Visual Arts Courses

The Visual Arts program at Portsmouth Abbey School is a motivating and competitive program that fosters creative ideas and allows students to communicate visually to develop an appreciation for all forms of art.

Under the guidance of resident artist teachers, Portsmouth Abbey encourages students while building confidence and visual literacy through their own artwork.The oversized arched windows of the McGuire Fine Arts Center provide an abundance of natural light to our spacious open studios for painting, drawing and ceramics, while inspiring our students with panoramic views of our coastal campus. With additional studios for darkroom photography and digital media, our visual arts program serves as an inspiration for students to take creative risks, make connections with other academic courses and to cultivate new interests. Our state-of-the-art digital lab, with 12 iMac computers equipped with Adobe Creative Cloud, offers students the opportunity to hone graphic arts and digital photography skills and to become proficient at portfolio presentation. Throughout the visual arts curriculum, we ask students to think about how they are communicating their ideas, open pathways for cross-disciplinary collaborations and aesthetically analyze the works of their peers and other artists. At Portsmouth Abbey, the visual arts program bridges the connections between our rigorous academic curriculum and personal expression.

Artwork above by Sauroo Park '25.

Fundamentals of Art

Fundamentals of Art is the prerequisite course for all other studio art classes at Portsmouth Abbey School. This year-long course is an introduction to the essential foundation skills for all art media. Students will have the opportunity to experience a variety of different visual arts media as they learn to think aesthetically, observe critically and develop creative problem-solving skills. This course will emphasize perspective, composition and color theory through the exploration of different media and an introduction to the work of different artists and art movements throughout history. At the end of the year, each student will have experienced every visual arts discipline we have to offer, while producing a collection of work to build their confidence and enroll in other art courses.

2-D Art

Students will be exposed to the ideas of making non-representational and representational works of art that stimulate their ideas and visual expression. With a basis of skills and understandings from the Fundamentals of Art course, students in this yearlong course will solve advanced artistic problems while working in more challenging two-dimensional media. Using a variety of materials such as graphite, charcoal, watercolor, acrylic and oil paint, students will have the opportunity to explore creative subjects such as still life compositions or plein air. To conclude the year in 2-D Art, each student works on a six-week independent project that speaks to their own artistic voice and challenges them to begin thinking conceptually. This final project is the start of building an art portfolio to represent the students artistic skills for further discovery in Advanced Art.

Ceramics

Have you ever ‘thrown’ a pot or ‘pulled’ a handle? Students who have completed the Fundamentals of Art prerequisite course may explore all of this and more in our year-long ceramics course. The techniques of hand-built and wheel-thrown functional forms and non-utilitarian sculptural forms will be taught along with glaze application, kiln firing procedures, and clay conservation and reconstitution. Upon completion, students will have a knowledge base of the ceramic processes and a collection of work for developing a ceramic portfolio.

Photography

If you have ever wondered about the magic of the photographic process, this year-long course allows students to experience the creative processes of both digital and film photography. This course combines aesthetic appreciation with technical instruction to guide students in producing a portfolio of fine quality prints. During the first half of the year, students will concentrate on digital photography and image editing with Photoshop. In the last half of the year, students will learn to use traditional 35mm SRL cameras, develop black and white film, and produce prints in our spacious, well-equipped darkroom. Each student must have completed a full year of Fundamentals of Art in order to enroll in this course, as well as provide their own DSLR digital camera with the ability to shoot in Manual mode and capture raw image files. At the completion of the year, each student will have a portfolio of prints which can be used as a supplement in their college application or the beginning of an advanced art portfolio.

Advanced Art

Students who have completed at least two years, or the equivalent of two art courses, in the art curriculum have the ability to enroll in Advanced Art. Each student enrolled in this course will have the opportunity to experience what it means to be a true artist in a studio. Each student will work on a series of artworks which will be used to develop a final high school art portfolio. This portfolio can be used for an application to a college art program or as a supplement for college applications in other areas of study. In Advanced Art, students will be able to work in any media which they studied in a previous specific media class, such as Photography, Ceramics or 2-D Art. The Advanced Art course is designed to challenge students to develop a cohesive body of work with regular feedback and critique. Students will continue to develop both an appreciation for art and a personal voice through their chosen creative processes.

AP Art History

From the immense pyramids to the mundane soup can, the entire course of human history can be traced through the study of art. In the AP Art History class, students travel through time with art as their compass. As students begin to understand the context surrounding a work of art, they are asked to form an opinion on its value both aesthetically and historically. We also tackle the larger issues still controversial in the art world: Should the Elgin Marbles be returned to Greece? Should Van Meegeren have been punished or praised for his forgeries? Is a Jeff Koons artwork really worth millions of dollars? After taking the AP Art History course, students will see that art is not just confined to museums and textbooks, but rather it surrounds us in our everyday lives.