Lower School Visual Arts courses encourage self-expression and explore design, shapes, color, textures, composition, balance, and abstract and representational themes through craypas, pencils, clay, papier maché, watercolor, and tempera paint. The children learn how to analyze their own work and the works of others as they explore various disciplines, including drawing, printmaking, collage, sculpture, and painting.
Sample projects include collages, monoprints, printmaking, craypas portraits, papier-maché animals and busts, paintings inspired by the work of famous artists, Calder-inspired abstract mobiles, African-inspired clay masks, stamp carving, printing handbound sketchbooks, and woodworking.
The woodworking program combines manual skills with Visual Arts concepts. Each class begins the year with a directed project, to learn and reinforce such skills as sawing, hammering, measuring, using a square accurately, and understanding wood dimensions and increasingly complex mathematical concepts.