Preschool
Mount Vernon’s Preschool art program revolves around the basic principles of art and design. Students have art once a week for 30 minutes where they develop a basic understanding of various media through art production and experiences. The instructor acts a guide by introducing skills and techniques for students to apply imagination and individual creativity. Although art production is the focal point with preschoolers, the class is designed to facilitate art history, aesthetics and art critique. The art class is interrelated which involves a whole learning approach by integrating social studies, science, language arts, and math.

 
Lower School
The Lower School art program is based on Learning to Look and Create: The Spectra Program. The overall goal is to develop skills of aesthetic perception through art projects that are formal, technical, and expressive. Students learn from studying other artists’ work and create their own works of art. This program helps students to express themselves in the nonverbal language of art. While being age appropriate at all levels, The Spectra Program highlights art of the times that fifth and sixth grade students study in social studies and history. Lower School artists also create seasonal works of arts and crafts apart from the formal lessons.

 
Middle School
“When we speak of Nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of Nature. We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.”  Henri Matisse

Middle School art at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School follows a curriculum that is driven by the student’s own experience, memory, observation, and/or imagination. In the creation of all art, the elements of design: line, shape, direction, size, texture, color, and value and principles of design: balance, gradation, repetition, contrast, harmony, dominance, and unity develop skill levels that compel students to take ownership of their ideas. Through teacher presentation, demonstration and application students will find art stimulating and motivating. Observational and nonobjective approaches to media are complemented with the understanding of art analysis through critique, aesthetics, richness of art history and multicultural heritage in art. Grading is accomplished through a comprehensive accumulation of points including credit for growth and improvement.

 
Upper School
“The effort to see things without distortion takes something like courage and this courage is essential to the artist, who has to look at everything as though he saw it for the first time.”  Henri Matisse

Upper School art at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School mirrors middle school art in regard to a curriculum that is driven by the student’s own experience, memory, observation and/or imagination. The foundation of art, the elements of design: line, shape, direction, size, texture, color, and value and principles of design: balance, gradation, repetition, contrast, harmony, dominance, and unity, are presented in a fashion where students are compelled to take ownership of their ideas and media. Through the creative experience the student will see validation of their art and be inspired to come back knowing there are more ways to question, think and develop the same themes. Observational and nonobjective approaches to media are complemented with a further understanding of art analysis through critique, aesthetics, the richness of art history and multicultural heritage in art.

Upper school offers Art I-Introduction, Digital Photography, Year Book–Publishing, Art II-Ceramics, Art II–Drawing Medias, Art III–Advanced Studies, Art IV–Advanced Studies and Princeton University approved Advanced Placement Studio Art-Drawing. Each art course grading is accomplished through a comprehensive accumulation of points including credit for growth and improvement.