The Arts
Visual Arts
Creating Your Own Masterpiece
In Visual Arts, students learn by doing. From their first days in Kindergarten through their final years of high school, they explore the creative process through hands-on, experiential artmaking. Students experiment with materials, tools, and ideas to discover how art can express what they see, feel, and imagine.
Through drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, digital art, and mixed media, students build confidence in their skills while learning the Elements of Art and Principles of Design. They take creative risks, problem-solve, and reflect on their choices—developing resilience and curiosity along the way.
Art at Bush is both personal and communal. Students share ideas, offer feedback, and celebrate one another’s work, forming a supportive artistic community. They also connect their own creative experiences to the broader story of art—learning from diverse traditions and artists throughout history who used art to question, celebrate, and shape the world around them.
Learn more about the Visual Arts at Bush by contacting Middle School Visual Arts Department Chair Rebecca Pleasure.
Bush Lower School Art Instructor Li-Ting Hung
"Lower School art is like learning to surf — you're laughing, exploring, falling, and trying again. You're building courage as you find your balance, studying the world around you, surrounded by others who love the ride. Every day is new, and in that freedom, you grow."
A Glimpse into Visual Arts
This year, Visual Art students across all divisions explored the school-wide theme of Connection, weaving together personal stories and creative expressions in vibrant and thoughtful ways.
Across all levels, Visual Art served as a powerful space for students to connect—with their materials, their ideas, and each other.
Across all levels, Visual Art served as a powerful space for students to connect—with their materials, their ideas, and each other.
Lower School Art
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In the Lower School, the arts are not just a subject—they are a way of learning, thinking, and being who you are. Rooted in our “Learn by Doing” philosophy, our arts-centered curriculum invites children to explore the world through color, texture, shape, and story. They transform everyday materials into meaningful creations, and through this process, they discover the power of their own ideas.
Students learn to see with an artist’s eye, to question with a designer’s mind, and to build with an architect’s imagination. They collaborate, create, and celebrate diverse cultures and perspectives. In doing so, they not only make art—they come to better understand themselves and the world around them.
Middle School Art
In Middle School Visual Arts, students build their creative foundations by exploring the Elements of Art (line, shape, space, value, form, texture, and color) and the Principles of Design (contrast, balance, emphasis, proportion, repetition, rhythm, pattern, movement, variety, and unity).
Students experiment with a wide range of media and techniques—sculpture (clay, wood, wire, and found objects), printmaking, drawing, painting, and fiber arts (felting, sewing, and weaving). Since each grade participates in art for just one quarter per year, every course is organized around a unifying theme, which frames our study of artists, techniques, and projects.
For the 2025–2026 school year, the nine-week course is centered on the theme of FOOD. Through this theme, students examine how artists use food as subject, symbol, and inspiration. We’ll explore texture, form, scale, and color, while working in both two- and three-dimensional media. Artists we’ll study include Paul Cézanne, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, David Gilhooly, Mechelle Bounpraseuth, and Lucy Sparrow—all of whom have found creative, playful, or critical ways to represent food in art.
Upper School Art
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In the Upper School, students continued to build technical skill and conceptual depth while working in 6 studios and a wide range of courses, including drawing, acrylic painting, film and computer art, photography, metalsmithing, fire arts (glass and ceramics), and additive sculpture (wood and metal). The program also featured three groundbreaking Cascades:
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For the Love of Books, which expanded traditional book arts into the realm of functional sculpture;
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Creating Space with Outdoor Sculpture, where students welded site-specific metal sculptures at Pratt Fine Arts and installed them in a garden along Lake Washington Boulevard;
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Art in Motion: Interactive Art Installations, where students embraced emerging technologies to create immersive, responsive works of art.
The Bush School is an independent day school located in Seattle, WA enrolling 745 students in grades K–12. The mission of The Bush School is to spark in students of diverse backgrounds and talents a passion for learning, accomplishment, and contribution to their communities
3400 East Harrison Street, Seattle WA 98112 (206) 322-7978
The Bush School does not discriminate in matters of employment, recruitment, admissions, or administration of any of its programs on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national or ethnic origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation. In addition, The Bush School does not discriminate in matters of employment on the basis of age or marital status