Visual Arts

The Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Visual Arts provides a critical bridge between talent and skill. This exciting curriculum includes expert instruction and rigorous studio experience to help you take your creative ideas to the next level in a supportive atmosphere. It includes theory and critique seminars designed to develop creative and conceptual thinking; visual art history courses that integrate issues of contemporary art within a historical context; and visual arts electives chosen from a wide array of studio courses in painting, drawing, digital photography and other media. The combination of the studio practice with the conceptual and art-historical framework enables you to develop a portfolio of work for application to an M.F.A. program. All courses are approved by UC Berkeley and take place in the heart of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena arts district. We offer a solid, Berkeley-quality education in the visual arts that can be completed on a full-time basis.

Note: This professional certificate begins only in the fall. Students are required to demonstrate prior art experience when applying for the certificate.

Who Will Benefit

This certificate is ideal if you are an intermediate to advanced practicing artist with an undergraduate degree (in any major) and a desire to apply to an M.F.A. program or pursue a career in the arts.

Prerequisites for Admission

International students in the Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Visual Arts must have a bachelor's degree.

You must also submit transcripts of previous coursework documenting the equivalent of at least one year of study in the visual arts or 10–12 examples of your artwork (as email attachments or on a disk) for a portfolio review. These materials should be submitted at the time of your application to this Evening Certificate Program.

Curriculum Requirements

The curriculum consists of a minimum of 12 courses and a final portfolio review for a total of 24 semester units (360 hours of instruction), including 6 required courses (10 semester units), 1 art history elective (2 semester units) and a minimum of 6 visual arts electives (12 semester units).

This certificate can be completed in one year.

Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Visual Arts Courses

The table contains the required courses for the Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Visual Arts, as well as the terms they are typically available for enrollment.

Required Courses	Course #	Units	Fall	Spring	Summer
Modern Art: History and Theory	X441	2	♦
Contemporary Art: History and Theory	X442	2		♦
Post-Baccalaureate Seminar I: Portfolio and Visual Dynamics	X401	2	♦
Post-Baccalaureate Seminar 2: Portfolio and Critique	X495	2		♦
Post-Baccalaureate Seminar 3: Portfolio Development and Professional Practices	X495.1	2			♦
Portfolio Review	801			♦	♦

Electives	Course #	Units	Fall	Spring	Summer
Post-Baccalaureate Mentorship	X495.5	1	♦	♦	♦

Electives (Art History)	Course #	Units	Fall	Spring	Summer
Abstraction vs. Figuration: Five Decades of Modern and Contemporary Art	X446.2	1	♦
Ancient Greek Art (offered future term)	X400.4	2
Art of the Impressionists (offered future term)	X102.8	2
Art of the Post-Impressionists	X407.1	2			♦
Landscape Art of the Romantic Era	X102.5	2		♦
Rococo to Revolution: Art of the 18th Century (offered future term)	X406.1	2
Roman and Etruscan Art	X400.6	2			♦
Women Artists (offered future term)	X429	2

Electives (Drawing)	Course #	Units	Fall	Spring	Summer
Anatomy for Artists	X415.5	2	♦
Advanced Anatomy for Artists	X415.7	1		♦
Drawing Intermediate	X406	2		♦
Experimental Drawing	X433	2	♦	♦
Exploring the Portrait and Self-Portrait	X434	2	♦	♦
Extremities: Drawing Hands and Feet	X415.6	1	♦
Figure Drawing	X415	2			♦
Large-Scale Drawing	X408.1	2	♦
Pastel (offered future term)	X408	2
Pen and Ink Drawing	X432	2			♦
Perspective Drawing for Artists	X406.6	1			♦
Working in Series	X413.3	2		♦

Electives (Painting)	Course #	Units	Fall	Spring	Summer
The Abstract in Nature (offered future term)	X527	2
Approaches to Abstraction in Painting	X412.1	2	♦	♦
Chinese Brush Painting	X449	2		♦
Chinese Landscape Painting (offered future term)	X449.1	2
Color Theory for the Visual Arts	X403	2	♦	♦
Contemporary Realism: Painting Techniques of the Masters	X442.1	2	♦
New! Light and Space	X411.4	2			♦
Mixed-Media Painting	X440	2	♦	♦
Painting Intermediate	X411	2	♦	♦
Painting Workshop	X470	2	♦	♦	♦
Simplifying the Complex (offered future term)	X406.9	1
Watercolor Fundamentals	X414	2		♦
Working in Series	X413.3	2	♦	♦

Electives (Photography/Film)	Course #	Units	Fall	Spring	Summer
New! Beat Cinema	X426.1	1			♦
Digital Filmmaking Fundamentals	X415.1	2		♦
Digital Filmmaking Intermediate (offered future term)	X415.2	2			♦
Digital Photography in Practice and in Context	X405.7	2	♦	♦
Digital Photography Intermediate	X405.2	2	♦	♦	♦
Digital Photography Advanced	X405.6	2			♦
Digital Printing and Presentation	X405.9	2		♦
New! Film History:1880s to 1940s	X401.1	2			♦
History of Photography: A Dynamic Study and Practice	X405.8	2		♦
Independent Projects: Film and Video (offered future term)	X490	2
Multimedia Storytelling	X416.1	2		♦
Photography Workshop	X406.1	2			♦

Electives (Other Media)	Course #	Units	Fall	Spring	Summer
The Image of Text and Sound	X440.2	2		♦
Intermedia: Conceptual Practices	X424	2	♦
Monoprinting Fundamentals	X417.1	2			♦
Monoprinting Intermediate (offered future term)	X417.2	2			♦
Play as a Subversive Strategy	X433.1	2			♦
Printmaking and Street Art as Activist Art	X417.3	2			♦
Woodblock Printmaking	X417.4	2		♦

Course availability is subject to change.

Contact Information

To contact Evening Certificate Programs office, email ecp@unex.berkeley.edu, call (510) 642-2564 or fax (510) 643-0216.

Advisory Board

Susanne Cockrell
Associate Professor of Fine Art and Assistant Chair of First-Year Program
California College of the Arts

Richard Kamler
Associate Professor, Department of Art and Architecture
University of San Francisco

Ted Purves
Assistant Professor and Chair, Fine Arts Department
California College of the Arts

George Rivera
Executive Director and Senior Curator
Triton Museum of Art

Richard Shaw
Professor, Department of Art Practice
UC Berkeley

Mark Van Proyen
Associate Professor and Chair, Painting Department
San Francisco Art Institute

Lewis Watts
Associate Professor, Department of Art
UC Santa Cruz

Dominic Willsdon
The Leanne and George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Programs
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art