Art with Nature

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 Ah, fall in New England... These first couple of months in the school year are the perfect opportunity to get students outside to create some art in nature.

Students love putting together these open-ended sculptures inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, bursting with the beautiful colors and textures of nature!


We start by learning about environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy... we look through books and the Scholastic Art issue about his art, and if we have time we watch clips from his Rivers and Tides documentary.  We study how he uses color, value, shape, and texture to create his stunning abstract sculptural works.

We head outside with nothing but our imagination (ok, and maybe some scissors and twine).

I let my students choose whether they wanted to work independently or in small groups of 2-3 people.  We are lucky that our school campus has a good variety of leaves, sticks, flowers, rocks, and mulch to work with.


Our class got so many benefits from this project.  We were able to enjoy the fresh fall air, we used our creativity in a new and unique way, and it ended up being a great community-building activity as we began the new school year!

Click here for more K-8 Art Lessons inspired by great artists!

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