Studio Arts Course Listings

Courses Offered Spring 2025

• SA 224 - Two-Dimensional Design (fulfills fine arts core requirement)
• SA 225 - Drawing
• SA 304 - Drawing with Color
• SA 323 - Printmaking: Alternative Processes
• SA 326 - Graphics I
• SA 343 - Drawing: A Conceptual Approach
• SA 350 - Visual Thinking
• SA 353 - Book Arts and Artists' Books
• SA 399 - Special Topics in Studio Art: Art and Infrastructure

Course Descriptions

SA 224 - Two-Dimensional Design

(3.00 cr.)
Students learn the essential elements of design through hands-on creation of artworks and verbal/written expressions of design concepts. Composition is addressed through employing the Elements of Art (line, shape, value, color, texture, and space) in combination with the Principles of Design (including movement, harmony, scale, and contrast). Students work with a range of media and learn to solve creative problems that include drawing, painting, and collage. Prerequisite for most studio arts courses. Requirement for visual arts majors with a concentration in studio arts and studio arts minors. Fulfills fine arts core requirement.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring/Summer
Years Typically Offered: Annually
Interdisciplinary Studies: IEN

SA 225 - Drawing

(3.00 cr.)
Through the education of hand and eye, students learn to draw in a manner that mirrors visual reality as well as to compose fully realized works that involve the imagination. Basic drawing principles and techniques are explored through line and tone in graphite, felt-tip pens, charcoal, and pastel on paper. Requirement for visual arts majors with a concentration in studio arts and studio arts minors.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 227 - 3-D Design in Art and Engineering

(3.00 cr.)
Teaches students the elements of three-dimensional design via interdisciplinary connections between the fields of studio art and engineering. The foundations of visual communication and spatial design are addressed through hands-on creation of artworks and verbal/written analysis of design concepts. Engineering drawing and solid modeling techniques and conventions are also covered within the context of computer-aided design (CAD) software. Students work with a range of studio art media and fabrication techniques throughout the course, including 3-D printing. Fulfills fine arts core requirement. Closed to students who have taken EG 426. Same course as EG 227.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall
Years Typically Offered: Annually
Interdisciplinary Studies: IEN

SA 303 - Life Drawing

(3.00 cr.)
A comprehensive introduction to the concepts and techniques for realistically and expressively drawing the human form. Skeletal and muscle sketches familiarize students with the structure of human anatomy leading to drawings of nude models. Media includes graphite, charcoal, ink, and pastel on paper.

Prerequisite: SA 225.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 304 - Drawing with Color

(3.00 cr.)
Color as a vehicle for drawing and composing expressive imagery using colored pencils and inks. Subject matter drawn from nature and man-made forms.

Prerequisite: SA 225.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 310 - Introduction to Painting

(3.00 cr.)
An introduction to basic painting techniques and theory. Students work both from life and conceptually.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 311 - Watercolor

(3.00 cr.)
An exploration of the techniques of watercolor painting. Through various projects involving composition, perspective, color theory, and creative experimentation, landscape, still life, figure, and abstraction take on a new meaning.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 225 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 312 - Abstract Painting

(3.00 cr.)
Looking at the tradition of abstraction in cubism, neoplasticism, abstract expressionism, color field painting, and minimalism, students create original works that focus on form, color, and texture. Through a series of painting explorations, critiques, field trips, and examination of work by well-known abstract artists, students gain a better understanding of what is meant by "content in abstraction."

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 313 - Portraits and the Figure

(3.00 cr.)
Using the technique of painting in a single sitting ("alla prima" or "wet into wet"), students learn to paint the human face and figure, working from life. The course covers the preparation of grounds and supports and understanding of the tools, techniques, and concepts of life painting. Students are encouraged to experiment and to emphasize the tactile quality of paint, concentration, and keen observation.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 225 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 315 - Landscape

(3.00 cr.)
Explores drawing and painting the landscape. Deals with naturalistic ideas, light being a primary concern. Students improve drawing and painting skills and media as they work in the classroom and at locations around the Loyola community. Slide lectures and a museum visit supplement outdoor sessions.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually
Interdisciplinary Studies: IES

SA 322 - Printmaking: Screenprint and Nontraditional Lithography

(3.00 cr.)
An introduction to the materials, techniques, concepts, and equipment used in planographic (drawing and painting based) and stencil printing methods. In the nontraditional lithographic method, hand-drawn and/or photographic images are exposed on plates that are printed uniquely, in multiple layers, and/or in editions. Screens allow the printing of solid colors and detailed digital imagery through stencils mounted on fabric.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 225 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 323 - Printmaking: Alternative Processes

(3.00 cr.)
An introduction to the materials, techniques, concepts, and equipment used in the practice of printmaking, with an emphasis on mixed media methods and monotype—the closest printmaking form to painting. Processes that can be done without a press and some transfer methods are included. Water- and oil-based, black and white, and color inks are used. Some prior drawing or painting experience is recommended.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 225 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 326 - Graphics I

(3.00 cr.)
Students learn basic concepts of file formats, bitmap picture editing, vector drawing, and page layout while developing skills in industry-standard computer graphics software tools. For visual journalists, designers, and media producers. Same course as CM 322.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 342 - Drawing from Observation

(3.00 cr.)
Through class work and independent assignments, the nature of observation and representation are the critical focus of this course. Working with a variety of drawing materials and conceptual formats, students explore subject matter and narrative with an emphasis upon observation. In successive projects designed to cultivate technical competence and conceptual autonomy, this course challenges students to develop a personal approach to space, form, composition, and content.

Prerequisite: SA 225.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 343 - Drawing: A Conceptual Approach

(3.00 cr.)
For conceptual artists, the idea of a work of art matters as much—if not more—than its physical identity. In this course, students learn to produce drawings intended to convey an idea using both traditional and nontraditional media. Various artists' works that have influenced this art movement are studied as inspiration for students' creative solutions to assigned problems.

Prerequisite: SA 225.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 350 - Visual Thinking

(3.00 cr.)
Focuses on methods of interdisciplinary study essential to scholar and artist. This course combines elements of studio art, photography, and art history in a hybrid, seminar/ studio format investigating the history, theory, and material practices of the visual arts. The course offers a versatile, topics-based curriculum bringing the techniques of the artist and the labor of the scholar together in one class. Interpreting research as a creative activity crossing the boundaries of academic disciplines, the principal learning aim is the cultivation of a scholar-artist capable of innovative and rigorous investigation of the history of art and the individual creative processes. Combining experiences of art making and research in the theoretical and historical context of visual art, assignments offer students a choice of responses involving text and image. Same course as AH 350 and PT 350.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227 or AH 109 or AH 110 or AH 111 or PT 270. 
Restrictions: Restricted to visual arts majors and art history, interarts, photography, and studio art minors.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 352 - Collage, Assemblage, and the Found Object

(3.00 cr.)
Using found and altered materials, students are led from varied technical approaches for creating collages on/of paper through a range of conceptual approaches to design and content. Includes the altering and constructing of relief and three-dimensional, preexisting materials into works of art (assemblages and found object sculpture). Same course as CM 344.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 353 - Book Arts and Artists' Books

(3.00 cr.)
Students are introduced to the materials, techniques, concepts, and equipment used in the craft of making traditional and nontraditional books. They learn folding, stitching, enclosing, and binding methods while creating three-dimensional works that literally or metaphorically reference the structure of books, address contemporary ideas about visual content, and exist as three-dimensional works of art. Same course as CM 349 and PT 353.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 354 - Mixed Media: Color

(3.00 cr.)
Building upon the drawing and painting base formed by foundation courses and personal experience, this course introduces many mixed media techniques and processes that can be used to expand one's ideas and expressions. Projects incorporate contemporary aesthetics, abstraction, and perceptual work. Digital projects and hands-on techniques include, but are not be limited to, the use of transparency and layering, transfers of various kinds, and the creating of surfaces upon which to build content. Same course as CM 373.

Prerequisite:  SA 224 or SA 225 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Varies
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 360 - Digital Mixed Media

(3.00 cr.)
A combination studio and digital photography course in which the computer is used as a tool and an integral part of the creative process, but work is achieved through mixed media studio methods. Two- and three-dimensional projects may include installation and/or virtual works that exist only on the Internet. Some prior computer experience recommended. Same course as CM 360 and PT 360.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually
Interdisciplinary Studies: IEN

SA 361 - Digital Image

(3.00 cr.)
Examines the ways in which the computer and various software programs can be used to modify and enhance an image as a visual statement for artistic and photojournalistic use. Same course as CM 369 and PT 361.

Prerequisite: PT 270 or PT 300 or PT 301.
Sessions Typically Offered: Varies
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 364 - Contemporary Digital Art

(3.00 cr.)
Students taking this course gain an understanding of contemporary artists focusing on new media, while developing their own digital art practice. Video, animation, sound, web-based artwork, 3-D, interactivity, and other media practices are addressed. Classes consist of research, discussion, studio projects, critiques, and written work. Same course as CM 364 and PT 364.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 226 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 365 - Clay

(3.00 cr.)
Creativity and honesty in design is emphasized through handbuilding with clay. Students learn to make original works of glazed clayware and small sculptures using slab, coil, relief, and mold methods.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 366 - Sculpture

(3.00 cr.)
Students learn to recognize and use the elements that embody a three-dimensional work of art, defining and using those principles in a variety of media. Students are encouraged to discover new methodologies of visual thinking that reflect the interdisciplinary nature of art today. The problem-solving nature of this course includes both conceptual and observations-based assignments. Students’ three-dimensional artworks are developed in the classroom and from their sketchbooks.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 367 - Public Art

(3.00 cr.)
An examination of the field of public art. Beginning with an investigation of the theoretical context of public art, students learn the controversial history of artworks and monuments in public spaces. Students also meet with community partners in the city of Baltimore and collaboratively determine the details of a public art project. Students then develop a series of drawings, models, digital mock-ups, and written proposals for a larger public art project. Accepted proposals are created and installed in the final phase of the class. Same course as CM 370.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Varies

SA 370 - Artist in Residence Seminar

(1.00 cr.)
A seminar led by and related to the work of the current semester's Artist in Residence at the Julio Fine Arts Gallery. Students collaborate with the artist on a project of a group or individual nature related to the artist's exhibition and practice. Varies by semester. May be repeated three times for degree credit. Same course as PT 370. (Pass/Fail).

Sessions Typically Offered: Varies
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 378 - Alternative Photographic Processes

(3.00 cr.)
A study of the early processes by which photographic images were recorded and displayed, including cyanotype, ambrotype, and Van Dyck brown. Students make their own cameras and emulsions and coat their paper in addition to taking the original photographs. Explores the aesthetic and expressive possibilities of the older processes. Same course as PT 378.

Prerequisite: PT 270 or PT 300 or PT 301.
Sessions Typically Offered: Varies
Years Typically Offered: Varies

SA 386 - Video Art

(3.00 cr.)
An examination of the aesthetics and history of video art, as well as a study of the techniques of video production. Students produce numerous short and long video works. Same course as CM 327 and PT 386.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 227 or CM 308 or PT 270 or PT 300 or PT 301. 
Sessions Typically Offered: Varies
Years Typically Offered: Annually
Interdisciplinary Studies: IF

SA 399 - Special Topics in Studio Art

(3.00 cr.)
An examination of a specific topic in studio art. Topic may be related to issues of medium, technique, genre, cultural, historical, or other factors. May be repeated four times for degree credit with different topics.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 225 or SA 227.
Sessions Typically Offered: Varies
Years Typically Offered: Varies

SA 399 - Special Topics in Studio Art: Art and Infrastructure

(3.00 cr.)
In this studio art course, students will engage with local art making and material sourcing through field trips and in-class learning. Through hands-on experiences students will learn about the implications of a city's infrastructure and witness firsthand processing of wool and lumber, and natural dyeing materials learning the many involved steps in transforming raw materials into products. This course will have a special appeal for those interested in one or more of the following: Baltimore, the built environment, material exploration, environmentally based art practice, public art, and relationships building between people and the places they inhabit.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 225 or SA 227.

SA 400 - Senior Capstone for Artists

(3.00 cr.)
Students are introduced to the working world of the professional artist. Students create a cohesive body of work that is critiqued throughout the semester and exhibited at the end of the semester. Students produce a portfolio of digital images of their artwork with accompanying professional materials aimed at being able to participate in the art world in some form upon graduation. Students enter at least one exhibition, mat and frame an artwork, and attend at least one opening reception for an exhibition off-campus. Normally taken in the fall semester of the senior year. Senior studio arts minors must have written permission of the instructor. Same course as PT 400.

Prerequisite: SA 224 or SA 225 or SA 227.
Restrictions: Restricted to senior visual arts majors with a concentration in studio arts.
Sessions Typically Offered: Fall
Years Typically Offered: Annually

SA 499 - Studio Arts Internship

(3.00 cr.)
An internship provides students the opportunity to build a portfolio and learn on-the-job skills. Students may complete independent work as an intern with a professional, business, office, or community organization (or within a similar environment) that provides them with further experience in their area of interest. Students must remain in continual contact with the Loyola faculty mentor through the internship’s duration and are responsible for keeping a daily journal detailing internship activities, including the date, time, and what work was accomplished. Journal entries are shared with the faculty mentor each week. The line of inquiry between the faculty mentor and student supporting the internship culminates in an agreed-upon summary of the experience, such as a small exhibition or PowerPoint presentation.

Sessions Typically Offered: Fall/Spring
Years Typically Offered: Annually

Questions about Studio Arts Program courses? Contact us.