DR204
Life Drawing I
3 credits
Studying the human figure is an effective way to engage with and understand visual dynamic. Through involvement with gesture, structure, proportion, anatomy, the effects of light in relation to form and composition, students explore both formal and expressive issues as they work from the model. Slides and other sources of historic and contemporary figurative art are presented throughout the semester.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: Life Drawing 1 Requirement (A+IM, Illustration, Painting, Printmaking and Sculpture Students); Art Education Requirement
INT300
Internship
3 credits
Required during the junior year, INT300 provides the opportunity for real world experience through the Internship & Apprenticeship Program. Students complete a minimum of 120 hours on-site as an intern with a business or as an apprentice with an established artist. Other requirements include keeping a journal, writing a reflection paper and attending a debriefing seminar with other interns and apprentices. A learning contract outlining educational objectives as well as work duties and responsibilities is completed prior to starting INT300.
Prerequisites: Junior level standing
Fulfills: Internship Requirement (All Concentrations)
PR200
Relief Printmaking
3 credits
An introduction to the relief-printing process through woodcut and other relief media. Assignments cover design, drawing, color, and printing techniques with emphasis on individual projects, e.g., broadsides, portfolios and small books.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: 200-level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR205
Screen Printmaking
3 credits
An introduction to screen printing methods of printmaking using primarily water-based processes and including direct, hand-cut, digital, and photographic stencils. Assignments cover design drawing, color and printing techniques.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: 200-level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR210
Etching
3 credits
This course is an introduction to the intaglio process of printmaking. Through a series of projects, students develop work in dry point, etching, aquatint, softground, and relief etching. Class structure allows for work in various processes and encourages long-term projects.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: 200-level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR215
Lithography
3 credits
This course is an introduction to the process of lithographic printing. The expectation is that students find a way to realize their ideas within the technical and conceptual limitations of the lithographic medium. Drawing and design are important; experimentation is encouraged.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: 200-level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR216
Computer Imaging
3 credits
Computer Imaging is a basic introduction to Macintosh™ imaging programs. Class projects include combinations of drawing, scanning, image composition, image manipulation, and digital output options. Students work both on and off the computer and become familiar with the Macintosh™ operating environment and other graphic processes options.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: 200-Level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective;
dual coding: see IL 216
PR220
Introduction to Print Media
3 credits
An exploration of contemporary print media that addresses a variety of print processes including digital, photopolymer, transfer, and screen prints. Students are introduced to print applications through a series of projects that engage issues of appropriation, transformation, and iteration. The course is also an introduction to several of the basic principles of transferring in from one surface to another.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: Lens, Technology, Time Elective; Studio Elective
PR225
Artists' Books
3 credits
This course explores the production of one-of-a-kind and editioned books. Through traditional and alternative printmaking processes, class assignments focus on the integration of visual images and words. Works by contemporary and modernist book artists provide a broad underlying foundation for critical discussion of student work.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: 200-level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR230
Mixed Multiples
3 credits
Relief printing, intaglio and screenprinting are the focus of this advanced course wherein traditional printmaking processes are combined with photographic, digital and other industrial or "commercial" processes. Stencils are applied and adapted to a variety of surface materials including metal, plastic, wood and masonite which are treated to produce intaglio, relief and collograph prints. Students experiment with presentations of the multiple in variable and controlled editions, books, installations and hybrid forms.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: 200-level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR235
The Collaborative Print
3 credits
This course emphasizes the collaborative capabilities present in the printmaking process. The tradition of collaboration acknowledges the importance of rational planning and communication skills as well as the intuitive processes associated with creativity. Students explore the history and context of various models for collaboration as well as the work of specific collaborative artists such as The Fluxus artists, Group Material, General Idea and others. Projects focus on the development of concepts and images through a shared involvement in the creative process. This will take the form of directed projects such as an exquisite corpsestyle exchange or other multi-part or large scale projects involving multiples. Montserrat's print facility will be used to produce a print project (edition or otherwise) with a visiting artist. Students develop problem-solving skills as they explore the implications of their own ideas and the ideas of others, break down projects into stages, discuss the developing images and adopt or invent print processes for the purpose of resolving the final result. Innovation and hybrid media approaches will be encouraged.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: 200-level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR240
Printmaking and the Public Realm
3 credits
Working from the tradition of prints as a vehicle for political/social change, students employ traditional studio and commercial printmaking processes to move their work outside the studio to the street to engage a larger public. Projects address site-specific work with an emphasis on conceptual thinking, planning, and collaboration. Work is generated through various interactions among clusters of students with visiting artists and with populations beyond Montserrat. Typical projects might include a billboard, a printed and distributed Ezine, a storefront, installation, exchanges with other institutions, community projects, steamroller workshops, and other outside projects.
Prerequisites:
Fulfills: 200-level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR260
Letterpress Printing I
3 credits
An introduction to the process of letterpress printing with an eye to building books. Emphasis on the narrative and conceptual potentials of letterpress and simple (single section pamphlet, accordion and double-fan adhesive) binding structures. Students work through setting type; proper use of all of the different presses in the College's letterpress shop; registration and imposition; polymer plates; study of the history of metal and wood type. Projects include a group broadside, individual (announcement or business) cards, one and multicolor posters, and small pamphlets. Individual and more complex projects may be possible if time allows. Field trip to the Museum of Printing History in North Andover.
Prerequisites: Drawing I, 2-D Design and LTT Elective; or Permission of Instructor
Fulfills: 200-Level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR265
Bookbinding I
3 credits
This course is focused around the book as structure, object and information. In the first half of the semester, students create models of basic binding structures (focusing mostly on the codex structure) — one model per week. Homework and projects during this time involve creating content filled books based on the structure leaned during the week. These books/homework projects serve as not only practice in binding, but also as "sketches" of production of ideas that could be expanded on or refined in the projects later in the semester. Structures covered include link stitch, long stitch, Coptic, Japanese style and case bindings, as well as other structures for one and multiple signatures; different approaches to the "cover" are also addressed. Throughout, use and choice of materials, adhesives and tools are emphasized. Students provide content, which for those who have taken Elements 1 may be produced through letterpress printing. In the second half, students work on the individual projects based on structures learned up to that point. Field trip to working print shops and binderies.
Prerequisites: Drawing I, 2-D Design and LTT Elective; or Permission of Instructor
Fulfills: 200-Level Printmaking Elective; Studio Elective
PR299
Topics in Printmaking
3 credits
This course provides an in-depth study of a topic in Printmaking. The topic may be selected to take advantage of special events, to allow further exploration of a subject covered in a preliminary way in other courses, or to explore areas not sufficiently covered by the regular class rotation.
Prerequisites: Prerequisites will be developed in conjunction with the course description for each topic.
Fulfills: 200-Level Printmaking Elective (Printmaking Students); Studio Elective
PR310
Monoprinting
3 credits
In this course monoprintmaking techniques are used for drawing. Emphasis will be on the creative and formal, on experimentation as well as on analysis of form. Students work from models, still life, and landscape and transfer the image from plates to paper. Application and wiping of inks, double inking and printing, and additive and subtractive methods are taught. Students learn the monoprint technique as a process of making images from observation as well as from imagination.
Prerequisites: one 200-level printmaking course
Fulfills: 300-level Printmaking Elective; Advanced Drawing Elective; 300-level Studio Elective; Studio Elective
PR325
Printmaking Workshop
3 credits
Students work toward the production of a cohesive body of work. Assignments will address contemporary issues in Printmaking such as professional practice, traditional and alternative format and presentation, contemporary and historical traditions in printmaking. Print development, refinement of imagery, technical facility in editioning, curating and presentation are considered in relation to the traditions of fine art printing and collaboration.
Prerequisites: Two 200-level printmaking courses and 45 credits.
Fulfills: 300-level Printmaking Requirement (Printmaking Students); 300-level Studio Elective; Studio Elective
PR330
A Printmaking Portfolio
3 credits
Students work toward the development and production of an editioned portfolio. Print development, refinement of imagery, technical facility in editioning, curating and presentation are considered in relation to the traditions of fine art printing and collaboration. Students will further their skills in plate preparation, ink qualities and their uses, paper selections, and that which may be explored are documentation and storage of artwork and presenting prints through competitions and galleries. The focus will be on individual development of a portfolio, in addition students may participate in exchange of finished portfolios.
Prerequisites: One 200-level Printmaking Course
Fulfills: 300-level Printmaking Elective; 300-level studio elective; Studio Elective
PR340
Visual Narratives
3 credits
In this course, students will address their contemporary environment through projects that explore narration, sequence and the series. Drawing, which is the basis of projects, is used to create templates for printmaking. Techniques include etching, monoprinting, relief (including found objects) and combinations of these processes. Artists discussed may include Thomas Nast, Odilon Redon and Goya. Students will be encouraged to utilize their Major interests as well. Course work consists of both directed and individual projects with an emphasis on the integration of drawing and printing, supplemented with seminar style discussion of selected texts.
Prerequisites: One 200-Level Printmaking Course
Fulfills: 300-Level Printmaking Elective (Printmaking Students); 300-Level Studio Elective; Studio Elective
PR345
Printmaking Through the Social Lens
3 credits
Throughout the advent of the technology to reproduce images, artists have used these tools to help effect changes in their direct environments. From the Gutenberg press and the distribution of knowledge in book form, the Works Progress Administration artists, the propaganda posters of both World Wars, to the movement of independent self published zines, artists have used the reproducible image to communicate with the world. This course considers the history of printmaking in the context of a studio class. Through the exploration of how artists have used printed matter to communicate with their times students will create directed and self directed projects based on their research. Clear directed writing about their research will supplement the students investigations. Techniques may include letterpress, lithography, etching and digital output. By looking at strategies artists have used over time students will appropriate these techniques and ideas into their own work.
Prerequisites: One 200-Level Printmaking Course
Fulfills: Printmaking Elective (Printmaking Students); 300-Level Studio Elective
PR360
Letterpress Printing II
3 credits
This course is designed to build on the basic skills developed in Letterpress Printing 1. It emphasizes book production (rather than broadsides and posters); projects involving greater complexity and requiring more planning and attention to detail; and experimentation. The course addresses: further experience with setting text-weight type; practical work with polymer plates, including their production and ordering; editioning; multi-color and multi-pass printing; and use of type as a visual element (type, rules and sorts as ornament and pattern). The course is enriched by examination of examples and by field trips.
Prerequisites: Letterpress Printing I
Fulfills: 300-Level Printmaking Elective; 300-level Studio Elective; Studio Elective
PR365
Bookbinding II
3 credits
This course is designed to build on the basic skills and knowledge developed in Bookbinding 1. Students will explore more involved and complex structural models, including album structures, long-stitch and exposed spine structures, and boxes and enclosures. Other issues to be addressed include edition binding, and correlation of content, structure and material. The course is enriched by the examination of examples, attention to the history of artists’ books, and field trips.
Prerequisites: Bookbinding I
Fulfills: 300-Level Printmaking Elective; 300-Level Studio Elective; Studio Elective
PR399
Topics in Printmaking
3 credits
This course provides an in-depth study of a topic in Printmaking. The topic may be selected to take advantage of special events, to allow further exploration of a subject covered in a preliminary way in other courses, or to explore areas not sufficiently covered by the regular class rotation.
Prerequisites: Prerequisites will be developed in conjunction with the course description for each topic.
Fulfills: 300-Level Printmaking Elective (Printmaking Students); 300-Level Studio Elective
PR900
Independent Study in Printmaking
3 credits
Advanced work in the student's major field of study, supervised by a designated faculty member.
Prerequisites: One 300-level printmaking course. Only open to third and fourth year students.
Fulfills:
SC212
Fabrication Methods in Wood
1.5 credits
Students gain an understanding of the material characteristics of wood through the proper use of tools and a variety of construction techniques. The course begins with a series of simple projects (a frame, a small shelving unit, and a box) that introduce the use of the table saw, miter saw, joiner plane, and several methods of joinery. Students further develop skills by planning and executing projects of their own choosing. More advanced methods such as spline joint, frame, and panel construction, and lamination procedures to produce curved forms are covered in the second half of the semester. The course will be beneficial both to those wishing to acquire woodworking skills for the first time and those who are already familiar with the basics and want to gain greater proficiency.
Prerequisites: Three-Dimensional Design
Fulfills: Requirement Elective (Printmaking and Sculpture students); Studio Elective
SC213
Fabrication Methods in Metal
3 credits
Students learn technical and practical methods used to manipulate metals into objects of their own design. The course begins with the basic processes of oxy-acetylene bending, welding, and cutting, followed by more extensive methods of mig welding, plama cutting, brazing, and stick welding. The course is beneficial both to those wishing to acquire skill in this area for the first time and those who are already familiar with the basics and who want to gain greater proficiency.
Prerequisites: Three Dimensional Design
Fulfills: Requirement Elective (Printmaking and Sculpture students); Studio Elective