For nearly a century, we’ve been an advocate for every student’s promise. Forman is a safe, welcoming, and diverse community where those who learn differently thrive.
Calling all creative risk-takers, image-makers, and inventive minds.
In Forman’s Visual Arts Program, creativity takes flight. Build skills, collaborate with peers, and learn to see the world differently across a wide range of disciplines—from ceramics to jewelry-making. All classes are available at beginner and advanced levels.
Visual arts classes
Each year, our visual arts offerings adapt to match student interests. Whatever the class, faculty nurtures independent thinking, problem-solving, and confidence, while helping interested students build persuasive college portfolios.
Studio arts
From printmaking—learning how to create linocut, woodcut, and monoprints—to foundational, hands-on subjects in architecture, metalsmithing, and ceramics, our studio arts offerings fuse practical skills with perspective-shifting discourse.
Classes available:
Ceramics: Throwing on the wheel
Ceramics: Big and small
Ceramics: Set the table
Ceramics: Blaze your way in clay
Metalsmithing fundamentals
The art of metalsmithing
Becoming your best art self
Introduction to printmaking
Architecture
Culinary arts
How do our culinary choices impact the world’s food system? These classes connect the dots between history, agriculture, and modern-food industries. You’ll learn practical cooking skills too—from making ferments like sauerkraut and kimchi to taking care of a sourdough starter, curing and braising meats, and producing your own cheeses.
Classes available:
Culinary: Fire 101
Culinary: Water 102
Culinary: Air 103
Culinary: Earth 104
Painting and drawing
Beginner and advanced classes designed to enrich students’ thinking and technical abilities. Make and stretch your own canvases, fabricate mixed-media works, compose a competitive college application portfolio, or produce graphic posters with programs like InDesign.
Classes available:
Fundamentals of painting
Drawing through observation
Multiple mediums: Drawing, painting, and photography
Digital art and design
Advanced studio practices
Visual arts portfolio
Art history
Students traverse through centuries of art-making, from the Renaissance to epoch-shifting postwar movements. They learn where different artists and genres fit in broader art-historical narratives, and develop creative presentations.
Classes available:
Rethinking art history
Video, film, and journalism
Master the art of creative communication. These workshop-based subjects span expressive realms, such as stop-motion animation, documentary production, screenplay writing, student journalism, and more. You’ll hone skills like pitching and editing news articles, creating promotional material, directing cameras and lighting, and critical analysis.
Classes available:
Journalism: Writing for The Roar (Forman’s student magazine)
Introduction to narrative filmmaking
Advanced narrative fiction filmmaking
Documentary filmmaking
Screenwriting
Topics in film: fairy tale films
Introduction to stop-motion animation
Photography
Be it film or digital, editing or photographic theory, classes cover all the ways you want to explore making images—plus, there’s a darkroom and green screen on hand.
Classes available:
Photography
Photography processes from digital to alternative
Digital photo: Beyond the basics
Digital photo: Special effects with Adobe Photoshop
Photographic portraiture: Human connection
Photography: What’s your point?
Advanced photography practices
Into the darkroom photography
Want to discover what happens when art meets science?
In Forman’s Promethean Lab, you’ll be able to do just that. Solve problems that matter to you in a practical way: making prototypes with 3D printers, testing ideas on animation software, using plasma cutters, designing with architecture software, and more.
