Activity:
Andrew Goldsworthy Art
Andrew Goldsworthy is an outdoor environmentalist artist who uses nature as influence for his unique creations. Your child can use leaves and grasses to create inspired outdoor installation art in celebration of Earth Day. All he needs is the great outdoors and some creativity!
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What You Need:
- Leaves
- Twigs
- Grass
- Book on Goldsworthy or Internet
- Camera
What You Do:
- Take a closer look at Andrew Goldsworthy’s art with your child either by visiting your local library or using the Internet to research him. Discuss with your child how he used nature around him as influence—and to create his outdoor installations!
- Invite your child to head outdoors and look for interesting natural items to use for his installation. He can think about size, texture, balance, and composition, which are all elements and principals of art and design!
- Encourage your child to pick a spot to begin constructing his artwork. Suggest using different lengths of grass, branches and leaves to help hold his items in place for his artwork. His Earth Day nature art can be flat or three-dimensional, whichever he would like!
- Now your child can think about color as well as texture while finishing his nature creation. Invite him to think about using complementary colors next to each other so textures really pop! Complementary colors are colors located across from each other on the color wheel, like the colors red and green.
- Andy Goldsworthy takes a picture of his finished outdoor installations to preserve them forever. Offer your child a camera to take several pictures of his finished outdoor installation so that when the wind blows, the rain starts falling, or animals disturb his all natural installation in some way, he will always have a memory of his Andy Goldsworthy inspired creation!
