School of Visual Arts

Creating with our minds, hands, and hearts.

3-D Sculpting Techniques
Ceramics
Clay Animation
Digital and Grad Digital Art
Fine Art Techniques

Graduate Fine Arts
Mixed Media
Still Life
Connections with local art galleries & museums

Welcome to CAA’s Department of Visual Arts where creativity and curiosity are fostered and everyone is welcome! Students explore an abundance of exciting courses and showcase their art proudly throughout the community. Courses are rotated during each quarter to give new and seasoned students the opportunity to experience a growing variety in the visual arts.

Fine Arts

Traditional Art Techniques and Illustration
Fun With Famous Artist
Still Life-Drawing and Painting
Digital Arts

Traditional Art Techniques teaches the Elements of Art, watercolor, print-making, sketching, and other artistic media. Students contribute work toward CAA’s ongoing portfolio of student art. Students create artwork in multiple styles. Graduate students also prepare artwork for showcasing at local businesses, conferences, and exhibits in museums and galleries. Past exhibits include shows at Santa Clara University and San Francisco’s DeYoung Museum. Art history is presented in a fun and interactive way as students explore famous artists throughout history, learning how to appreciate art in the world around them. Still Life courses support students’ desire to draw and paint in a realistic manner through careful observation of objects of their choosing. Digital Arts courses incorporate fine art techniques, illustration, and design for the digital age. Students learn to navigate adaptive digital art programs in our state of the art computer lab. The broken-down instruction is followed up with time creating in the computer lab.

Tactile Arts

Collage Art Technique
Ceramics
Clay Animation

Clay animation brings multiple art forms together in a short stop motion animation. Together, students explore sculpting, illustration, scriptwriting, voiceover, and acting through a clay character. Student films have been a delight for all to watch at our annual film festivals and online. Collage artwork is made from an assemblage of different materials, thus creating a whole new image. Students explore and learn how to combine poetry, paint, pastels, paper, and paste to create dynamic art. Visual creativity and written expression are encouraged. Ceramics courses offer students the opportunity to connect to art through hands-on, sensory experience as they watch their creative ideas literally take shape. Students enjoy learning to share their artistic work and visions with others through representation at collaborative art fairs and exhibits, clay animation films and film festivals. Students explore and learn how to combine poetry, paint, pastels, paper, and paste to create dynamic art. Visual creativity and written expression are encouraged.