Foundation

To paint something lasting, you first take the time to carefully prepare the canvas. There's stretching and layers of gesso even before you ever get to your color palette. When it is primed, then you can be as inventive as you like.

As an artist, you have so many ideas to explore and so many ways to realize them. In Foundation year, you exercise your intuition, sense of play, and problem solving skills to make meaningful, personal work, now and in the future. You become proficient in seeing and thinking—from a professional artist's perspective. Not only do you practice (and practice) drawing the world you see around you, you learn how to think about what you experience and observe—how artists' perceptions of the world influence your own perceptions and what it means to be an artist. You will discover and expand ways of seeing, thinking, drawing, and designing.

Through studio, seminar, and design courses, we help you understand the visual language, so you can then begin to "speak" in your own unique ways and communicate to a wider audience. The curriculum immerses you in an outstanding first year experience that examines fundamental art principles, explores multiple approaches, and gives you the skills and confidence to meet the challenges of further, intensive art study.

Foundation gives you the opportunity to explore techniques, materials, influences, and ideas, all vital as you move on to concentrations in graphic design, illustration, animation, fine arts, or art history. After Foundation, you feel like a more informed artist because you have discussed centuries of artistic movements; a more capable artist because you have learned the dynamics of drawing as a means of visualizing ideas; a more engaged artist because you have been exposed to a wide variety of methods and mediums. The strength of the Foundation program is its ability to balance the acquisition of skills and the development of ideas to help you find your voice.

Foundation classes are traditionally taken during your first year, but they can also enrich your AIB experience at different points along the way—an elective in figure drawing could bring personality to your design skills or perhaps a course in conceptual drawing would bring discovery to your new interest in animation. Foundation Year includes your first class in your major area of study, so you can get a jump-start on your specific interests.

If you are an advanced student with prior study (say you're transferring in from another art school) and have already decided on your major, you may be able to get an exemption from some or all of the foundation courses. If this is the case you may be able to begin studies in your chosen field during your first year.

Foundation Blog