Grades 9-12: In this class, students will work with diverse artistic media such as oil pastels, ink, and collage in order to refine their technical drawing skills. Students will focus on facial anatomy to capture likeness and composition while also exploring the narrative power of facial expressions to create expressive portraits that tell compelling stories.

Grades K-2. When a story is over, have you ever wondered, what happens next? Young artists put on their author hats and dream up visual sequels, prequels, plot twists, new characters, and “what if’s” for award winning stories we read each week. This story mashup class allows our best story tellers to use their imaginations all while engaging in specific art processes each week that develop fine motor skills and knowledge of art media.

(Grades 6-8) This course is designed to build upon and expand the students' concept of drawing. Students use conventional and unconventional drawing tools and materials to investigate "mark-making" as it relates to the development of the symbolic and expressive forms. Working from observation, imagination, music, dreams, and memory, students become comfortable thinking outside the box when it comes to their own creative possibilities.

Grades 6-8: Using a variety of dry and wet color media, students explore the powerful role of color on an artwork’s mood, atmosphere, and overall visual impact. To make informed decisions about color, students first learn color relationships and color theory as they create a series of related compositions that reflect specific color schemes. Throughout the course, students view the works of exemplar painters as inspiration for the infinite ways color can be utilized for stylistic and expressive purposes.

Grades 3-5. Throughout its long history, the art of cartooning has provided a wonderful means for people to express their opinions and ideas, entertain one another, bring forth laughter, and take amazing flights of fantasy. In this course, students learn how cartoonists develop their ideas, put together a unique persona of traits and physical features, and create the personality and appearance of an original cartoon character. Students learn the basic elements of drawing cartoon bodies, capturing expression through exaggeration, developing props, and writing dialog for short cartoon strips and one-panel cartoons featuring their original character.

Grades K-2. Do you have a knack for putting together unusual materials to create interesting three-dimensional objects? In this hands-on, multi-media sculptural course, students use additive techniques to attach, glue, twist, stack, tie, dangle and arrange as they explore the ways varied materials can be combined to create expressive forms that may be artful, functional or both. Materials such as found objects, wood, paper and board are used for construction of these innovative sculptures, then they are embellished with a variety of natural and man-made materials. Students are encouraged to use their own artful thinking to find and bring in interesting objects and materials for use in this course.

Grades 9-12: In this course, students will use oil paint to explore expressive use of color mixing, and color theory. Using a variety of painting surfaces, students will learn the unique qualities of oil paint and have an opportunity to explore formal and expressive elements of form, texture, movement, color, and composition.

Grades 6-8. Grounded in both play and experimentation, the beauty of sculpture is that anything can be your media and possibilities are limitless! This course is for both the young artist who thinks in three dimensions and the one looking to develop themselves beyond drawing and painting with traditional and non-traditional 3-D media. Come explore where decorative, functional and meaningful making collide, for an immersive visual experience. Instructor: Natalie Drutz ’13 ’14 (Fiber Arts B.F.A., M.A.T.) has been teaching in Y.P.S. for 7 years. Her expertise is in sewing, costume design and construction, weaving and sculpture.

Grades 3-5. For the student who loves to paint, this course is designed to help students refine their skills in observing color, making purposeful choices about color, and painting from life. Students will experiment with acrylics, temperas and watercolors as they learn to mix cohesive color palettes and apply both realistic and expressive color to their pieces. Works from past and contemporary artists will be used to emphasize the incredible diversity of styles and expressiveness that can be achieved with color.

Grades 6-8. Using Leonardo da Vinci as the primary artist and model of multidisciplinary thinking, young artists explore the history, geography, and ideas of the Renaissance (also known as the Age of Exploration, which saw travel to new worlds in Asia and the Americas). This class teaches multiple 3-D techniques in design and sculptural thinking such as glass fusing, mechanical engineering with found objects, formal sculptural modeling, and metal sculptural reliefs. Instructor: Mary Mark Munday received her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and her Masters of Art in Teaching from MICA. She has 23 years of teaching experience in public and private school settings, as well as in MICA’s Art Education Department.

Grades 9-12: In this class, students will explore how to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for a variety of drawings and designs! Students will learn about character development, portraiture, settings and environments, design, and metaphorical approaches to making. Access to the Adobe Creative Suite is included for the duration of this course.