creative art projects for kindergarten and beyond
For this great summer art project, the children spent time gathering natural materials to create their own artworks, from nature, within nature.
The children worked together with the rest of their group (one group aged 3-4, the other aged 5-8) to create large circular ‘mandala’ patterns.
Afterwards, some of the older set went on to make their own small sculptures, inspired by the setting and the materials they discovered there. One girl decorated a tree trunk with daisies. Another made a line of sticks following a crack in the ground. Other children used leaves and sticks to create tent-like structures.
The work they created was inspired by the art of Andy Goldsworthy, a British artist who has created art all over the world, using only natural materials.
Goldsworthy chooses a location and then takes all his materials from there – stones, twigs, mud, snow, feathers, leaves, flowers, water, grass etc. before creating a sculpture within the landscape. When it is finished, he photographs it and then leaves it to return to nature.
Goldsworthy uses no glue, paint or any kind of fixatives, instead he sews and ties with grasses, pins leaves together with thorns, and uses water, mud or snow to attach materials together.