Art
Meridian teams with with Good Shepherd Center partner The Neo Art School provide art instruction for our students. The program balances creative development, technical skill, and environmental awareness. Students learn the potential of art to communicate and record life. Lessons guide students to improve their powers of observation, strengthen their fine motor skills, exercise their decision-making abilities, and create visual testimony to their creative thought.
Goals
- to develop resourceful, creative visual thinkers
- to build students’ technical skills through structured art projects
- to promote thinking beyond the traditional materials of art
Highlights
- use of a wide variety of media to create two- and three-dimensional art
- connections with the annual Global Studies region of focus
- detailed art journals that chart student development and progress
Art combines creative thought, which everyone has, with proper techniques, which can be learned. Art allows students to create visible, tactile representations of the imaginative work of their minds. The principles and elements of design guide the program, integrating ideas such as pattern, line, shape, color, perspective, contrast, and stylization into representations of reality and imagination.
Students develop confidence working with clay and glazes; chalk and oil pastels; tempera, watercolor, and acrylic paints; colored pencils; drawing pencils; cut and torn paper; and colored markers. By exploring the capabilities of varied media, students learn how to manipulate materials with skill and intention to translate particular styles of creative expression. Investigating the artistic opportunities of different methods and materials with an open mind helps create feelings of accomplishment for students.
The weekly hour-long art class includes information about art history and artists, a demonstration of materials and projects, and maximum exposure to the direct experience of making art. Student artwork is displayed at school and sent home for appreciation of students’ ideas, efforts, and growth.