts faculty exhibit and publish widely. They mentor students through material and conceptual experiments, drawing from their experiences in mixed media, video art, abstract painting, photography, printmaking, and more.
Aspen Mays, Chair of Photography, Printmedia, and Painting & Drawing. Photo by Taylor Johnson.
Chair Aspen Mays has been called a “Postmodern mystic.” Her work challenges the expectation of photography as a documentary and categorical medium, and her research explores the visualization of knowledge in both visual art and observational sciences. She is interested in the fantasy of objectivity in photographic processes, the artifacts and archives of these processes, and the desire for transcendence in the ordinary and prosaic.
Mays' solo exhibitions include Tengallon Sunflower and California Dreaming at Higher Pictures in New York and Every leaf on a tree at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. She was included in a national survey of contemporary art, State of the Art, at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Her work has been written about in Artforum, Art Papers, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Mays’ publication (made in collaboration with Dan Boardman) Where We've Been, Where We're Going, Why? was shortlisted for the First Photobook Award by the Aperture Foundation and Paris Photo in 2016.
BA, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Curriculum
We think with our hands
Shape an exciting and diverse studio practice
Our program has an exploratory curriculum structure that includes—and goes beyond—the traditions of painting and drawing. For example, students can work across disciplines through our sequence of open studio electives, expanding in scale and discovering new materials. From tactile research and conceptual development to critique and presentation, students get hands-on experience with every aspect of art production. View sample courses.
Investigate ideas through every dimension
Before diving into their chosen major, every undergraduate participates in the First Year Experience. Students explore a wide range of materials and tools over the course of two semesters. Faculty from different disciplines guide studio projects, group critiques, and theoretical discussions, setting students up for success throughout their major coursework.
BFA Painting & Drawing
Core Studio
- Drawing 1
- 3.0 units
- 2D, 3D, and 4D
- 9.0 units
Painting & Drawing Major Requirements
- Painting 1-4
- 12.0 units
- Drawing 2
- 3.0 units
- Materials and Methods
- 3.0 units
- Digital Tools
- 3.0 units
- Painting/Drawing Workshops
- 6.0 units
- Junior Tutorial
- 3.0 units
- Media History 2: Living Painters
- 3.0 units
- Senior Project
- 6.0 units
Additional Studio Requirements
- Interdisciplinary Critique
- 3.0 units
- Upper Division Interdisciplinary Studio
- 3.0 units
- Critical Ethnic Studies Studio
- 3.0 units
- Studio Elective
- 12.0 units
Humanities & Sciences Requirements
- Writing 1
- 3.0 units
- Writing 2
- 3.0 units
- Introduction to the Arts
- 3.0 units
- Introduction to the Modern Arts
- 3.0 units
- Foundation in Critical Studies
- 3.0 units
- Media History 1: Dead Painters
- 3.0 units
- Critical Ethnic Studies Seminar (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Literary and Performing Arts Studies (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Philosophy and Critical Theory (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Social Science/History (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Science/Math (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- History of Art and Visual Culture (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Humanities and Sciences Elective (2000 or 3000 level, at least 6 units must be 3000 level)
- 12.0 units
Total 120.0 units
Careers
Build a sustainable art practice
Students graduate from the Painting and Drawing program with the critical thinking, leadership, and visual literacy skills to forge their own distinct paths. With experience in a variety of mediums and methods, alumni cover a lot of ground in their independent practices, including illustration, curation, and glasswork, to name just a few avenues. Alumni are also prepared to take an entrepreneurial approach to their careers. They understand how to work with gallerists, navigate the nuances of the art market, and deliver on production and exhibition schedules. Most importantly, alumni continue to evolve their artistic voices, finding unique ways to incorporate their lives and interests into groundbreaking work.
Potential career paths
- Professional artist
- Arts educator
- Business owner in the creative field
- Cultural innovator
- Artist’s studio assistant
News & Events
What’s happening in our community?
How to Apply
Bring your artistic vision to life
Our students are open-minded, creative, and critical. They thrive with a healthy balance of faculty mentorship and private, undivided time and space for creating, whether they think of their practice in terms of brush and canvas or something more expansive. Our goal is to provide you with the critical, conceptual, and technical skills you need to flourish as an artist.
Find your creative community at CCA
