This course is taught with either an observational or non-observational focus depending on the faculty member. Observational focus: Painting studio course with an emphasis on direct painting technique in oil. Exercises in representing still life, landscape, portrait and figure elaborate principles of drawing, composition, color and technique. Reference to art historical models directs an exploration of perceptual and conceptual approaches to representational painting. Non-observational focus: Studio course shifts its focus away from the techniques associated with painting from observation and toward those methods of painting which might be categorized as abstract, non-objective, pop cultural, minimal, process-oriented, site-specific, conceptually driven, and even performative. Through the lens of non-observational (but at times still representational) painting made over the last one hundred years, we will explore the strategies, techniques, and standards associated with what might broadly be called abstraction, but upon closer inspection reveals itself to contain innumerable contrasting (yet overlapping) languages, attitudes, techniques, and end results.