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
Lower School Art
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
Over the course of three years, Middle School Visual Arts students explore 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) as the foundation for their creative work.
Students engage with a wide range of media and techniques, including sculpture (clay, wood, wire, and found objects), printmaking, drawing, painting, and fiber arts (felting, sewing, and weaving). Because each grade level participates in art for just one quarter per year, each course is centered around a unifying theme. These themes guide students through focused investigations of contemporary and historical artists, specific artistic techniques, and engaging hands-on projects. In recent years, themes have included Pop Art Food, Architecture, Foundational Female Abstract Artists, and Social Activism Through Art, among others—each offering students a dynamic lens through which to explore their own creativity and voice.
This year’s theme is Creatures: Real and Imagined. We’ll be working with mono-print techniques, clay, felting and sewing, acrylics, watercolors, tempera, and collage. The artists we’ll be looking to this year for inspiration include: Kenoujuak Ashevak, Fernando Botero, Pedro Linares, Nick Cave, Pablo Picasso, and Hokusai, to name a few.
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.
Connect With Us
List of 6 members.
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Daniel Schuy
Performing Arts Production Manager -
Li-Ting Hung
Lower School Art Faculty -
Rebecca Pleasure
Middle School Art Faculty, Visual Arts Department Chair -
Marilyn Smith
Upper School Art Faculty -
Will Baber
Upper School Art Faculty -
Bill Baber
Upper School Art Faculty
The Bush School is an independent day school located in Seattle, WA enrolling 775 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