Art The ArtsCurriculum

Philosophy

The art program seeks to elicit the artist within every child by teaching basic art, woodworking, and sculpture skills, encouraging creative thinking and problem solving, and fostering an appreciation for art history and aesthetics. We create a secure and open environment that encourages exploration and experimentation, and promotes the use of multiple approaches to problem-solving. We aim to help our students respect and understand the artwork of diverse cultures, and believe that making, viewing, and discussing art is integral to human experience.

Students are exposed to a variety of art concepts, skills, and media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, and woodworking. In addition, boys learn about great art and artists throughout history, using masterworks as inspiration for projects. Often, art lessons are planned in conjunction with the academic curriculum.

In the pre-primary grades, an art specialist visits classrooms once a week to create artwork with the boys. In addition, boys do art projects throughout the week with their classroom teachers.

In Grades One through Eight, students attend classes in the art studio, pottery, and woodshop. In Grades One through Six, classes are divided into small groups, which rotate throughout the three disciplines on a semester or trimester basis. In the Seventh and Eighth Grades, boys elect which visual arts discipline they would like to study.

Studying the visual arts at Saint David’s gives students the confidence to create satisfying works of art and offers them opportunities to experience the joys of self-discovery, imagination, intuition, and beauty.

Goals

• To possess the confidence to create an expressive work of art regardless of perceived “talent."
• To acquire basic skill with a variety of art, sculpture, and woodworking tools and techniques through exploration, experimentation, practice, and self-discipline.
• To exhibit the processes of self-discovery and non-linear thinking inherent in the visual arts, and to explore multiple approaches to artistic problems.
• To investigate art's fundamental and integral relation to culture, and the relevance of the visual arts and aesthetics to everyday life.
• To recognize and identify prominent artists and artistic movements throughout history.
• To discuss works of art with regard to formal and contextual concepts (i.e. shape, form, line, color, texture, mood, meaning, intent).