Syllabus

Course Description 
This course is an introduction to digital art for entertainment, covering painting and drawing techniques applicable to the fields of concept art, visual development, and illustration. This class builds from the basics of values and colors, culminating into a final illustration that combines topics such as composition, color theory, and design.

Prerequisites
None! Artists of all experience levels are encouraged to apply, including artists with no previous experience using digital art software. Facilitators are able to instruct students with no previous experience on how to get started with their digital art program of choice.
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Application requirements

• Original art piece based on prompt (digital or traditional)

• Expressed interested in learning about digital art

• Portfolio of previous works (optional)

Course Structure

• The class meets once a week, for two hours.

• Every week, a different topic in the fundamentals of art or design will be presented. 

•  The first half of each class will consist of group critiques on the previous week’s homework, followed by a lecture covering a new topic and a related activity.

  • Lectures may include live demos, and students are asked to bring drawing devices for activities.

• Over the last six weeks of class, students will also work on completing a final illustration project.

Homework
Each homework assignment focuses on exercising one particular aspect of drawing fundamentals taught in class. Homework will be assigned in class and due the following week. Each assignment is graded by completion.

Project
The course culminates into a final project, where each student will complete one finished illustration over the course of six weeks. This illustration will combine ideas and concepts learned over the course of the class, including values, colors, composition, and material rendering.

Required Readings
Students will be required to read or watch a video on related art topics each week. Weekly homework assignments will require short written responses to basic questions about the readings to ensure that students have been keeping up with the readings. A link to each week’s reading is provided in the syllabus below and also posted on course homework documents. 

Required Materials
Every student will need a laptop with an art program installed (Photoshop is provided by the school, but students may choose whatever program they feel most comfortable with) and a digital tablet of some kind with which to create digital art. We do have a few tablets available to lend to students for the duration of the course.

Grading
Overall:

• Participation: 25%

• HW: 25%

• Final project: 50% 

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Final project breakdown:

• Composition sketches: 15% (7.5% overall)

• Value keys: 15%

• Finalized sketch: 15%

• Color keys: 15%

• Final render/complete illustration: 40% (20% overall)

A minimum of 70% is required to pass the course. This course can only be taken with the Pass/No Pass grading option.
 

Attendance Policy
Attendance matters! If you cannot attend class, you must contact an instructor to get your absence excused. A maximum of two excused absences are allowed. Any further absences will result in no attendance/participation credit for that week. Failing to notify an instructor of an absence in advance will result in a 10% overall grade deduction per absence. 

Late Submission Policy

Late submissions are not guaranteed an individual critique from a facilitator. The two late assignments of highest value/weight may be excused for full credit, after which any late assignment will receive no credit. In the case of missing two assignments at once, the regular homework will be dropped first before the project homework.

Extra Credit
Students can earn extra credit every week there is a homework or project assignment due by sending a work-in-progress update in the class Discord server.