Arguing that an artist using any new medium must understand its techniques and limitations, this master's thesis is intended to demystify state-of-the-art 3-D computer graphics through a discussion of the technical literature from the artist's point of view and an analysis of the curricular needs of the artist. The first of six chapters discusses art, art education, and computer graphics; learning to use and make new tools; and aesthetic and artistic issues. Modeling the world in the computer is the focus of the second chapter, which provides an overview of 3-D computer graphics as well as discussions of the time and space and computational costs; visualizing the world; the Cartesian coordinate system; and the creation of data. The third chapter discusses describing a changing world, including object transformations, scaling, translation, rotation, object or scene descriptions, and computer animation. Viewing a model of the world is discussed in the fourth chapter, including the illusion of depth, view transformations, and hidden-surface removal. Focusing on 3-D realism, the fifth chapter describes light, shading, and color models, as well as surface and image qualities. Possibilities for the artist in 3-D computer graphics are summarized in the concluding chapter. Sixty-one figures illustrate the text, and both a glossary and a 59-item bibliography are included. (MES)