Innovation!


Youth want to Explore, Experiment, Learn, and Master the Digital Arts

 

Our courses are designed to first introduce ALL 3rd grade through High School students to their favorite digital arts.  We have been developing and offering Youth Digital Arts courses for almost 20 years!  In the beginning moms were searching everywhere for courses for their intellectually hungry students, including 3rd graders.  They even tried junior colleges which were absolutely the wrong place for their young students.  You can read Mom Testimonials on our Testimonial page.  The skills we teach are considered advanced but nothing is beyond our students if taught well, at the student’s pace, while the students are passionate and hungry to learn, and with support.  You can see our student’s amazing works in our galleries at www.youthdigitalart.com.  We love to feed Hungry Young Minds!  We also love to introduce students to great and exciting digital art skills and provide a sustained path for them to go as far as they can.  Our students can progress though our courses to our open-ended Cyber Studios, to our Cyber Jams, and to becoming Student National Mentors and Student National Fellows.

Caleb, for example, began his Youth Digital Arts exploration when he was inspired by video games and digital animation and curious how they were created. That was long before he was selected one of 30 out of 10,000 worldwide applicants for Nickelodeon’s prestigious Digital Animation Studio Internships.   Caleb is now one of our Youth Digital Arts National Fellows.  One of the top digital animation companies, Toon Boom Animation, wrote this case study about Youth Digital Arts and Caleb.

Students learn increasingly sophisticated skills as they progress through each course.  The first courses require no previous experience.  The courses build on one another so students need to begin with VGD101 on the Video Game Design Track or DM101 on the Digital Drawing and Painting Track.

We view Video Games as “buckets of digital art” so we break video games apart into their elements: storytelling, drawings, paintings, animations, music, and programming.   Some students just love to draw so they can focus on just drawing.  Others love to draw and paint, while some love to design and create video games.  Students can become expert in a particular area or try them all.  Once students progress to our Cyber Studios they can collaborate with other advanced students to create group works of digital art.  So students who love to draw can collaborate with students who love to animate and students who love to design and program video games to create their own original artistic video games for example.

Our courses are completely online, self-paced, available 24 hours/day within each 60 day enrollment period, with quizzes and student support forums built in.  Students need to begin their courses when they are enrolled.  Please click the “Cyber School” menu to download and print our Course Catalog for complete enrollment instructions and all the information regarding our courses and programs.

Our courses are inexpensive and yet use professional digital art software, mostly Free and Open Source.  For the few cases where we use commercial software or hardware they are discounted so students end up with a low cost professional level digital art studio at home!

Jenova Chen, one of the greatest young video game developers, said he wished he had Youth Digital Arts when he was a kid!

Youth Digital Arts is where hungry young minds learn how their favorite digital arts are being made by students across the country, from 3rd grade through high school, just like you!

 

The skills introduced and mastered via our courses include:

  • 2D & 3D Digital Drawing and Painting
  • Storyboarding
  • Manga and Comics
  • Graphic Novels
  • Anime
  • 2D & 3D Animation
  • Short Film
  • Digital Music, just for the love of music or to score their animations, films, and video games
  • Combining all these arts combine in 2D & 3D Video Game Design as an interactive art form
  • National Jamming and Group Collaboration
  • Presentation skills
  • Positive, Supportive, Collaborative, Critique skills
  • Online “Learning Community” Support skills
  • Entrepreneurial skills, our students have published their own books, opened their own online stores, and are selling their art works

Youth Digital Arts is where All young minds are given Opportunity and online Access to learn rich digital arts skills at their own pace, creative expression, self-confidence, positive group collaboration, presentation skills, research and troubleshooting, written comprehension and communication, math skills, cultural awareness, all in the pursuit of learning their favorite digital arts.

Lots of people are talking about Innovation.

The young minds at Youth Digital Arts ARE Innovation, Collaboration, and Fun in action!