This is the first of many art lessons focused on Nature. The intention is to teach the children that nature is already the most beautiful creation and should be protected just like national masterpieces are. Much of our inspiration is drawn from the Environmental Art Movement. (link: https://www.theartstory.org/movement/environmental-art/)
For many centuries the landscape was mainly part of the painting in relation to some form of human activity or creation. However, since the 90’s the rising concern for our environment due to climate change led many artists to start promoting nature as centre stage artwork. Many even broke the boundaries of exhibiting within galleries and would rather use forests, rivers or beaches as their “galleries”.
We are introducing the children to this idea for many reasons, from highlighting the importance of nature to demonstrating how much nature offers us for free if we only take a little from it.
This week started with “Face the Foliage” (link https://www.instagram.com/facethefoliage/?hl=en)
an idea from designer Justina Blakeney of Jungalow.
So, we set the children the challenge to “draw” a face, any face, using just what they can find outside. After showing a few other examples the children excitedly ran outside armed with scissors and imagination!
Back in our beautiful classroom each child settled with their assortment of grasses, leaves, sticks, stones and flowers and started creating…
The faces that were being created had so much character! From Jayden’s man smoking a flower to Chaneal’s cleverly colourful eyes…
Asanele created a bold face with a cheery toothy grin much like his own. Lito used every little bit that he had foraged to create a very colourful face…
Zayla’s beautiful face had cheery cheeks of stone as well as full luscious hair, she even rubbed together flowers to make a “paint”. Axolise went a step further to reuse a bit of old rubbish as a cute button nose just like his…
Ronell was so inspired that created more than just a face but a whole flower lady! Henwell made a very cool dude face with the best hair cut around. Both of these two amazed us in how meticulous they were with every single little blade of grass of flower they placed on their page.
Last but not least even Teacher Abi and Neta were keen to get involved and created beauties of their own. After the session Abi said she was so inspired that she was going to make similar art classes every week. Everyone agreed that this was both really fun and easy… and free! Thank you, Mother Nature, for providing us with so much inspiration and art materials.
We hope this project inspires you too! We would love to see your faces too…
