Each course offered in the Fine Arts area is designed to enhance the ability of the first time art student and to strengthen the skills of the returning art student.
Art History
The program in art history enables students to investigate the visual arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture in depth and to explore a broad range of questions about the making and meaning of art. The curriculum in art history includes courses on specific art historical periods and on the philosophy and historiography of art.
Ceramics
The ceramic area offers a creative studio environment with beginning through advanced courses. It is a cone 10 reduction studio with opportunities to work with high fire, soda and raku. Students hand build and throw in a large well equipped studio.
In Ceramics I the students are given the foundation for becoming a more proficient ceramic artist. They are given the skills to make work in hand built and thrown ceramics.
Ceramics II, III, and IV students will work more independently. They mix glazes and encouraged to think for themselves. There are projects and proposed pieces for the advanced students.
The studio facility has spacious areas for hand building, wheel throwing, slip casting, glaze research, and firing electric, gas, soda, and raku kilns.
Drawing
Golden West offers a broad range of drawing and painting courses to suit a broad range of career paths and artistic interests. Beginning drawing classes are designed to help build observational skills and introduce a wide range of media. Intermediate drawing classes allow more opportunities for students to experiment with additional media and draw on location.
Life drawing affords students the opportunity to draw the human form through direct observation of male and female models. Classical techniques of volume and anatomy are used to help develop the skills necessary to draw convincing figures.
There are also opportunities to explore drawing as it relates to career options. The art department offers courses in cartooning, rendering and rapid visualization in conjunction with our Digital Arts and Design programs.
Golden Wests painting program was designed to accommodate artists of all skill levels– from beginners to experienced artists who want to learn new skills. Students also learn to develop their compositional and critical thinking skills. Classes in watercolor are also offered in addition to traditional classes in acrylic and oil.
Jewelry
The Art Department Jewelry courses offered at Golden West College encourage individual expression through the medium of jewelry and small functional metal objects. The courses are designed to allow students to explore a variety of processes under the instruction of a Master Metalsmith. Traditional and contemporary silversmithing techniques are the foundation given for students to develop their craftsmanship as well as design aesthetic. The curriculum offers a multiplicity of methods practiced in the jewelry field such as soldering, cold connections, stone-setting, enameling, hollow-ware, casting, and forging. Many of our students continue in the Jewelry field and exhibit their work, continue on to higher education, and some become designers, developing their own production line.
Photography
The photography program has up to date facilities and curriculum designed to provide students who wish to study commercial or fine art photography with the skills to move on to four year college or university or to pursue and independent career in photography. The faculty of divided between those with a background in the fine arts and those with a background in commercial photography.
Printmaking
Printmaking is an art form steeped in tradition. Students in Golden Wests Printmaking Department learn a wide variety of historical processes such as lithography and linoleum block printing as well as modern silkscreen techniques that can be used for both T-shirts and fine art prints.
Our Printmaking Workshop course is an exploration of traditional and non-traditional printmaking techniques ranging from mono printing to fish printing and other unique printmaking methods.
Sculpture
From figurative ceramics to abstract stone carving, Golden Wests Golden Wests Sculpture/3D Design program will help you develop your ability to conceptualize and create three diminsional art. Students at Golden West learn to work in a variety of materials including plaster, clay, wood and stone. Our excellent facilities contain a range of tools that will help you turn your sculptural ideas into reality.
Beginning students are expected to take Three Dimensional Design, which serves as an introduction to materials and form. Intermediate students can explore life sculpture or take a general sculptural course. Experienced students can explore various approaches in Advanced Sculpture Workshop
