Draw, Paint, & Design Great Adventures
Year-long course: 30 weeks
Hour and a half classes
Prerequsite: "Paint Your Way Through Art History"
Tuesday 4:00-5:30 Eastern time
Thursday 2:00-3:30 Eastern time
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This course continues the practice of drawing and painting skills but the focus shifts to the development of original ideas and compositions. We discuss where new ideas come from and how to generate new ideas. Students discuss their ideas and creativity gets contagious. These classes tend to be more relational with more time for students to talk and they have more opportunities to try their own thing and see where it leads them. We often combine art history with pop culture to create fun new paintings. We spend more time practicing landscapes, still life and portraits in the first semester and in the second semester we do more graphic design projects like album covers, expressive typography, and book design using traditional methods (painting, drawing, and cut paper).
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"Design" is solving problems with art.
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ALL CLASSES ARE RECORDED SO YOU CAN WATCH LATER IF YOU MISS A CLASSNote: tuition is per student. If siblings take the class, they both pay tuition.
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This course alternates every year between GREAT BOOKS and GREAT ADVENTURES
2023-24 school year will be Adventures, 2024-25 will be Great Books again.​​​
Unique for this year:
First semester, we'll follow the route of Marco Polo from Italy to Israel, to the Middle East to China to Japan.
Second semester: Australia, Latin America, Africa.
The last 5 weeks are available for students to lead a class. (Leading a class qualifies this course to be given HONORS credit. It is optional. Students who want to make this an honors class will choose a date and work with the instructor to develop and lead one hour and a half class.)
We'll generally spend 3 weeks on each country.
Week A: I'll show a slide show on the art, culture, religion of that country and students will do 3 thumbnail sketches for ideas for their fine art project
Week B: students to choose the best thumbnail sketch and create a painting or drawing inspired by the country.
Week C: after a little graphic design instruction, students will turn that artwork into a graphic design project by adding expressive typography: it might become a travel poster, a package design, a label, logo, or other design project.
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Each week will start off with a short devotion and a drawing warm-up exercise that will improve students' drawing skills.
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Optional Readings:
The Baker Pocket Guide to World Religions: What Every Christian Needs to Know by Gerald R. McDermott. (link at right)
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Graphic Design Fundamentals: An Introduction & Workbook for Beginners by Kris Taft Miller (Includes an introduction to Adobe Illustrator if you are interested in that, I can answer questions related to Illustrator at the end of class.)
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Your syllabus will have reading assignments from these 2 books if you want to add on one or both books.
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Skills:
Fine arts skills:
Landscapes, still lifes, portraits and sculpture.
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Design skills:
Typography, album covers, book covers, and illustration (If students want to use Illustrator they can. The design book above will get them started.)​
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We explore where new ideas come from and learn ideation methods
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Student Take Overs:
students have the opportunity to lead a class in the second semester.
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These students will be the first to know when registration for Art Retreats open. Students build relationships online and love to get together in person at the beach or the mountains.
Themes:
The theme for this class changes every year because students often take this class for two or three years.
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2023-24 is GREAT ADVENTURES: Art Around the World
We will learn about the culture, art, and religion of each country/continent and create fine art and graphic design projects inspired by that area.
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2024-25 will be GREAT BOOKS: Creating Art inspired by your favorite books
I will use Out of the Silent Planet and The Odyssey as inspiration. (Students can substitute books if they prefer.)
We'll learn about expressive typography and discuss how images and typography can work together. Students will create design projects such as posters, album covers, and product packaging. These samples are from Advanced Art and Design when the theme was "Great Books."
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"Not only does it push you to be a better artist, it gives you a great community of other artists and friends!" -Greta
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"I didn't realize I wanted to get better at art until I took this class and realized how much I enjoy it! -Julian
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"It helped me develop my sense of color and how to use color. I can replicate photos now because I understand what I'm seeing." -Caelyn
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"Cats."
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"This class gives me opportunity to grow without the stress :)" - Clara
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Supply List
You'll need all the supplies from "Paint Your Way Through Art History" --
Drawing pencils and pens, paints, plus the following:
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Spiral Bound Art Journal of Mixed Media Paper that is 11 x 14 inches
Sketch book or plenty of copy paper for sketching
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the 5 mixing colors from Art History (ultramarine blue, magenta, yellow, black, white)
Burnt Sienna acrylic paint
Unbleached titanium acrylic paint
Ultramarine Violet acrylic paint (optional, because you can mix this)
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A compass for drawing circles or a circle template
Rubber Cement
Rubber Cement Remover
Ruler (14 inch or more)
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Markers (Crayola or better brand)
Colored pencils (PrismaColor or similar brand)
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Gold foil
Gesso
Flat brushes
Round brushes
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Poster board to cover your work area
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Substitutes are acceptable.
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