Spring enrollment is open · See the catalog
Graphite, watercolor, and the Hudson River School
A real studio class. Students draw and paint the American landscape every single meeting, with Cole, Church and Bierstadt as teachers rather than slides.
New this term. Reviews from students and parents appear here once families have taken it.
Fifteen minutes of looking at a painting, forty-five minutes of making one. Students work in graphite and watercolor, learn to see value before color, and finish the term with a portfolio of twelve completed studies and one finished piece.
The history is genuine and the paint is genuine. This is an art class, not a lecture in disguise.
This course accumulates. The class reads the same pages at the same pace and each meeting picks up the argument where the last one left it, so joining halfway means joining an argument already in progress.
Because there is a whole body of work at the end of it, this one is graded (narrative) and can be carried to a transcript. Enroll before the second meeting.
Weeks 1–3
Graphite studies, notan, and the discipline of squinting.
Weeks 4–6
Atmospheric perspective with Cole and Church on the screen.
Weeks 7–9
Wet-into-wet washes, edges, and knowing when to stop.
Weeks 10–12
Rock, water, and trees that look like trees.
Weeks 13–14
A studio painting carried to completion with critique.
Studio supply list
Odysseus Lyceum
Graphite set, 140lb cold-press block, six tube colors, two brushes. Roughly $45; a supplied kit is available on scholarship.
None. Any student in the age range can enroll.
American landscape painting is presented as a great tradition and as technique to be learned. No lectures about patriotism, just the paintings and the paint.
Read our academic philosophyMeetings are recorded and released to enrolled families for fourteen days. Recordings capture the instructor and shared materials; student video is not published.
Full refund up to seven days before the first meeting; inside seven days, everything paid is credited to your Lyceum balance. No refunds or credits once the class has begun. Cancel any section from your parent account.
These describe how this instructor has been trained, reviewed with educators and accessibility specialists. They are not a diagnosis and not a marketing claim.
Students and parents review separately, on different questions, and the two aggregates are never blended. Every review is verified and moderated.
No parent reviews for this class yet.
Reviews from students are published as “Student, age 13”, never with a full name. Photo and short video reviews are supported and moderated before they appear.
Art
Look first, then draw · Ages 6–9
A leaf, a shell, a feather, a bird. Mrs. Finch teaches young children to actually look at a thing before they draw it, the one habit that makes every later drawing better.
Mrs. Claire FinchNew this term
Reviews appear once families have taken it.
$7/wk
$42 in total
$16.80 for add’l siblings
Literature
Three mornings a week · Ages 6–8
Half an hour of reading aloud together, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the same time each morning. At this age frequency does more than length.
Mrs. Claire FinchNew this term
Reviews appear once families have taken it.
$18/wk
$108 in total
$43.20 for add’l siblings
American Art
Historical painting & presidential portraiture
Three long Saturday sessions on how a nation paints itself (Trumbull, Stuart, Peale) and then students draw a portrait of their own.
Mrs. Claire FinchNew this term
Reviews appear once families have taken it.
$8/wk
$24 in total
$9.60 for add’l siblings
