Programs for College Students

Woman with long brown hair pulled back wearing a black face mask, painting on an easel.
Working in the painting studio on the Ithaca campus. Jason Koski / UREL
Close up of two hands holding a drawing board with a charcoal sketch on it while another hand holds a pencil.
Summer art student working on a drawing. William Staffeld / AAP
Tourists looking at a Roman monument
Living and studying in Rome is an option for college students in the summer program. photo / Oonagh Davis (B.Arch. '20)
Three women draw in notebooks and a cobblestone street
Students sketching on a city street during the class Imagining Rome: Art Studio and Creative Writing Workshops. photo / provided
Two women taking notes in an art gallery.
Summer program students on a gallery visit. photo / provided
close up of hands working on a printmaking machine
Students work in the print studio in Tjaden Hall. William Staffeld / AAP
Working in the painting studio on the Ithaca campus. Jason Koski / UREL Summer art student working on a drawing. William Staffeld / AAP Living and studying in Rome is an option for college students in the summer program. photo / Oonagh Davis (B.Arch. '20) Students sketching on a city street during the class Imagining Rome: Art Studio and Creative Writing Workshops. photo / provided Summer program students on a gallery visit. photo / provided Students work in the print studio in Tjaden Hall. William Staffeld / AAP

College students interested in the Cornell Summer Session programs in art can choose classes in Ithaca, New York, or Rome, Italy.

Classes in Ithaca include:

  • ART 1501/1503 Summer Drawing I and II
  • ART 2201 Introductory Painting
  • ART 2301 Introduction to Print Media

Summer 2023 will offer the following courses through virtual instruction: ART 1501/1503

Rome classes will not be offered in summer 2023.

  • ART 1501/1503 Summer Drawing I and II (Virtual Instruction)

    This class is a hands-on introductory class using a series of short exercises to expose students to the fundamental awareness of format, composition, and figure-ground relationships. Controlled lighting to emphasize shadows and light will be incorporated in short studies and increasingly longer drawings. This class explores the difference and use of studies vs. drawing; and investigation into scale, line, and shape through still-life, first through interior furnishings and then with fruit and vegetables. Landscape is also explored through on-site work on Cornell's Arts Quad and elsewhere on campus. In addition, the figure will be introduced using a nude model with a series of exercises designed to help students become comfortable and confident with a difficult subject.

    ART 1503 Summer Drawing II is a continuation and expansion of Drawing I, during which each student will have more freedom to determine their course of conceptual and material investigation. 

    A young man seated outside in dappled sunlight drawing on a board in his lap, a stone building in the background

    A summer program student drawing outside Tjaden Hall. William Staffeld / AAP

  • ART 2201 Introductory Painting

    This class consists of a series of in-studio painting exercises designed to introduce the technical and conceptual vocabulary of the material and pictorial language of painting. Areas covered include color theory, color mixing, compositional strategies, and concepts of pictorial spatial construction, as well as image transfer and translation from perceptual observation. Each exercise is introduced via related models/examples from historical and contemporary practice and each completed work will be followed by a participatory critique. In addition, class activities include discussion of assigned texts, library and museum research, and exhibition.

    A man and a woman each paint at easels in a studio

    Painting techniques are learned and practiced in the studio during the summer program. William Staffeld / AAP

  • ART 2301 Introduction to Print Media

    This is an inclusive class that offers an expanded study of traditional printmaking processes through experimental print media. Print media is a critical practice grounded in the history of all printed matter and the printed form as a social medium. Students will participate in a comprehensive range of technical and aesthetic approaches centered in a range of strategies including the artwork as multiple, digital, and cultural production. These issues of critical discourse will challenge traditional definitions of intaglio, lithography, relief, screen-printing, digital printmaking, and laser cutting technology.

    student working with a print making machine with an instructor assisting

    Summer students work in the print studio in Tjaden Hall. William / AAP

  • ART 3092 Imagining Rome: Art Studio and Creative Writing Workshops in Italy (Not offered in SU 23)

    Imagining Rome: Art Studio and Creative Writing Workshops in Italy is a Cornell University summer study abroad program. It is designed for both Cornell students and students of other institutions, at any level of expertise, interested in studying writing or studio art at Cornell's teaching facility in the historic city center of Rome.

    A woman sketching with a Roman collonade in the background

    Summer study in Rome includes art studio and creative writing. photo / Alp Demiroglu (B.Arch. '21)

College Student Work

  • Painting in shades of blue of an angled window with eight glass panes on a view of clouds Expand content
    Yiwei Ni: ART 2201 Introductory Painting
    https://aap.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/Out%20The%20Window_Yiwei%20Ni_su18_870x450.jpg
  • A group of colorful paintings on paper pinned to a wall Expand content
    Lucy Plowe: ART 3092 Imagining Rome
    https://aap.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/Lucy_Plowe_870x450.jpg
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