Nature Art Inspiration

We love nature as a part of art. Several great artists, such as Chelsey Bahe, Patrick Dougherty, and Andy Goldsworthy use natural loose parts for art. Natural materials are used with artistic elements to create nature play scenes, whimsical stick creations, and just for the moment nature art. Mandalas are also a fun and easy way to explore loose parts!

We often will look at artwork by these artists from the following books and then try our own hand at creating whatever comes to mind. 

1. Take 'em Outside--Chelsey Bahe does great work! Several times a week, she leaves artistic creations on stumps along the trail at a nature center. People now specifically watch for her new creations. She adds pictures of them to her Facebook page. She is a huge play advocate and encourages following the child's lead outside.

2. Heart Stones--This collection of hearts made of stones and rocks is inspiration to keep looking for art in nature, without even having to make it ourselves. Art is in nature if we will but look for it.

3.   Andy Goldsworthy's Work-- Goldsworthy has several books and a couple of documentaries about his work. His art is made with elements he finds in nature and manipulates to some degree, using artistic design principles for his creations. His art is ephemeral and will not last long; however, they have been captured by photographers for our inspiration. I first found this book many years ago and knew I needed one. I've used it over and over again!

The work itself determines the nature of its making. I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and ‘found’ tools – a sharp stone, the quill of a feather, thorns. I am not playing the primitive. I use my hands because this is the best way to do most of my work. If I need tools, then I will use them. Technology, travel and tools are part of my life and if needed should be part of my work also. A camera is used to document, an excavator to move earth, snowballs are carried cross country by articulated truck.       --Andy Goldsworthy

4. Stickwork by Patrick Dougherty--I think I absolutely love this because I was able to work side by side with Patrick on one of his creations. I enjoyed the process and love his whimsical stick work. Since we have ample sticks, this is great eye candy as we get started with outdoor creations. Read about our adventures here.

Sticks are something we all have in common. Everybody knows sticks – the twigs and branches picked up on grandfather’s farm; the branches woven in grandmother’s basket. Somewhere threaded in all the public mass is a common thread, and that thread is the human spirit.  --Patrick Dougherty

5. Natural: Simple Land Art through the Seasons--I really like the simple, seasonal nature of the land art in this book. This seems more doable for kids, though is a great study in lines, textures, and natural elements.

6. Land Art in Town by Marc Pouyet--I love how this books shows art and nature in whimsical spots in town. While I enjoy "deep nature", nature is all around us wherever we may be.



7. Nature's Art Box--This is a collection of many crafty activities that could be made from nature.


8. Land Art for Kids is a website with instructions and many examples for creating land art. 
The author says, "Land art for me begins with seeing the world and nature through child’s eyes, I am grateful that it is something I have never lost. Making natural sculptures allows me to indulge a little longer in that child’s world. Whether you are proficient or just dabbling, an adult or a child, making a sculpture or just kicking through fallen leaves, it is all the same to me. It’s all about being outside experiencing all nature has to offer." Richard Shilling, Land Art for Kids

9. The Organic Artist--This guy makes all his own art supplies from nature! I love this. An easy way is to make your own "carbon" for drawing with the sticks from the campfire. My kids already do this.

A few blog posts you may like:

30 Days of Nature Art

Environmental Art in Nature Preschool 

Natural Weaving

       

the Scraps book: A Review

I think I'm a little in love with the Scraps book: Notes from a colorful life by Lois Ehlert. I've always enjoyed her books for children that use a "scrappy" approach to illustration. She has a long list of fun books she has written and/or illustrated. Some of my favorites include Growing Vegetable Soup, Hands, Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf, Leaf Man, Snowballs, Planting a Rainbow, Boo to You! and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. She has plenty more I would like to explore as well. Maybe we just need to have a Lois Ehlert week where we read her books and try her approach to illustration.

the Scraps book is part autobiography, part art and nature journal. Ehlert describes her beginnings as an artist as a young child. Her parents cultivated this affinity by giving her a space to work, her own art table, and allowed her to collect those scraps of life that make her illustrations so enchanting. She shares pictures of her family and spaces intermingled with illustrations from her books. For example, near a picture of her parents after hunting for wild asparagus, she has a lovely illustration from Eating the Alphabet. She shows the tools such as scissors and brushes. She talks about her parents love for sewing and wood work, which allowed her access to fabric scraps, buttons, wood scraps, and more. Her parents taught her how to paint, sew, and use a hammer. 

Ehlert took her art table to college with her as she studied art. She explained she didn't have book illustrations right away, but kept working and playing with her art. She found ideas from the world around her. She finds ideas in her garden or the produce section at the grocery store. 

In Nuts to You (illustration below), she was inspired when  squirrel snuck into her house! I love that many of her books include nature and understanding the world around us. 

Ehlert also shows her process for making some of the art and how she chooses the words. In explaining Fish Eyes, she has a list of "fishy" words, how she was inspired on a trip to the aquarium, and a tutorial of how to make your own fish aquarium art project! She also shares her collection of ice fishing decoys, which are part of her inspiration. 

She shares different perspectives from Feathers for Lunch, writing from the cat's viewpoint and the cat owner's viewpoint. She shares the process of sketching out a whole book. I love how it shows who she will put together various birds, like the Northern Flicker. She studied one in the Field Museum in Chicago to make hers realistic. She shares the process of negotiating the words and pictures to make the story come to life. 

Ehlert explains the process of collar and bringing all the scraps together to make a picture, interspersed with her rough drawings of how she hopes the illustration will turn out. Examples from her books abound. On one page, she makes a collage of the bottom of her shoes as scraps always stick there in the studio. It sounds a little bit messy of a project and she says she's messy and her wastebasket overflows. 

She even includes a recipes for a bird treat, using a slice of bread, cookie cutter, egg white, and bird seed. Her love for nature is evident in the details of her work. She shares tools she uses for textures, such as a toothbrush or grater. She shows inspiration from folk art and toys. She even scans in basic items like a bottle cap, pencil, cinnamon stick, evergreen branch, or pinecones for use in her illustrations. She might go for a walk, looking for specific natural items in her work, like black locust seed  pods or crab apples. She states, "Mother Nature gives me free art supplies" as she describes Leaf Man. 

She shares that art chose her. :-) She encourages others who feel art may have chosen them to "find a spot to work, and begin."

The pictures from her life, collages, sketches, and planning pieces come together for a delightful look at the process Lois Ehlert uses to create her work. What an inspiration! 

I always like to look at how I might use a book. Additionally, each book by her would have specific activities to try. Here are ideas I found for the Scraps book:

Discussion Questions and Learning Activities to extend the book
Interview with Ehlert
Readers Theater
Interviews, Activities, and Collage Suggestions

We would definitely do edible art, a nature walk with a collage art experience afterward, and a "scraps" station for inspiration. I love that this connects so much to nature!

Nurturing Acorns: Environmental Art

What a fun session of Nurturing Acorns at Woodlawn Nature Center that we had recently. We started out with a little letter and shape work, matching letters on rocks to an alphabet chart and drawing with sidewalk chalk letters, shapes, lines, etc. Since we have 2 year old to 5 year olds, we like to give options for various abilities. We flip flopped how we normally do things, spending more time outside as the downpour was coming.

Then we made large circles and mostly made "nature" faces, using the circle as our base and filling in with wood chips, sticks, dandelions, etc. for facial features, hair, and more. The guy on the left is quite the realist, though. He was making an insect with three body parts--head, thorax, and abdomen, which ended up being a lady bug that he colored red. While hesitant at first, once he got going he was on a roll! 

Book Review: Draw!

I happened upon the book, Draw!, by Raul Colon at our local library recently. I was truly mesmerized. It is a wordless book with a young boy reading a book about Africa on his bed with a sketch pad in his hand.

As he draws and explores the deserts, he is actually transported to the desert. He gets up close to the elephant for sketching and riding. He uses binoculars to see zebras as he is perched on top of the elephant. He draws giraffes as they run by. He draw the lions as he sits in a tree, with the elephant nearby. He draws gorillas and hippos. He swing through the air on nearby vines. He is chased by a rhinoceros. Monkeys draw him. 

Near the end, he hugs the elephant and is transported back to his bedroom full of sketches. Soon, he shares his artwork in class, enriched by his experiences visiting the desert. 

I loved the imagination and creativity in Draw! I have a little artist and explorer, as well. I love watching him try things out with line and movement, so could see my own little boy in this book. While I fully advocate learning about the animals right in our back yards and local areas, I found this delightful because of the artwork, creativity, and imagination. I loved the points, lines, and scratches that provide depth, color, and texture to the artwork. The artist shares a note at the end explaining living in NYC and Puerto Rico as a child. Having ready access to paper, books, and info on great artists, he became an artist. He ends the note with "By blending the visual of life in the wild with my childhood memories, I dreamed up the images in this book. Now I hope these images inspire others to have their very own  dreams, and just draw--draw away." I was certainly inspired! 

The book reminds me that we can all explore no matter where we might be, as books give us a portal. Through art, we can record our journey. Wordless books can be a delightful journey as we tell the story ourselves while interacting with our audience. I can imagine the dialogue as the young boy says goodbye to his friend, the elephant. 

Want to learn more about the artist's inspiration and process? Read an interview with him here. 

More about the author.

Video of the book, with one reader's words to go with the book. 

I might extend this to imagine life in a forest or pond, as our perspective might be different if we're the illustrator along the way. Also, I wonder if this could be a type of guided imaginary experience with children to "wonder" what all the animals are doing in an area. Of course the book lends itself to various art applications, through trying the artist's scratch technique, sketch book work, art exhibitions, etc. 

This post may contain affiliate links. 

Finding Nature in Art at the Midwest Museum of Art

I went to a meeting at the Midwest Museum of American Art recently. I had been to see this annual exhibit of work done by local high school students as part of a tour with my preschooler a couple of years ago and was amazed with what the students had done! It's back! Read about our prior experience here. It also includes several quotes about nature and art--I love this intersect!

As I walked through the current designs, I found several that reflected nature, such as this contrasting log.

I also really liked this fox made of sticks and metal. A photo included a face covered in flowers.

A photo with fall leaves lined the wall.

Upcycled art portrayed flowers and plants!

A night sky is depicted well.

These birds are beautiful! I felt like I was looking out my window!

These cherry blossoms reminded me of my time living in Japan, going to Cherry Blossom festivals!

This creature was stick again. It reminds me somewhat of the twig sculpture up at Fernwood by Patrick Daugherty. What a neat experience to be involved in the process! This butterfly cam off the wall and the picture!

Other drawing depicted trees. I felt like I was right there!

I love seeing the creativity of these students. To create art that includes nature means that students are getting outside and noticing nature! I love this! 

Like Nature and Art?

Read about Elkhart County Park's Photo Contest.

A blog series on Nature and Art: 30 Days of Nature Art.

Leaf Salt Dough Bowls

At church recently, I noticed the upper elementary girls making a fun project that I thought I'd document. They made salt dough in a variety of colors and squashed the colorful balls down to make a calico of colors. After rolling the dough out flat, they used leaves for a template and cut around the shapes. It's colorful and organic shaped!

They draped their cut out leaves over bowls to air dry as a bowl shape. These will be so pretty! 

Nature Play: 11 Ways to Play with Leaves!

The leaves are looking gorgeous at our house right now, with the Virginia Creeper's bright red, the Sassafras yellow, the Maple's yellow, orange, and red, and even the Poison Ivy's orange. Yes, I stay away from the latter!

There are many fun ways to connect with the beautiful fall leaves--just stay away from the poison ivy! :-) Here are 11 ways that we have tried. Be sure to click on the links to see our experiences with these options.

Nature Drawing Videos

One rainy Sunday afternoon, my 5-year-old and I sat down to nature drawing videos on Youtube. He always has paper and pencil, markers, crayons, etc. nearby, so this sounded like a perfect fit for the afternoon. We had just been looking at some of Mark Daniels' work. He is a local artist who does caricatures, rain barrels, illustrations for natural areas, etc. He does great work and has his own style. After looking at this inspiration, my son wanted to do more drawing and art of the natural world.

My son wanted to know how to draw a fox, but I wasn't sure how to draw one. We thought we'd check out some videos and see what others have done. We started with an owl drawing video. Clipboards were a nice way we could draw on the couch with a laptop; however, I'm sure a dining table or drafting table would work for many people. We followed the general directions step-by-step, pausing as needed.

Can you tell they are owls? They were both unique and similar to the examples, but each had their own flavor. Our little guy was happy with his results!

We kept drawing all afternoon, trying a cardinal, fox, walrus, and sea serpent! While our fox was quite simple, here is another more natural looking option. 

I thought using the how to videos was a good way to spend our afternoon and look at ways to translate animals into paper and pencil drawings. We keep finding our drawings around the house. It's a nice reminder of our quality time together and how we can learn and grow as we try new things. How do you improve your drawing skills? 

Painting with Worms and Mud!

I found these great plastic worms at the dollar store in the Halloween section. Yes, I bought several packs. My 2-year-old keeps finding the packages and talking to me about worms. Then he finds the Fiber One cereal and calls it worms as well as he eats up the worms. When I finally opened the rubbery worms, though, he wouldn't touch them! He has a book called, Little Feet Love, with all kinds of textures for feet to feel. So we started touching the worms with his little toes. At first he stepped back when the worm was brought near, but little by little he would touch one with a finger. I will say that I really prefer these worms from the dollar store to tackle worms in the fishing section. I have bought worms from the fishing gear in the past for programs and it's really hard to find them without an oily substance on them that helps in catching fish. Who wants to play with all that? These are just perfect for what we wanted to do.

We had a little extra time, so I thought, why not paint with the worms? I'd done this at a Growing Up Wild training this spring, but hadn't tried it with kids yet. My son gathered a little dirt in a disposable container (though I'll use it again). We mixed it with water and then started using the worms as our paint brushes.

Dandelion Canvas

I help with a creative activities team with a local MOPS group. I really joined it because I think the leader does an excellent job of making projects and activities accessible to large groups of people--I wanted to learn what she does better! It's been fun working with her and the others on the team.

Nature Inspiration Collage

Day 25: Nature Inspiration Collages

It's been a chilly few days (and getting colder next week!). The cousins were over and they did go outside for a while, but we also needed some inside activities that didn't include technology. I have stacks of magazines to repurpose and was thinking about the new year, so that we would make collages or vision boards for our nature plans for the upcoming year. 

The kids spent plenty of time going through the magazines and finding the pictures that spoke to them. I questioned some of the "connections", but maybe they were hoping to eat whoopie pies while staring at the stars! 

Pictures were carefully arranged and chosen. 

I needed to spread mine out on the pages, trying to fit in all the elements. 

My requirements were to fill up the space (still working on that!) and make a title. They also needed to write 3-5 nature or outdoors related goals on another piece of paper. We used their nature journals we started a couple of years ago. We need to use these more! 

 

I would say one child may end up a farmer. He wants to be more involved in our garden this year. Another one is thinking about lots of processed foods and having fun with his cousins! 

 

Our younger son seemed obsessed with watches and electronics. I think he didn't get through too many magazines! I can see him doing this over and over and over again based on his recent letter, envelope, and wrapping presents fixations. 

Mine did fill the space a little more, looking at nature, recreation, healthy eating, etc. I included found words and phrases as part of mine. I chose not to write down my goals, as the collage spoke for itself.

I loved reading the kids' goals! We're working on the snow fort tomorrow. :-) He's homeschooled and actually gets to take a Young Outdoorsman class this next semester at a nearby YMCA camp. I want to tag along! He also did the Junior Indiana Master Naturalist program this summer. We'll have to invite him over when we tap trees this year! 

My niece had equally interesting goals. We're looking forward to exploring the children's sensory garden at Wellfield when it opens later this year. We also like the one at Cobus Creek! 

It was interesting to see my son's goals. We used to have a rabbit. I didn't realize he wanted another pet. We haven't been to Utah for a couple of years. Maybe we can fit it in and visit some National Parks on the trip. We used to always go to the zoo, but haven't done it as much since we moved up here. We'll have to change that!

My oldest son's goals were very action based--building, climbing, creating, shooting. Good thing he received a bow for Christmas! 

My self professed "nature" 4-year-old boy was in a bit of a mood. He at least had some outdoor activities to work on. He received a skateboard for Christmas. When the snow dies back a bit, it will be much easier to work on it! He's usually a good tag-along for our nature activities! 

What are your goals for getting outside in 2014? Have you tried a nature inspiration collage?