A year long discipline based foundational course for students in grades 9 through 12. This class provides the students with the critical concepts and basic techniques of visual arts.  Over the course of the year the art student develops the two skills an artist needs; the ability to create a three dimensional image on the two dimensional paper and the ability to see the three dimensional world in two dimensional terms.

The focus of the first nine weeks is training the hand. Through the use of basic geometric form the students acquire the needed skills to draw common objects.  Lessons deal with shading and the importance of contrast.  A critical concept of this quarter is that of refinement.  This is basically a rubric of how their art work will be evaluated for its’ technical quality.

The focus of the second nine weeks is teaching the eye.  The students are introduced to the elements of art and learn to ignore the subject matter and see only the lines, shapes, values and colors. They learn to “see” the basic shapes, proportions, eye level or angles, vertical and horizontal checks, and negative space.

The third nine weeks covers perspective drawing, figure and portrait drawing.

The fourth nine weeks is an introduction to painting.  The students work with still life, landscape and seascape and even experiment with non-objective and abstract art.

View Art Gallery