Pre-College Courses
Session 1: July 6-18
This class will focus primarily on the production of two-dimensional animation, exploring storyboarding, visual development, animation, and post-production. The final assignment will be a group project, where each student adds their unique voice and style to create a single animation reel. You will leave this course with a demo reel and an animated short for your portfolio.
This class is highly recommended for anyone who wants a better understanding of how to create animated films or hopes to enter the animation industry. Students will gain knowledge of industry-standard techniques, terminology, and how to work in a professional production timeline.
In this course, students will learn introductory techniques and leading-edge technologies in Ceramics, Glass, and Jewelry + Metals. You’ll examine the potential for two-dimensional image, three-dimensional form, and the cultural importance of craft, while gaining valuable hands-on skills in diverse materials and design approaches. Learning experiences will emphasize cross-disciplinary innovation, creative experimentation, and knowledge sharing with an emphasis on art, design, technology and entrepreneurship.
No previous experience in these processes is required. Faculty and staff will guide students through demonstrations, presentations, and group discussions.
This course offers a multi-genre overview of creative writing as a method of expression, experimentation, and conversation, drawing on personal experience, outside inspirations, and the material of writing itself: language.
Through a series of readings, writing exercises, and occasional field trips, we will explore the creative possibilities of language’s materiality; deploy language to connect and explore ideas, people, and objects; and wield it as a tool to give experience shape. Projects will include reading and drafting one-word poems; rhetorically astute sonnets; (neo-)confessional free-verse poems; essays which braid together personal experience, ekphrastic encounter, and scavenged forms; and short stories. Students will gain skills that help them as writers in college and other settings. They’ll produce a portfolio of original work in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and more.
This class will explore several approaches to creating games so that you’ll be capable of building a foundation for your own unique ideas and projects. Students will take a brief look at the history of ancient gaming and the mechanics of tactile and digital gaming by examining construction approaches through the creation of traditional board games.
Students will learn the basics of “Blueprinting” (UE4’s intuitive visual scripting language) that makes programming easier to approach for artists and designers. Students will learn how to create custom character animations, platform traps, and other game play elements, culminating in having created a fully playable, basic, 2D game that is ready to be played with friends!
This course is designed to help students find their creative voice, execute advanced-level artwork, and discover the diverse field of illustration. You will explore the full creative process of illustration, from brainstorming and concept art to a finished piece ready for display. Students will discover dynamic composition, storyboarding, fundamental rendering techniques, and basic pre-press print production, while also sampling many different avenues of illustration and developing core skills and design principles that will be applied to finished artwork.
Topics that will be explored include composition and value, aesthetic and comprehensive design, brand identity, visual communication of an idea or story, character development, poster and book-jacket design, and storyboarding.
This class will cover the fundamental elements of drawing, while focusing on creative problem-solving. The primary goal is to enhance students’ prospects for building a better portfolio by strengthening observational skills and rendering techniques. Throughout the course, students will experiment with a multitude of drawing materials to build their artistic repertoire.
Daily demos and a wide variety of projects will help students gain a greater understanding of the creative process, from initial sketches and layouts to the finishing details. Time will be spent exploring and creating art in areas such as life drawing, landscape studies, and figurative work.
This course focuses on creating work through the exploration of color theory and application of materials. Students will begin their painting exploration through the practice of building up the surface of a painting while experimenting with layering and composition. As confidence in the use of materials grows, students will draw inspiration from their sketchbooks and the work of professional artists to begin crafting their own unique vision.
Combining materials and imagery, students will investigate how to express their feelings, beliefs, and voice to convey a strong message in their art. We will discuss successes and challenges as a group to build confidence and create a sense of community
In this class you will create sculptural objects while exploring multiple materials in a contemporary visual arts environment. Push the boundaries of your work in every direction and learn how to produce meaning through the transformation of material.
This class will focus on the ever growing and shifting relationship of objects: the way that an object can communicate visually with another, the space they exist in, and how they relate to us. Learn how to develop your ideas into 3-dimensional form with hands-on exploration of scale, material, technique and display. This introductory course will cover a variety of traditional and nontraditional sculptural processes and materials, including additive and reductive carving, foam and plaster modeling, wire armature construction, felt making, pattern making, hand sewing and surface treatment.
Session 2: July 20-August 1
This class will focus primarily on the production of two-dimensional animation, exploring storyboarding, visual development, animation, and post-production. The final assignment will be a group project, where each student adds their unique voice and style to create a single animation reel. You will leave this course with a demo reel and an animated short for your portfolio.
This class is highly recommended for anyone who wants a better understanding of how to create animated films or hopes to enter the animation industry. Students will gain knowledge of industry-standard techniques, terminology, and how to work in a professional production timeline.
This course introduces students to film’s history and evolution, exploring cinema as an art form through theoretical and critical approaches. Topics include the Kinetoscope, the Lumière Brothers, the studio system, the French New Wave, American Auteurs, and today’s streaming services. Students will examine storytelling across visual mediums, analyze its structure, and develop their own screenplays in a collaborative classroom setting. The course emphasizes script formatting, feedback, networking, and submitting for success.
By the end of the two-week course, students will complete a competition-worthy short script and connect with local film professionals, gaining insights into diverse career opportunities in the industry.
This course will equip students with the fundamentals needed to create a variety of glass forms. Students will learn shop safety and etiquette, tool function, gathering and shaping glass, bubble setup, blown forms, color application, cold working techniques, and open-faced plaster mold for casting. Our goal is for each student to manipulate the bubble into a blown form, texture at least one sphere, and create an open-faced plaster mold for casting a glass tile.
Instruction time will be split between demonstrations, hands-on individual attention, and discussion of glass history and the properties of glass. Students will leave with a firm grasp of how to use glass and what it means to be a craft artist and entrepreneur in the contemporary craft world.
This course is designed to help students find their creative voice, execute advanced-level artwork, and discover the diverse field of illustration. You will explore the full creative process of illustration, from brainstorming and concept art to a finished piece ready for display. Students will discover dynamic composition, storyboarding, fundamental rendering techniques, and basic pre-press print production, while also sampling many different avenues of illustration and developing core skills and design principles that will be applied to finished artwork.
Topics that will be explored include composition and value, aesthetic and comprehensive design, brand identity, visual communication of an idea or story, character development, poster and book-jacket design, and storyboarding.
This class combines traditional drawing with digital drawing techniques to illustrate figurative anatomy and other scientific renderings. Students will explore human anatomy fundamentals as they relate to the development of artistic skills in figurative proportion and visual expression. There will be emphasis on how the skeleton and muscles form the figure, what structures enable motion, and specific methods for improving observational figure drawing.
This class will utilize a variety of techniques and materials to visually reveal various anatomical layers of the human form, including colored pencil, charcoal, graphite, and ultimately digital rendering in Photoshop.
This course focuses on creating work through the exploration of color theory and application of materials. Students will begin their painting exploration through the practice of building up the surface of a painting while experimenting with layering and composition. As confidence in the use of materials grows, students will draw inspiration from their sketchbooks and the work of professional artists to begin crafting their own unique vision.
Combining materials and imagery, students will investigate how to express their feelings, beliefs, and voice to convey a strong message in their art. We will discuss successes and challenges as a group to build confidence and create a sense of community
This class teaches students how to use the fundamentals of photography to explore the world around them. Students will gain knowledge through technical training in camera controls, darkroom and inkjet printing, basic studio lighting, digital editing, and gallery installation techniques. In addition, the class will focus on the rules of composition, contemporary concepts, and examples of historical and contemporary photographic works of art. Students will engage in a collaborative studio environment, contribute to and receive constructive critique, establish critical thinking skills, and form a photographic vision while developing personal projects.
No previous photography experience required.
This class will allow students to take their drawn, painted, digital, or photographic images and transform them into original work through printmaking processes. Printmaking provides a balanced experience of technical skill building and conceptual development, with some risks and adventure as you learn the advantages of print as a medium in this broad artistic field. Students will learn a variety of processes, such as relief printing, screen printing, papermaking, and alternative photographic processes. The combination of these materials and techniques will produce exciting and innovative images unique to each student’s artistic vision and voice.
This course is excellent for students interested in illustration, drawing, or painting, and ideal for students looking to learn the limitless possibilities of printmaking to add additional breadth to their portfolio.
This course teaches and utilizes design thinking to take an idea off the page and turn it into a real physical model. Course content will provide a foundation in 3D modeling and 3D printing, while challenging your understanding of function with awareness of form, color, texture, line, and ergonomics.
Through creative storytelling, students will develop the skills needed for realistic applications: concept development, drafting, presenting, and bringing 2D ideas to 3-dimensional life.