Tuesday, September 8–Friday, September 18 (excluding Sunday, September 13)

Course Description

This Drawing Marathon invites students into the pursuit of unexpected images through an intensive process of making, reworking, and discovery. Participants will begin by working from the live model, using observation as a starting point rather than an end point. Students will be encouraged to generate a large volume of drawings and studies, pushing beyond what they might initially consider a finished work.

Throughout the course, students will explore ways of transforming their source material by introducing additional imagery, including historical references, personal photographs, memory, previously completed artworks, and other visual materials. The emphasis will be on how one image can lead to another, creating a chain of visual decisions and discoveries that gradually expands the possibilities of the original drawing.

A range of approaches to drawing will be explored, including line, shape, scale, collage, layering, fragmentation, repetition, and mark making. Students will be encouraged to alter, reconstruct, combine, and reinvent their work, remaining open to unexpected outcomes and willing to revisit images through multiple iterations.

The course asks participants to be curious, committed, and willing to take risks. Drawings may be cut apart and reassembled, enlarged or reduced, combined with other images, or translated into new forms. Through this process, students will investigate how shifts in context, scale, composition, and material can fundamentally change the meaning and experience of an image. While some students may find their work moving toward abstraction, others may pursue narrative, symbolic, or highly personal directions. The course is designed to support a wide range of outcomes and approaches.

The first several days will focus primarily on drawing and collage, and will involve working large scale.

Course Syllabus