Visual Arts at JCHS

Art is incorporated into all aspects of the JCHS experience through collaboration with performing arts, gallery showcases, and site-specific art installations throughout our campus.  

JCHS offers instruction in studio art, photography, sculpture, and art history. In addition, students find outlets for expression in the visual arts through our Tefillah program (“Visions of God”), in our drama program as set and property designers, in our publications such as the Literary Magazine, and in projects for their classes.

Through our visual arts programs, student artists have opportunities to develop and process film in our dark room, create relief prints on our printing press, and explore three-dimensional sculpture using our pottery wheel and kiln. In introductory classes, students learn basic principles, techniques, and terminology of art through practical studio projects including book covers, ink drawings, pencil value drawings, positive and negative space drawing, relief printmaking, basic color theory, acrylic painting, and papier-mâché mask making. 

Those students who choose to continue with more advanced studies in visual art can choose from:

  • Sculpture classes, introducing students to 3-D design through clay, plaster, wire, fiber, and found materials
  • Photography classes, introducing students to the basics of black and white photography through film processing and composition.
  • AP Studio Art, a college-level course in which students produce a minimum of 24 works of art in a variety of media, techniques, and subject matter, with emphasis on drawing from observation, the application of color and design principles, the development of a body of work showing personally meaningful visual ideas, and the application of the critique process in written and oral form.

All student artists have an opportunity to exhibit their finished work at the annual JCHS Arts Review program in May. Each year, our campus is transformed into an art gallery and performance space for spoken word and literary arts.