Art School Portfolio Preparation

In this course students learn key color concepts. Working with visual examples, students create charts that address different color theory principes. Lessons includ color wheel, complimentary colors, transparency, tints, shades and tones, mixing new paint colors, and the cultural/emotional/psychological attributes of color. Students finish with a painting where the use of color is the key component. 

Beginning students learn the importance of composition, and how the different arrangements of shapes and colors influence a piece. Using collage, students study the placement and arranagement of visual elements in a work of art, as it is distinct from the subject of the work. Students finish with a final collage project. 

Students learn the concepts of linear and atmospheric perspective and how they are used to control the illusion of depth in an image.

Basic Anatomy students learn the many interrelated forms within the body, and begin to understand posture, gesture, and how the body moves. Students examine musculoskeletal organization through a series of exploratory drawings. This course improves students figurative comprehension, thereby heightening artistic range. 

Students are introduced to basic drawing techniques, learning to connect eye with hand as they develop their perceptual skills. Focus is on line, value, sighting and measuring, composition, linear and atmopsheric perspective and expressive mark making. Students learn to articulate forms in space, with an emphasis on drawing from observation. Students finish with a large-scale line drawing. 

Students learn how tonal values change in relation to three dimensional forms. Emphasis is on drawing objects from observation. Students finish with a large-scale still life pencil drawing.

In this painting course students learn about the unique qualities of different types of paint. Students work primarily from life using a combination of still-life portrait, and landscape to develop skills in utilizing cohesive color schemes and painting techniques. Students learn to understand the effects and illusions they cna create by understanding color. In this course students learn key color concepts, and how to mix paint colors. Students will complete 1-5 paintings for their admissions portfolio. 

Students learn numerous skills and techniques for representational drawing by focusing on and capturing what they see using value, shading and contrast, to create a sense of form. Gesture and line quality are carefully considered as powerful means of expression. In this drawing course students learn to build upon, expand, and heighten their concept of drawing. Using both conventional and non-conventional drawing tools, students investigate mark-making and use of color as it relates to the development of symbolic and expressive form.

In this course students learn to deal with the figure as a system of shapes, and to investigate the use of light to develop and render forms that construct the figure. The issues of tone and value, perceiving the figure as positive and negative shapes, and a proportion and anatomy, are addressed. Using traditional and nontraditional drawing media, students work from the live model in various poses and interior settings. learned rendering techniques are used to develop figure drawings with a convincing illusion of space.

In this course student's expand their art-making ideas through an exploration of tradtional and unconventional sculpting materials. Students focus on the possibilites of combining two and three dimensional media, photography, writing, and sewing, with painting, sculpture and drawing. Experimentation is accepted and encouraged.