Undergraduate Overview

Fall 2027 Early Action and Priority Merit Scholarship Deadline: November 15

With up to 80 courses offered in the Department of Painting and Drawing, it’s clear why the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is one of the leading schools for painting and drawing in the country. Students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in fine arts have the choice, freedom, and openness to design a painting and drawing curriculum tailored to their creative needs. Through rigorous course studies, students develop the skills and conceptual foundations necessary for a sustainable art practice.

The department’s unique and experimental approach to learning challenges students to explore a wide variety of courses designed to help them grow as artists. 

Courses include:

1. Painting Practice Classes: This is an introductory prerequisite course for all other painting classes. It is taught by a variety of faculty, each with their own unique teaching style. Students learn the fundamentals of painting with a strong emphasis on developing proficiency with fundamental formal and material processes. Students also become familiar with various forms of visual and critical engagement in order to catalyze their conceptual development.

2. ​Painting Studio: Multi-Level Classes: These classes offer a fertile environment for the development of individual practice while advancing technical skill. General sections are open to students who have completed Painting Practice. Advanced, topic-based sections are also available. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• The Abstract Image
• Cheap TV
• Conceptual Approach
• The Dream
• Exploding Paint
• Expressionism
• Funny Painting
• Painting after Painting

3. Studio Drawing: Multi-Level Classes: Taught by a diverse group of faculty who approach drawing with critical rigor, students learn and develop drawing fundamentals. They also explore experimental, narrative, and conceptual approaches with different media. General sections, as well as specialized, topic-based sections are available without prerequisite course requirements. Topics include, but are not limited to: 

• Wild Combination
• Mixed Media
• Abstraction/Representation
• Ink Painting: the Brush of Zen
• Large Format Painting
• Collage: Concepts and Techniques
• Landscape Narratives​

In addition to fundamental skill-building courses, undergraduate students are encouraged to explore drawing and painting courses in areas that drive their practice forward. These include figure drawing and painting, materials and techniques, comics, and more.

Dedicated to the study of the body, these classes prioritize various approaches to the line, shape, volume, and anatomy of the human form. Approaches range from perceptually traditional to radically conceptual. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Anatomy
• Figures in Space
• Large Format
• The Portrait
• Advanced: Inside and Out
• Advanced: Narrative Figuration
• Advanced: Photo to Memory

These courses in painting, offered in our new state-of-the-art StudioLab, focus on the production, preparation, and application of various traditional and contemporary paint systems. Students have the opportunity to make their own paints and drawing materials, such as:

• Egg tempera
• Gesso
• Casein
• Encaustic
• Oil paint
• Advanced acrylic processes
• Silverpoint
• Conte-crayon
• Walnut ink 

Students are also encouraged to develop their own material processes and recipes.

These courses are taught in classrooms dedicated to the specific needs of comic production. They cover aspects of narrative development, cell layout, illustration, zine creation, and a variety of other approaches. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Autobiography
• Advanced Comics
• Capstone: Publish or Perish
• Cartooning the Figure
• Drawing Outside the Boxes
• Independent Comics

The Academic Spine is a required three-course sequence for all undergraduate degrees. The three courses provide a structure of peer support and intensive faculty mentoring as students navigate SAIC’s open curriculum. Learn more about the Academic Spine. 

Advanced Painting Studio: Each semester, advanced students can apply to one of two sections of Advanced Painting Studio. Students share dedicated, private studio spaces from one to three consecutive semesters, working with faculty members three days per week. In many ways, this highly competitive course begins to approach the intensity of a graduate program, requiring dedicated independent studio practice and rigorous conceptual development.

Summer Institute: Painting Residency/Drawing Residency: These three-week summer intensives are taught in the Advanced Painting studios. Offering a residency experience, students are provided with an individual studio space and instruction from two faculty members. While studio practice is primary, topical lectures and periodic visits to the Art Institute of Chicago are a consistent attribute of the course.

Visit the undergraduate admissions website or contact the undergraduate admissions office at 800.232.7242 or ugadmiss@saic.edu.

Sign up for email updates to learn more about our undergraduate programs.