James J. Audubon – Pastels – Illustrationing birds in true form

John James Audubon (1785 – 1851)

“…. was the artist first recognized for illustrating birds. He published ‘The Birds of America’ in four volumes between 1827 and 1838. The volumes contained a total of 1,065 individual birds drawn in their realistic form.”

http://www.aaronartprints.org/audubon-johnjames.php

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My 8th grade students took on the challange to create their own Audubon style bird drawing. The medium was pastel chalk and pastel pencils on pastel papers. Each student choose an existing example of a bird, the reference was from ‘The Shorebirds of North America’ (Viking Press, NY) and ‘Birds of the Eastern Forest:1’ (Houghton Mifflin co., Boston). Learning the basics was all essential in the project.

Some helpful hints are available on the following site.    http://www.ndoylefineart.com/pastel.html

The students were very successful in their artworks…

Claudia G. illustrated a KingFisher in pastels.

Brittney M. captures the in flight action of hummingbirds.

Learning not to muddy colors is always a challange with pastels. The student was very successful in use of colors.

Sticks and stones, twigs and leaves – INSTALLATIONS (part2)

“I was a fanatic about horses before I could talk.” — Deborah Butterfield

Filigree 1997 D. Butterfield

http://lalouver.com/resource/butterfield_06/Butterfield_2006.pdf

   “Deborah Butterfield has explored the subject of horses for over thirty years. In her early sculpture, the artist employed humble materials such as mud, clay and sticks. But what was once only made with twigs and sticks, has evolved into hammered, soldered, and cast bronze sculptures. These days she is concentrating on two types of sculpture – bronze and steel. The bronze actually starts with wood. Over the years she has collected warehouses full of sticks of all shapes and sizes. They sit in over sized leaf recycling bags, just waiting for the artist to reclaim them.” 

READ THE ARTICLE:   http://artworksmagazine.com/2008/05/deborah-butterfield/

 

Mr. Wiltse’s art class has used the idea of Land Art with the combined art style of Deborah Butterfield. A stick and twig Galloping Ghost, (the Randolph Union High School mascot) stands majestically on the campus lawn. The action of the ghost rider is captured in the excellent twists and turns of the woven branches. The fallen trees and branches from the school property proved the medium for the construction of the art work. The creative sculpture uses the natural elements of the environment to communicate to viewer. The wild nature of the broken branches wonderfully express the feelings of the ghost rider and the creativity of the art students.

The Galloping Ghost rides on the lawn at RUHS.

 

Sticks and stones, twigs and leaves – INSTALLATIONS (part1)

*Installation art – incorporates any media to create a visual and/or conceptual experience in a particular environment

ARTISTS -RICHARD LONG +CHRISTO&JEANNECLAUDE+ ANDY GOLDSWORTHY=  ART & LANDSCAPE

Richard Long’s art deals with time, geography, and our relationship to nature. Stones, driftwood, and mud are his medium, simply walking and marking a place are the tools.  40 years of Long’s work reflects his use of natural elements to create art from man’s environment. Similarly, Andy Goldsworthy manipulates nature into artist work, while Christo & Jeanne Claude use manmade materials create new ways to see our landscape. http://christojeanneclaude.net/  Goldsworthy like Long, works to re awaken the artist and viewers connections with the natural materials.

As with all my work, whether it’s a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, I’m trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. Working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal energy of the stone.
Andy Goldsworthy

 The students in the Art & Artist class investigated a unit on Installations and Land Art. In the style of Andy Goldsworthy and Long, each student created an interesting natural sculpture through the materials provided by their natural environment. 

The student uses the sticks in the natural environment to create a negative and positive design, similar to the Land Art circles of Richard Long.

Walking lines in the snow, similar to the work of Richard Long, the student makes the viewer question whether or not the trunks are creating shadows.

Sticks and twigs are stacked in an interesting geometric shape, foreign to the woodland environment.