Art
Bachelor of Arts
Grow your artistic skills, cultivate your personal style, and develop a professional portfolio.
Study the many forms of art
No artistic medium exists in a vacuum — they all influence and draw inspiration from each other. By exploring forms of art outside your main discipline, you’ll become a stronger artist. You can take courses in:
- Sculpture
- Drawing
- Watercolor
- Photography
- Painting
- Ceramics
- Printmaking
- Digital art
- Design
Work in a brand new facility
Our new two-story, 20,000-square-foot William Rolland Art Center houses drawing, painting, photography, ceramics, sculpture and watercolor/design studios along with lecture classrooms, a screening room, and computer, multimedia and editing labs. Filled with beautiful natural light, the building features high ceilings with exposed beams and ducts and many environmentally friendly features.
Know your history
Historical perspective is crucial to understanding even modern styles of art. By studying art from prehistoric to contemporary times, you’ll be well prepared to offer insightful analyses and critiques. If art history is your main passion, then you can take additional classes to explore different time periods more in depth.
Create a strong portfolio
Over the course of your studies, you’ll produce a solid body of artwork that will serve as the basis for your professional portfolio, which you’ll assemble in your final year. This portfolio will allow you to present your unique style through pieces connected by theme, technique, subject, or concept — a key selling point for your skills.
Showcase your artwork
As a senior, you’ll collaborate with your classmates to plan, design, implement, and install an exhibit of your collective artwork in an on-campus gallery. This hands-on experience will utilize the multidisciplinary skills you’ve acquired, making sure you’re fully prepared to enter the professional art world.
Apply for the Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) Scholarship
If you have superior talent in music, theatre, or art, then you should apply for a VAPA Scholarship. This scholarship awards up to $30,000 and requires an audition.
In the actual doing or making of art, encouraging students to experiment usually leads them to choosing content motivated by distinct interests. What they care about becomes clear as they invest time, materials and themselves—therefore, the creative process serves as a catalyst for personal transformation, assisting the self to purpose.
Larkin Higgins
Professor
Art history is really about the study of the history of visual ideas, or the study of creative thinking and visual strategy. I want students to think creatively and analytically, to engage themselves and their constituencies more deeply into whatever they are most absorbed in. Studying art history involves learning about history, government, architecture, religion and psychology, in addition to art. This kind of cross-disciplinary investigation adds value, grows imagination, and creates opportunity—personally, communally, professionally.
Christine Sellin
Associate Professor
In addition to being self-employed artists, our art majors also work in movies, television, theater, and animation. Those who’ve chosen the design concentration will typically begin careers in computer graphics, or with advertising agencies or design studios.
Our alumni study at:
- Academy of Art University
- Claremont Graduate University
- Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising
- Gnomon School of Visual Effects
- Loyola Marymount University
- Millersville University
- University of Northern Colorado
Our alumni work for:
- Walt Disney Animation Studios
- California Oil Museum
- Image Entertainment
- Mission Renaissance Art Studio
- Brainforest Digital Animatics
Career paths:
- Character Technical Director
- Museum Educator
- Graphic Designer
- Art Teacher
- Marketing and Design Assistant
- Web Designer
- Designer/Animator
of Cal Lutheran graduates find a job or enroll in graduate school within nine months
The atelier-inspired approach used by Cal Lutheran art professors gives students the opportunity to learn not only through instruction, but also by observing their professors in practice — displaying and modeling the skills, techniques, and conduct of an active artist.
Harold Muliadi '14
Art Major
Artist
Thousand Oaks, CA