Artist Study: Andy Goldsworthy: Week One

Last Wednesday, at the art center where I work, we started a month long study of the artist Andy Goldsworthy.

Andy Goldsworthy uses only items found directly in nature to produce his artwork, but then takes a photograph of his work to share his vision with the world.

I was aware of the general concept of making art with nature, but discovering this specific artist has been a very life-affirming experience for me. Studying his vision and sharing it with children has been a real gift.

(See his work and read about it here:

wikipedia entry here, google image search here)

I have been meaning all week long to share a more detailed account of what we have done and how we went about doing it, but am feeling back logged on my blogging ideas and work in general. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let these pictures do most of the talking for me.

In the first set of images, you can see how the kids in my kindergarden-first grade art class used gathered items to design a snake on the ground.

As we worked we spoke much of line, color, contrast, shape, and pattern. The children voted on a pine cone diamond shape to begin. The children were encouraged to think of lines (straight, curvy, zigzag) and how could make them on the ground. The snake concept simply flowed from the next hour of our lives, ending with a circle of yellow leaves and pine cones as a tail.

The yellow circle and rock center is something I made with my own kids while hiking along a creek side on Monday, and the leaf and grass weaving is something we made on a sunny fall day in our own front yard.

I must confess however, that the weaving was a bit tedious for my kids, ages 4 and 12. The opportunity to run with the neighborhood kids trumped making art with mom in the front yard. However, coming to check on my progress regularly with their friends was a nice added touch that I think was valuable enough as an educational experience.

The biggest gain though, was purely mine.

This project will last all month long for us, and I hope to share some more with you all. Today's class was an adventure in itself!

Blessed be and happy Earth-Art making!