The Visual Arts program at St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School is a comprehensive arts education for all students from JK through 12th grade. Starting in the Lower School, grades JK through 5, the program focuses on student awareness of and sensitivity to lines, colors, shapes, design, and textures in the environment. Students work on both two and three dimensional projects and experience the media of painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, puppetry, and photography. Faculty members encourage personal expression and emphasize the artistic process rather than focus on the finished product.
In the Middle School, students are exposed to a range of art materials and techniques in order to further their understandings of the elements and principles of design. With each artistic media explored the skills of observation, craftsmanship, problem-solving, and individual creative expression are promoted. Additionally, students are strongly encourage to begin to analyze and understand their own creative process - from inspiration to idea formulation to final production, and to account for the role that materials as well as ideas play in the creative process.
The elective visual art program in the Upper School builds on students’ knowledge and experience of the elements of art and principles of design. Art work created in the high school years is more complex, unique, and self-expressive in the two-dimensional media of drawing, painting, and printmaking, the three-dimensional media of ceramics and sculpture, or a combination of both. Students learn to research, plan, and execute individualized projects as well as work collaboratively on the creation of group projects. |