Mondays, 8:30 a.m. – 3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Peter Van Dyck
Fifteen-Week Open Academy (BFA) Course (90 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit or 3.0 Undergraduate Credits (See Below)

Note: No class meetings on September 2 (Labor Day) and October 14 (Indigenous Peoples Day). Two class meetings will take place the final week, Monday and Tuesday, December 9 & 10.

PAFA’s Open Academy provides the opportunity for Continuing Education (CE) and non-matriculated students to enroll in select BFA courses for credit or non-credit.  Open Academy students enrolled in PAFA’s renowned studio arts courses learn technical skills, creative expression, and critical thinking from master artist-teachers while working amongst dedicated full-time students in PAFA's classrooms.

An art education advances many explicit and implicit accounts of value in art making. A short list would include sensitivity, rigor, spontaneity and a sense of irony about the partiality of all perspectives. This class will be an all-day immersion in painting and drawing from life. Its most important requirement will be the faithful attendance of the students to work each and every class. In recent years practice or praxis has become an important synonym for artwork and the class will explore this as a discipline but, more importantly, as a source of ideas. Our deepest concern will be the discovery of the ideas that inhere in each student’s developing practice. A crucial question is whether the tastes and skills you are developing create demands within your work that open the way to a more personal and a more rigorous personal poetry.

Optional: This course is available for 3.0 undergraduate credits for $2,800. Select credit option with price adjustment during registration.

Image:

Register by: August 23
Materials List
Open Academy Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies

Tuesdays, 1 – 3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Jill A. Rupinski
Fifteen-Week Open Academy (BFA) Course (45 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit or 1.5 Undergraduate Credits (See Below)

PAFA’s Open Academy provides the opportunity for Continuing Education (CE) and non-matriculated students to enroll in select BFA courses for credit or non-credit.  Open Academy students enrolled in PAFA’s renowned studio arts courses learn technical skills, creative expression, and critical thinking from master artist-teachers while working amongst dedicated full-time students in PAFA's classrooms.

Using imagination, observation, and personal ideas students will push the boundaries of painting materials and subject matter. Works will be developed through guided application using a variety of materials working from the figure, clothed figure, objects and other source material. We will be using PAFA’s collection, the PMA and field trips to galleries to help illustrate techniques and how materials are used in different applications. The students will be introduced to different painting techniques, use of collage, acrylic and water-based materials. In class, students will learn to prepare different painting surfaces and grounds and stretch a canvas. Individualized instruction and group critiques will be given throughout the session.

Optional: This course is available for 1.5 undergraduate credits for $1,400. Select credit option with price adjustment during registration.

Image: Jill A. Rupinski, American Landscape.

Register by: August 26
Materials List
Open Academy Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies

Wednesdays, 8:30 - 11:20 a.m. (includes option to add afternoons, 1 - 3:50 p.m., for full-day attendance -- see description)
Instructor: Doug Martenson
Fifteen-Week Open Academy (BFA) Course (45 - 90 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit or 1.5/3.0 Undergraduate Credits (See Below) 

Note: No class meeting on November 27.

PAFA’s Open Academy provides the opportunity for Continuing Education (CE) and non-matriculated students to enroll in select BFA courses for credit or non-credit.  Open Academy students enrolled in PAFA’s renowned studio arts courses learn technical skills, creative expression, and critical thinking from master artist-teachers while working amongst dedicated full-time students in PAFA's classrooms.

This course will address landscape en plein air as well as indoors. Varied outdoor locations such as Fairmount Park, the Philadelphia waterfront and the city itself will be the subject of painting projects. Observation of nature and capturing the visual qualities of nature in landscape will be a focus, while at the same time exploring the visual qualities of landscape and its personal and poetic possibilities. Included will be discussions of historic and contemporary landscape painting, reference material, studio landscape painting, methods and materials and the formation of visual language and critical thinking skills. Individual and group critiques will be a regular part of the class. Limited van transportation available for full-day only (please call prior to registration to ensure availabilty if requiring this option).

Optional: This course is available for half-day for 1.5 undergraduate credits for $1,400. For the option of full-day (morning, 8:30 - 11:20 a.m. and afternoon, 1 - 3:50 p.m.), this course is available for $2,300 non-credit or $2,800 for 3.0 undergraduate credits. Select length and credit choice with tuition adjustment during checkout. 

Image: Doug Martenson, Pines in a Field, oil on linen, 32 x 52 in.

Register by: August 26
Materials List
Open Academy Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies

Wednesdays, 1 – 3:50 p.m.
Instructor: John Horn
Fifteen-Week Open Academy (BFA) Course (45 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit or 1.5 Undergraduate Credits (See Below) 

Note: No class meeting on November 27.

PAFA’s Open Academy provides the opportunity for Continuing Education (CE) and non-matriculated students to enroll in select BFA courses for credit or non-credit.  Open Academy students enrolled in PAFA’s renowned studio arts courses learn technical skills, creative expression, and critical thinking from master artist-teachers while working amongst dedicated full-time students in PAFA's classrooms.

The purpose of this course is to promote an individual way of seeing and working from the human figure and develop personal vision. This includes approaching the figure either as an end in itself or as a point of departure, and exploring an individual use of materials and techniques. Instruction for this course will be directed to the individual along with some group criticism and group discussion.

Optional: This course is available for 1.5 undergraduate credits for $1,400. Select credit option with price adjustment during registration.

Image: Student drawing, courtesy of John Horn.

Register by: August 26
Materials List
Open Academy Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies

Thursdays, 1 – 3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Al Gury
Fifteen-Week Open Academy (BFA) Course (45 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit or 1.5 Undergraduate Credits (See Below) 

Note: No class meeting on November 28.

PAFA’s Open Academy provides the opportunity for Continuing Education (CE) and non-matriculated students to enroll in select BFA courses for credit or non-credit.  Open Academy students enrolled in PAFA’s renowned studio arts courses learn technical skills, creative expression, and critical thinking from master artist-teachers while working amongst dedicated full-time students in PAFA's classrooms.

Students will have availability of models for painting and drawing in the classroom, using a variety of setups, lighting, etc., where the instructor will guide and critique projects. Strategies for referencing the visual material in the settings for the development of work with a personal point of view will be discussed. Included will be historical and contemporary perspectives on painting and drawing with the figure. To address the needs of the advanced student emphasis will be placed on independently directed work. Therefore, this class can serve as a bridge to figurative work being developed in the private studio as well as in the open studio classroom. Students may work in their studios, where the instructor may be invited to offer criticism regarding work in progress. The goal of this course is to support, strengthen and prepare the students for independent work as a studio artist.

Optional: This course is available for 1.5 undergraduate credits for $1,400. Select credit option with price adjustment during registration.

Image:

Register by: August 26
Materials List
Open Academy Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies

Thursdays, 8:30 - 11:20 a.m. (includes option to add afternoons, 1 - 3:50 p.m., for full-day attendance -- see description)
Instructor: John Horn
Fifteen-Week Open Academy (BFA) Course (45 - 90 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit or 1.5/3.0 Undergraduate Credits (See Below) 

Note: No class meeting on November 28.

PAFA’s Open Academy provides the opportunity for Continuing Education (CE) and non-matriculated students to enroll in select BFA courses for credit or non-credit.  Open Academy students enrolled in PAFA’s renowned studio arts courses learn technical skills, creative expression, and critical thinking from master artist-teachers while working amongst dedicated full-time students in PAFA's classrooms.

Open Studio is a comprehensive figure modeling class for students with prior clay modeling course experience. The class will continue the study of the figure, with focus on anatomy and proportion, but will also emphasize the crucial elements of gesture and rhythm, spontaneity and spirit. Students will be encouraged to work in a variety of sizes and outside projects should be expected. Independent study and experiment is always encouraged. Issues concerning the advanced students will be discussed on an individual basis. Broader topics/discussions, such as the nature and philosophy of art and the artist will also be introduced. The afternoon portion of this class is uninstructed studio time.

Optional: This course is available for half-day for 1.5 undergraduate credits for $1,400. For the option of full-day (morning, 8:30 - 11:20 a.m. and afternoon, 1 - 3:50 p.m.), this course is available for $2,300 non-credit or $2,800 for 3.0 undergraduate credits. Select length and credit choice with tuition adjustment during checkout. 

Image: John Horn

Register by: August 26
Materials List
Open Academy Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies

Open studio access: 8 a.m. - 10 p.m. daily, 15 weeks, September 9 - December 20. (No access during Thanksgiving Break, November 28 - December 1.) 

Critiques:  Four individual critiques, by sign-up, with selected critic.  Dates TBA (one per month, September – December). See available days/times attached to each critic.  Bonus group critique and/or group events with the adjacent/instructed Taking the Leap studio program subject to scheduling availability.   

Critics (students select ONE):  

• Jill A. Rupinski (Thursdays, critique slots starting at 1 p.m.) 
• Bruce Samuelson (Tuesdays, critique slots starting at 1 p.m.) 

Credit: Non-credit  

Maintain your studio practice and push your work to new levels amidst a thriving arts environment of classes and working degree students on PAFA’s campus – with the benefit of the expert advice of PAFA’s leading critics! Students participating in this program will pursue their own independent work under the focused guidance of one critic, PAFA appointed faculty Jill A. Rupinski or Bruce Samuelson (selected during registration), for one-on-one critique and discussion four times per semester (once monthly). Possible additional group critique or other opporunities may be available, pending scheduling.

Tuition for this fifteen-week/full-semester program will confer an individual studio space in PAFA’s Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building for self-guided studio time with monthly critiques from the selected faculty-critic. Studios for this program are approximately 9 x 16 feet (144 sq. ft.), white-walled, with an easel and stool provided (students are responsible for additional furniture or equipment needs). Students have two studio options (select preference during registration):  

• Studios within a group space are located side-by-side within a private, key-secured corridor for an engaging community atmosphere. Each space is curtained (no individually locked doors), opening out to the corridor’s large east-facing windows for the benefit of abundant natural light. 
  
  
• Interior studios spaces (not located along PAFA’s windowed exterior walls) offer increased privacy with individual lockable doors, without natural light. FULL -- This option no longer available.
  

This studio-rental program is designed for experienced visual artists and alumni who can work independently and will benefit from constructive feedback on their artwork. For students needing more guidance in their individual studio practice or anyone preferring a format of weekly interaction, artistic prompts, and increased community support, PAFA’s alternative CE studio rental program, Taking the Leap to Start and Advance Your Studio Practice (with Instruction), is a great option with benefits designed to launch your studio practice!  

Note: Registration requires an additional $200 studio deposit that is refundable upon satisfactory return of the studio to its original condition at the end of the program. Students must agree to and sign PAFA’s studio agreement form. Membership and early registration discounts cannot be applied to course tuition, but students are eligible to receive 10% off additional Fall CE courses to supplement their studio pursuits. 

Image: Bruce Samuelson, Untitled (Facing Figure), pastel and charcoal on rag board, 24 x 19 in.

Registration Deadline: Rolling, on a space-available basis. Late registration (after program start date) available. 

Materials List (PAFA-Approved Materials)  

Fall CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies 

Thursdays, 6 – 9 p.m.
Instructor: Phyllis Laver
Six-Week Short Course (18 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit Only

If you’ve never drawn before, or your skills are a little rusty, then this class is for you! Learn to draw what you see with confidence. Work from simple forms, still life arrangements, and interior and exterior spaces to master the drawing elements: shape, contour line, composition, light and dark, texture and perspective. Instruction will guide students through sight-drawing and measuring techniques, use of materials, gauging value, and ways of defining form and space. This course is excellent as a foundation for future study, as a precursor to more advanced drawing study or to painting and other disciplines.  Note: This part 1 course does not include work from models. 

This class is part 1 of an optional 2-part course!  See also Drawing Fundamentals: Cast and Figure for continued instruction. Students are welcome to enroll in either or both parts; Line and Form is not required as a prerequisite to Cast and Figure but is recommended for students with little or no drawing experience. 

*No class on October 3 for Rosh Hashanah.

Image: Ellen R. Warren, Begonia, ca. 1880, pen and black ink on white wove paper, 2 x 3 1/4 in. Collection of PAFA.

Register by: September 6 
Materials List
Fall 2024 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies