Computer Graphics I & II: Students will use the Microsoft Office Suite in a study of typography and font styles. Advanced techniques in Power Point and Adobe Illustrator will be used in this project based course. In the second part of the course, students will learn to use Adobe Photoshop on projects such as photo manipulations and colorization of works produced in Elements of Design course. Students proceed to learn Indesign to study proper layout techniques and spatial relationships between text and image. Students will produce restaurant menus, professional advertisements, and an autobiographical book cover.
Elements of Design: Students begin the course by learning to create artistic images using the elements of design: Line, Shape, Value, Space, and Color. Heavy emphasis is placed on shading techniques, composition and spatial relationships. Students will draw still lives using a variety of artistic styles and mediums. The class culminates in portraiture and figure study.
Digital Photography: Students will use Adobe Photoshop as a virtual darkroom to produce and manipulate digital photos. Heavy emphasis is placed on composition and subject matter. Students will incorporate multiple perspectives, lighting technique, and figures.
Flash & Web Design: Students will learn basic HTML coding as well as website design theory. Students will progress into using Adobe Dreamweaver. In Dreamweaver, the students will learn how to create professional looking pages using CSS. The students will then move into learning Flash. Emphasis is placed on learning how to create flash animations as well as action scripts.
Senior Studio: This course takes all the knowledge obtained from all the other Media courses and requires the students to complete two major design projects. The first is the redesigning of an advertising campaign for major companies. The second major project is a self created project on a specific concentration of their choosing. This project will culminate in a show in the Gallery.
Film/Video: The class begins by focusing on film history and how it has evolved from the Lumiere Brothers to modern cinema. The students will also learn basic film production rules such as mise-en-scene and screen space because film/video unlike any other traditional art format goes beyond the one frame of “canvas” and uses multiple frames to create an art piece. As the term progresses, the students will start to shoot film or video in various formats from mini-DV to Super 8mm. Using the program Final Cut Pro, the students will learn how to edit both audio and video to create their artist vision.
Animation: Students will learn how to create characters and tell original stories. The students will learn how animation follows basic film production rules. They will explore animation with the program Maya. In the course, the students will learn how to give their animations texture and depth by applying the principles of design they learned the year before. The students will be expected to create multiple short animation projects. Student projects will be entered into both local and national competitions.
AP Studio Art 2D: The AP Studio Art portfolios are designed for students who are seriously interested in the practical experience of art. AP Studio Art is not based on a written examination; instead, students submit portfolios for evaluation at the end of the school year. Students will submit for AP Studio Art as a culminating project for the major, using samples from each course.
