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Nature Art in the Woods.... Rivers and Tides... inspired!
Nature Art in the Woods.... Rivers and Tides... inspired!
Revisiting this post today to join Stephanie at "Ordinary Life Magic" for Saturday's Artist!
We have been studying the art of Andy Goldsworthy recently. I discovered this interesting "nature artist" through a link over at Tonia's place a few months ago.
There is a wonderful little film called "Rivers and Tides" which follows the processes of his various pieces from conception to creation.
Being made of natural, organic materials, many of his most awe inspiring works last only seconds before disintegrating and returning to the environment in which they were extracted.
This, is part of the beauty though.
The embracing of life from conception to transformation to death to rebirth.
So off we set for our expedition into the woods to create our own pieces of natural concept art.
We carefully collected our materials and pondered what concepts and ideas we wanted our piece to express through them.
Matilda and Bujana found a hollow log with mushrooms and snails inside. They filled it with a spectrum of different coloured leaves. Bujana said it was like the circle of the seasons.
It made me think of the birth canal. That takes a journey through the dark decay of winter's death to the light, tender green of Spring. A light at the end of the tunnel if you will.
As we worked my senses heightened, becoming more attuned and in sync to the subtle sounds of nature that surrounded me.
It was as if I could feel the breath of God brush my cheek.
I could almost hear the sounds of growing, staining shoots, scurrying insects and leaves in the midst of decay, buried deep. The sounds that God hears constant. His gentle hand guiding each tender shoot toward the sky and each sodden leaf towards the deep roots of new life.
The musty wood scents rustled through my being.
Telling me secrets without words.
At one point Bujana exclaimed, "I need some more bright yellow leaves." at which the woodland canopy instantly shivered and down descended a confetti of yellow!
"Look, God blew on the trees for me." She remarked. I couldn't help but agree in smiling wonder!
Bujana made a season rainbow of leaves. I loved watching how carefully she selected each leaf. She was very specific about the shade, shape and position of each one.
The way the children made their art and how they responded to it revealed so much about their individual characters.
Bujana was very concerned that the wind might blow her creation to pieces so she attempted to "stick" each leaf down to the tree stump with mud.
Matilda was more interested in the materials themselves and the process of creating rather than the realising of a specific idea into an end product. She was much more flexible about working with the materials and her pieces changed happily, lucidly and organically through their
formation.
Emmy on the other hand embraced the concept of the transitory nature of organic art.
She was fascinated to think of how the piece would be changed by the wind, walkers, dogs, the rain and other environmental conditions. That was part of the joy for her.
Her lovely leaf journey was so exquisite.
We have been studying the art of Andy Goldsworthy recently. I discovered this interesting "nature artist" through a link over at Tonia's place a few months ago.
There is a wonderful little film called "Rivers and Tides" which follows the processes of his various pieces from conception to creation.
Being made of natural, organic materials, many of his most awe inspiring works last only seconds before disintegrating and returning to the environment in which they were extracted.
This, is part of the beauty though.
The embracing of life from conception to transformation to death to rebirth.
So off we set for our expedition into the woods to create our own pieces of natural concept art. 
We carefully collected our materials and pondered what concepts and ideas we wanted our piece to express through them.
Matilda and Bujana found a hollow log with mushrooms and snails inside. They filled it with a spectrum of different coloured leaves. Bujana said it was like the circle of the seasons.It made me think of the birth canal. That takes a journey through the dark decay of winter's death to the light, tender green of Spring. A light at the end of the tunnel if you will.
As we worked my senses heightened, becoming more attuned and in sync to the subtle sounds of nature that surrounded me.It was as if I could feel the breath of God brush my cheek.
I could almost hear the sounds of growing, staining shoots, scurrying insects and leaves in the midst of decay, buried deep. The sounds that God hears constant. His gentle hand guiding each tender shoot toward the sky and each sodden leaf towards the deep roots of new life.
The musty wood scents rustled through my being.
Telling me secrets without words.
At one point Bujana exclaimed, "I need some more bright yellow leaves." at which the woodland canopy instantly shivered and down descended a confetti of yellow!"Look, God blew on the trees for me." She remarked. I couldn't help but agree in smiling wonder!
Bujana made a season rainbow of leaves. I loved watching how carefully she selected each leaf. She was very specific about the shade, shape and position of each one.The way the children made their art and how they responded to it revealed so much about their individual characters.
Bujana was very concerned that the wind might blow her creation to pieces so she attempted to "stick" each leaf down to the tree stump with mud.
Matilda was more interested in the materials themselves and the process of creating rather than the realising of a specific idea into an end product. She was much more flexible about working with the materials and her pieces changed happily, lucidly and organically through their
formation.
Emmy on the other hand embraced the concept of the transitory nature of organic art.
She was fascinated to think of how the piece would be changed by the wind, walkers, dogs, the rain and other environmental conditions. That was part of the joy for her.
Her lovely leaf journey was so exquisite.
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Saturday Artist
{Exploring Cubism}
We have been learning a little about cubism this week. We found this site really helpful in simply explaining some of the concepts.
Then we looked at some examples of cubism. I asked the girls what they thought about the pieces they saw. It is always interesting to hear the thoughts of small children on art :)
Bujana really took to cubism, she liked the geometric shapes and the sense of movement they create.
For example in Picasso's "The Guitar Player"(below) Boo said she could see the hand of the guitar player strumming, his foot tapping and the music literally vibrating through the lines and shapes on the canvas. She couldn't believe how she could see all this in only a few lines and shapes!
But that is exactly what cubism aims to portray."Cubists wanted to show all the sides of an object in the same picture." The internal, external, physicality, movement and character.
Picasso obviously has many examples of this in his work.
To get the idea of how simple colours and geometric shapes can create designs we started by sticking coloured paper squares onto simple line drawings.
We used oil pastels to create strong definite lines.
The girls used a muted, minimal colour palette like many of the cubist paintings we had talked about. The minimal palette, really helped to emphasize the lines and shapes.
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Then we looked at some examples of cubism. I asked the girls what they thought about the pieces they saw. It is always interesting to hear the thoughts of small children on art :)
Bujana really took to cubism, she liked the geometric shapes and the sense of movement they create.
For example in Picasso's "The Guitar Player"(below) Boo said she could see the hand of the guitar player strumming, his foot tapping and the music literally vibrating through the lines and shapes on the canvas. She couldn't believe how she could see all this in only a few lines and shapes!
But that is exactly what cubism aims to portray."Cubists wanted to show all the sides of an object in the same picture." The internal, external, physicality, movement and character.
Picasso obviously has many examples of this in his work.
To get the idea of how simple colours and geometric shapes can create designs we started by sticking coloured paper squares onto simple line drawings. As many of the paintings we had looked at contained a musical instrument of some sort. I thought it would be cool to have the girls draw their guitar in different angles on their canvas.
We used oil pastels to create strong definite lines.
Then we rotated the guitar in different angles and positions. The girls simply drew the changing contours and shapes as they saw them. They tried to include all the angles in the one drawing regardless of how much their picture "looked" like a regular guitar.
The girls used a muted, minimal colour palette like many of the cubist paintings we had talked about. The minimal palette, really helped to emphasize the lines and shapes.
But Bujana loves purple so.... :)
Once the paintings were dry we cut the canvas into strips and glued the strips back together onto a piece of thick card in whatever order we wanted. (i.e) "The paintings looked like someone had cut them up and glued them back together."
Once the paintings were dry we cut the canvas into strips and glued the strips back together onto a piece of thick card in whatever order we wanted. (i.e) "The paintings looked like someone had cut them up and glued them back together."
Here is Bujana's "Guitar" :)
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Sparkly Scaly Clay Fish
As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life. ~John Lubbock
We were busy making scaly, sparkly clay fish this week.
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And here are a few lovely arty links I've discovered on my travels this week!
Enjoy a wonderful "Creative" weekend!
Learning colours: Shades of Green @ A Painterly Life
Amate Paper Cut Outs @ Art for Small Hands
Flower Lanterns for Spring @ We Bloom Here
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Self Portrait Series Using different Media
Self Portrait Series Using different Media
Charcoal
Pencil Crayon
Watercolour
Collage
(And a particularly bad hair day for Boo!)
As part of her "learning all about me" project Bujana made portraits of herself using different media....
During this activity we enjoyed discovering all about...
colour
texture of different media
self expression
design
composition
line drawing
light and shade
How different media creates different results
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Marble Painting...
This weeks favourite art moment... required many squirts of paint and more than a couple of marbles...
The girls had so much fun with these "marble track" paintings it was well worth the hose down of both children and kitchen alike after we were done. {tip} This would make a great "outdoorsy" Summertime project (smile)
It was so wonderfully ooozy, gooey and tactile. And so satisfying to watch the marbles ping pong around the sides of the tray like balls in a very messy pinball machine.
We started off with just one colour and one marble, adding more layers of colour and more marbles as we went along. The pictures ended up so vibrant and colourful!
Boo really tried to guide her marble around the tray to make a "real" picture, so Boo-like ;) Matilda and Seraphina however, just indulged in the gorgeous painty mess making of it all!
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