All high school students participate in fine arts and crafts classes, which are held in double periods two afternoons a week. They complement the academic curriculum and meet the developmental stages of each class. The value of these activities comes in a direct way through exposure to different mediums, and through the challenges that stimulate imaginative thinking, analytical thinking, and time-management skills. They also illustrate the fundamental Waldorf understanding that thinking, feeling, and willing are inter-woven, and that thinking capacities, for example, are enhanced by working with the hands. The benefits of the art or craft by itself thus extend into life skills, as well as contributing to the robust development of brain networks.

Ninth Grade

Dark and Light Drawing

As they continue to explore polarities, ninth graders in this course experience the techniques and styles of drawing, including the difference between looking and seeing. They learn the basic perceptual skills of drawing: edges, spaces, light and shadows, the surface interplay between light and dark, and the gestalt. They become familiar with the function of drawing as a tool as well as an art form through demonstrations, practice, and discussions.

Renaissance Drawing

This course accompanies the Art History morning lesson and exposes students to some of the most exquisite images in the history of 14th–16th century art. Students learn about the drawing techniques of Renaissance masters, as well as the principles of translating visual perception to paper.

Descriptive Geometry

This is a first course in drafting, using T-square, ruler, triangle, compass, and drawing pens to produce formal drawings. Most of these drawings are of the Platonic solids in oblique perspective, culminating with a dodecahedron inscribed in an icosahedron. The students are required to submit finished plates of each assignment.

Clay

Students explore the world through metamorphosis, entertaining the question of what lies between the two polarities. They look at metamorphosis through four perspectives: gesture, facial expression, age, and platonic solids. Through each of these projects in metamorphosis, students learn basic hand-building techniques (i.e., how to construct a piece that is structurally sound enough to withstand the rigors of drying and firing as well as being visually and aesthetically balanced). Projects may include sculpting a baby’s profile and changing it into an elder’s profile, changing one platonic solid into another, changing one emotional expression of a mask into another, and changing the stances and gestures of figures and animals.

Basket Making

This is a beginning course in the basic skills and methods common to the art of basketry. Using both round and flat commercially prepared reed, students encounter a variety of techniques to weave a three-dimensional vessel. They must be able to create order out of chaos by bringing multiple materials, tools, and capable strong hands together in a meaningful and practical way. In the same way that students are asked to weave multiple disciplines and varied bits of knowledge together, the art of basketry is an exercise in being able to form judgments that are sound and well founded.

Coppersmithing

In this introduction to the ancient art and craft of coppersmithing, students shape sheet copper into volumetric forms using a hammer and a wooden stump. They learn the principles of work-hardening and annealing through the process of forming a simple bowl.

Tenth Grade

Watercolor Painting

This course introduces students to the basic tools and techniques of the watercolor painter. The emphasis is on transparent watercolor, and students experience the techniques of wash, glazing, graduated wash, wet onto wet, lifting, scraping, resist, drops and splatter, and dry brush techniques.

Clay

Students deepen their understanding of polarities through sculpting convex and concave forms, which allows them to explore how opposing inner and outer forces create form. They explore where the center between these polarities lies by sculpting clay instruments with different shapes (e.g., whistles, drums, dgeridoos, and horns). Ceramic instrument making gives the students an experience of manifesting convex and concave forms in a practical and beautiful manner and discovering the mechanics of design in making sounds. Students learn to build using a combination of coil and pinchpot methods. They also examine elements of design that create visual and aesthetic balance.

Woodworking

Using aged redwood logs, replete with bark and 12 to 18 inches in diameter, students hew forms modeled after Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column, produced in the early 20th century. They use hatchets, chisels, and rasps to model their sculptures. Discussions on the nature of art punctuate periods of physical activity. The students are evaluated on effort, conscientiousness, and integrity in their approach to these pieces.

Weaving

In the tenth grade weaving course, students learn the intricacies of four-shaft pattern weaving, designing and creating a scarf of perle cotton using a personal variation of one of hundreds of timeless patterns. Size, shape, color, pattern, and fringe type express the individuality of each tenth grader. The many steps of the weaving process require logical thinking, concentration, perseverance, and accuracy. Often students must repeat steps to correct even slight errors. Planning and executing a patterned weaving involves extensive arithmetic, calculation, and graphing, as well as learning to correctly use and master a large piece of equipment (a floor or table loom) and several smaller weaving tools (warping reel or board, bobbin winders, shuttles, and bobbins). The experience yields a broad range of weaving skills and a deep understanding of the structure of woven fabric.

Eleventh Grade

Veil Painting

In this course, students experience the 19th century impressionistic style through the technique of veil painting. They apply small strokes of thin color layers to the paper slowly and gently as transparent washes. They create small studies with more than twenty transparent layers that capture the light, giving an inner luminosity to their work.

Book Arts

Students in this course construct a pamphlet book and three Japanese-style bound books (including their lesson book), using the techniques of paper folding, sewing, and exact measuring. The students marble paper using suminagashi, the Japanese method of marbling. They then use these papers as covers for the Japanese-style bound books and as end papers for the case bound book. The culmination of the class is the creation of a 10-signature, case bound book with endpapers, headbands, and a cloth spine.

Clay

In the eleventh grade, intellectual and emotional forces are blossoming with a growing awareness of self. Through sculpting life-size heads, students explore questions such as “Who am I?” as an individual. They uncover the sacred proportions (golden section) in their own faces and experience how formative forces work in building a head both structurally and expressively. These life-sized heads are sculpted in an additive process either using armatures (and requiring hollowing before firing) or building a three-sided cylinder and pushing out the features from the inside. Students sculpt a human skull showing bone and muscle anatomy. They also learn to sculpt facial features and to express emotion and character in clay.

Coppersmithing

In this extension of the ninth grade course in shaping sheet copper into volumetric forms, students learn the principles of work-hardening and annealing as they make a more complex form. An introduction to silver soldering and simple patinas rounds out the course.

Twelfth Grade

Oil Painting

This course introduces students to classical and contemporary painting techniques and concepts, with emphasis on understanding the formal language of painting and the fundamentals of artistic expression. Painting by observation from still-life and landscape is geared toward realism. Color theory, linear perspective, pictorial composition, figure/ground relationships, visual perception, spatial concepts, and critical thinking skills are emphasized.

Life Drawing

Students draw the human figure, working first from “the whole” through gesture, contour, and proportion exercises. They use sighting techniques that help them accurately place the three-dimensional figure in a two-dimensional space on the paper. Later emphasis shifts to the human face as students complete pencil and conte sketches of portraits and profiles.

Stone Carving

In the twelfth grade, students are looking ahead and asking themselves about their task in the world—their purpose and path in life. Stone carving develops qualities that will be useful in this quest, giving these young adults the opportunity to develop vision, focus, determination, and patience in working with this naturally slower-paced medium. Students sculpt a small stone sculpture, either abstract or representational, out of alabaster. They learn to use stone carving tools (chisels, hammers, and files) to change a raw stone into a finished, sanded, and polished piece of art.

Advanced Book Arts

In this four-week elective, students further their exploration of the book arts. They begin by making their own paste papers. These decorative papers later become cover sheets and end sheets. The first project is a hinged box or slipcase for a book. Box making requires exact measurements and precise cutting skills. The second project is a hard-cover journal bound with an exposed spine using multiple colored threads and a multiple-needle Coptic binding technique. The exposed spine book lays open flat, making it an excellent choice for a watercolor or drawing journal.

Modern Art Survey

This course offers an overview of modern art historical highlights and the related cultural and societal events surrounding each movement. Within the course, students have the opportunity to create various genres of work in several of the styles studied. The history of modern art is explored, including many movements and innovations in both the visual and decorative arts in Europe and the United States from 1850 to the present.

Electives

Art electives allow students at different grade levels to work together and make connections that enhance the “whole school” cohesiveness.

Printmaking

This printmaking class is designed to help students develop skills they can use in non-studio settings (e.g., at home). It emphasizes hand printing techniques that do not require a large press, and focuses on the use of everyday materials. Students experiment with several different methods of printing using a variety of materials, including cardboard, Styrofoam, linoleum, scrap wood, erasers, and found objects. They make relief prints, both positive and negative; monoprints; serigraphs (silk screen prints); and collographs (prints made with found objects). Each design includes a series of prints, including artist proofs and numbered editions.

Recycled Aluminum Casting

Students are introduced to the history and tradition of making sand molds and casting metal. They watch aluminum cans and other post-consumer aluminum actually melt into the crucible on the way to becoming part of the new pieces of art they are making. A portable foundry is assembled on-site on the day of the pour. Students do all of the work except the pour itself, learning to use a bandsaw, power drill, and various hand tools during the finishing stages of the project.

Art Journals and Mixed Media Class

In this class students combine collage, found objects, paint, drawing, and paper to create and bind their own unique, handmade books. They learn the techniques of embossing, fusing fibers, and painting on unusual surfaces, using metal tape, Fun Foam, old photographs, and other items. They also learn to make their own artist trading cards and postal art. At the end of the course, each student has an art journal, several artist trading cards, and at least two pieces of mailable art. Each one will also have learned the principles of collage, assemblage, recycling old things to make new art, basics of graphic design and layout, and the joy of receiving something wonderful in the mail.