Fourteen artistic directions, one connected art education
The disciplines on this page describe the range of art Studio Palette teaches across its curriculum. Not every subject is offered at the same time. Some directions are included in the Annual Art Program, while others may be offered as focused Summer Art Classes. The studio administration selects the combination of subjects and projects for each academic year and summer season, so the exact program can change from year to year.
Students may study:
- Abstract — Students explore balance, rhythm, contrast, focal points, color relationships, shape, texture, and composition while learning how to make intentional nonrepresentational choices.
- Modeling paste — Students build textured and relief surfaces, work with layers and palette-knife techniques, combine color with three-dimensional texture, and learn how surface affects composition.
- Watercolor — Students practice water and pigment control, transparent washes, wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques, layering, color mixing, edges, light, and atmospheric effects.
- Ceramic — Students develop form in three dimensions through clay and ceramic projects, learning proportion, volume, structure, surface texture, decorative treatment, and careful tool use.
- Graphics — Students strengthen line, value, shape, texture, contrast, and graphic composition using drawing media such as pencil, charcoal, and ink while improving observation and control.
- Acrylic painting — Students learn brushwork, layering, color mixing, opacity and transparency, composition, texture, and how to develop a painting from an initial idea to a finished image.
- Pastel — With soft and oil pastel, students practice blending, layering, color transitions, value, edges, texture, and expressive mark-making while learning to build depth and atmosphere.
- Mosaic — Students plan patterns and images through shape, spacing, color rhythm, contrast, and surface organization, developing patience, precision, and an understanding of decorative composition.
- Scrapbooking & Paper Craft — Students work with paper, cutting, folding, layering, collage, decorative elements, layout, color, and visual storytelling to create thoughtful mixed-material compositions.
- Sketching — Students learn to capture ideas quickly through observation, gesture, proportion, perspective, thumbnails, visual notes, and preparatory studies that support larger finished works.
- Pyrography — Students learn age-appropriate woodburning techniques, line control, value, texture, pattern development, design transfer, and safe use of specialized tools under instruction.
- Wood carving — Students study planning, relief, form, depth, texture, wood grain, tool control, and finishing through age-appropriate carving projects with a strong emphasis on safe studio practice.
- Macrame — Students build decorative and functional textile pieces through knots, tension, repetition, pattern, symmetry, structure, and material planning.
- Weaving — Students learn warp-and-weft structure, rhythm, pattern, color, texture, material combinations, and the patient construction of a textile surface from beginning to completion.