Painting II and Lab

Course Description

Painting II and Lab continues from Painting I, focusing on composition and design elements while encouraging students to develop work in series. It accommodates both art majors and non-majors, may be repeated once, and develops critical thinking, communication, cultural literacy, and technical skills.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, ART is the Art prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 3 credits with a $20.00 lab fee, offered fall and spring, and specifies four studio hours weekly — giving approximately 60 contact hours across a standard term.

The emphasis on series is what distinguishes this from the first painting course. A beginner makes individual paintings; the developmental step at this level is sustained investigation of a problem across multiple works, which is how painters actually develop a body of work and a personal direction. It is also the shift that makes a portfolio coherent rather than assorted.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Apply the elements of art and principles of design deliberately in composition.
• Construct compositions with intentional structure, focal point, and visual movement.
• Apply colour theory, including relationships, temperature, and mixing systems.
• Mix colour accurately and maintain a controlled palette.
• Control value and use it to construct form and space.
• Apply techniques of paint application, including layering, glazing, scumbling, and impasto.
• Prepare supports and grounds appropriately for the medium.
• Select and maintain brushes, tools, and materials appropriately.
• Describe the properties of the paint medium used and their working implications.
• Paint from observation with accurate proportion, value, and colour relationships.
• Develop work from source material, including studies and preparatory drawings.
• Develop a coherent series exploring a sustained visual or conceptual problem.
• Articulate the intent behind a body of work.
• Evaluate one's own work critically and revise in response.
• Participate constructively in critique, giving and receiving feedback.
• Describe historical and contemporary painting practice relevant to one's own work.
• Apply studio safety practices, including solvent and pigment handling and ventilation.
• Handle, store, and transport work appropriately.
• Present finished work professionally.
• Manage a sustained project to a deadline with documented process.

Optional Outcomes

• Work in an alternative or mixed medium.
• Work at larger scale.
• Explore non-representational or abstract approaches.
• Photograph work properly for documentation and portfolio.
• Describe exhibition practice and submission procedures.
• Write an artist statement.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Elements of art and principles of design
• Compositional structure and focal point
• Colour theory and relationships
• Colour mixing and palette control
• Value and the construction of form
• Paint application techniques
• Supports, grounds, and preparation
• Materials, tools, and their maintenance
• Properties of the medium
• Painting from observation
• Studies and preparatory work
• Developing a series
• Articulating intent
• Self-evaluation and revision
• Critique
• Historical and contemporary context
• Studio safety: solvents, pigments, ventilation
• Handling, storage, and transport
• Presentation of finished work
• Project and deadline management

Optional Topics

• Alternative and mixed media
• Working at scale
• Abstraction and non-representational approaches
• Documentation photography
• Exhibition practice
• Artist statements

Resources & Tools

• The Painter's Handbook (Mark Gottsegen) or The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques (Ralph Mayer) — the materials references; genuinely useful and worth owning.
• Interaction of Color (Josef Albers) — the classic on how colour behaves in context rather than in isolation.
• Materials — paints, brushes, supports, and mediums. Budget for these separately; the $20.00 lab fee covers facility use, not your supplies. See the cost note below.
• Safety Data Sheets for every pigment and solvent you use — legally required to be available and worth reading; see the safety flag.
• Google Arts & Culture and museum open-access collections — free high-resolution images that let you study surface and handling closely.
• The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline and Smarthistory — free, authoritative art historical context.
• Florida museums — the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Daytona Beach, the Ringling, the Norton, and the Harn all hold painting and are free or inexpensive to students. Seeing paint in person is not replaceable by reproduction — surface, scale, and handling do not photograph.
• A camera and a plain wall for documenting work; see the portfolio note.
• Open studio time. Four scheduled hours weekly is not enough to produce a series; ask about access.

Career Pathways

• Studio artist — exhibiting and selling work; realistically built alongside other income.
• Illustrator — editorial, publishing, and commercial illustration.
• Scenic artist and muralist — theatre, film, theme parks, and commercial murals; Orlando's attraction industry employs scenic painters in volume, with actual salaried positions.
• Art teacher — K-12 with certification, or community and studio teaching.
• Gallery and arts administration.
• Art handling, framing, and conservation support.
• Concept art and design — games, film, and themed entertainment; painting fundamentals underpin digital practice.
• Art therapy — requires graduate study and credentialing.
• Transfer to a B.A. or B.F.A. — Florida institutions offer both; portfolio review is normally required for admission, which is the practical reason to take this course seriously.
• SOC codes 27-1013 Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators and 27-1014 Special Effects Artists and Animators. Fine art income is characteristically irregular; the salaried work in this field is disproportionately in scenic, themed entertainment, and teaching.

Special Information

⚠ Studio materials are chemicals — solvents and pigments need real handling

The safety content painting courses sometimes treat lightly, and the hazards are cumulative rather than dramatic.

• Solvents are the main hazard in oil painting. Turpentine and mineral spirits produce vapour that accumulates in a poorly ventilated room, and chronic exposure has documented neurological and respiratory effects. Ventilation is a control, not a comfort.
• Use odourless mineral spirits or a low-toxicity alternative where the technique permits, keep solvent containers closed, and never leave open jars out. Some painters work solvent-free entirely using oil mediums and safe cleaning practices.
• Solvent-soaked rags can spontaneously combust. This is a genuine and well-documented fire cause — oil-soaked rags oxidize and generate heat. Dispose of them in the designated metal container with a lid, never in a pile or a plastic bin.
• Some pigments are genuinely toxic. Cadmium, cobalt, chromium, and lead-containing pigments carry real hazards, principally by ingestion and inhalation of dust. Never sand dry paint without protection, do not pipette or point brushes with your mouth, and wash your hands before eating.
• Do not eat or drink in the studio, and keep food away from your palette.
• Do not wash solvents or paint down the drain. Follow the studio's waste procedure — this is an environmental compliance matter, not fastidiousness.
• Aerosol fixatives and spray varnishes require a spray booth or outdoor use, not a corner of the room.
• Read the Safety Data Sheets. They are required to be available and almost nobody looks at one.
• Acrylics are lower-hazard but not zero — pigment toxicity still applies, and some mediums and additives carry their own cautions.

⚠ Working in series is the actual assignment — resist making one-offs

The developmental step this course is built around, and it is what separates Painting II from Painting I.

A series is a sustained investigation, not a set of similar pictures. The value is that a problem you cannot solve in one painting becomes solvable across six, because each attempt tells you something the previous one did not.

• Pick a problem, not a subject. "Paintings of the beach" is a subject; "how far can I push value contrast before the space collapses" is a problem, and the second generates work.
• Change one variable at a time across the series so you can see what caused what. Changing everything produces six unrelated paintings.
• Keep the failures. A painting that did not work is data, and in a series it frequently explains why the next one did.
• Work on several at once. Paint needs to dry, and a stalled painting frequently resolves itself while you work on another. Serial working makes this natural.
• Do studies. Small, quick, low-stakes studies let you test a compositional or colour decision in twenty minutes rather than losing a week to it.
• Document as you go. Photograph each stage; the record of how a painting developed is valuable for the next one and for your portfolio.
• Do not overwork. The hardest judgement in painting is knowing when a work is finished, and the most common failure at this level is continuing past it. Turn it to the wall for a week and look again.

⚠ Critique is the instructional method — learn to use it properly

• The work is discussed publicly, and it is about the work. The discipline to internalize immediately is that critique addresses the painting, not the painter.
• Do not explain before showing. The painting has to operate without your narration, because in every context that matters it will be seen without you. Listen first; explain after.
• Take notes during your own critique. You will not remember it, and the specific observations are the value.
• Watch everyone else's. This is the cheapest learning in the course — twenty critiques for the price of one — and students who leave after their own turn lose most of it.
• Learn to give useful critique. "I like it" helps nobody. Describing your own experience as a viewer is always legitimate: "my eye goes straight to the corner and never comes back."
• Separate "I don't like this" from "this doesn't work." Hearing the second inside the first is a real skill.
• Present the work properly. A badly hung or unfinished-looking presentation invites comments about presentation rather than about the painting.

⚠ Budget for materials, and start documenting for portfolio now

• The $20.00 lab fee covers facility use, not your supplies. Paint, brushes, supports, and mediums are a real term cost, and quality varies enormously — cheap brushes and student-grade paint genuinely make the work harder.
• Ask the instructor for a realistic list in week one, and buy in bulk with classmates where permitted. Stretching your own canvas is substantially cheaper than buying pre-stretched.
• Spend on brushes and one good white. These make more difference than an expanded palette.
• Photograph every finished work properly — even light, plain background, square to the camera, no glare. Paintings get damaged, sold, given away, or stored badly, and the photograph becomes the record.
• Keep process documentation — studies, stages, and rejected attempts. Portfolios that show thinking are more persuasive than portfolios that show only outcomes, and B.F.A. admissions look for exactly that.
• The course may be repeated once at Daytona State, which is worth knowing: a second pass with more ambition produces stronger portfolio work than a first pass alone.
• Portfolio review governs art transfer. B.F.A. and many B.A. programmes admit on portfolio regardless of transcript, which makes the work you make here the actual currency.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

ART1501C is 3 credits with four studio hours weekly — approximately 60 contact hours — and a $20.00 lab fee. Assessment is by portfolio and critique: finished paintings, the coherence of the series, process work, and participation. Studio courses expect substantial work outside scheduled hours, so the real time commitment exceeds the timetable.

The course transfers on the ordinary lower-division basis, and as noted above art baccalaureate admission is normally by portfolio review rather than by transcript. Note also for planning that DSC specifies four studio hours weekly for this course while several published courses in the ART family run six — contact hours vary within the prefix, so confirm rather than assuming.