Northern Lights

My next genius hour project has been decided and I am so excited to share it with all of you! As I stated in my last post, I really wanted to focus more on an art based project this time (i.e. painting, drawing, colouring) rather than transforming nature into some kind of art piece. One of the things I have loved most about nature over the years are the different colours and how bold they can be. That is why the Northern Lights are on my bucket list of natural wonders of the world I want to see! I have only ever seen them through videos and pictures but I have always been fascinated by how they are created and how unique they are. So (as you probably have guessed by now) my next art piece will be a recreation of the Northern Lights! I have gotten my inspiration from a pintrest page in which someone has created a beautiful recreation:

I have to consider the different materials I will need but I believe all I will need is black construction paper and water colour paint. I think it is important to practice creating nature-art combos that require simple materials because it is keeps the creativity high and the stress and frustration low! I think there will be frustrations along the way because I have never had any classes in painting and there are no instructions attached to this art piece, so it will be all trial and error for me! A question I have close to my heart is how can I recreate this art piece while also giving it some of my own flair and ideas? I try to ask myself this question every time I create these art pieces because I usually get my initial ideas from other people but I want them to incorporate some of my own ideas as well. I will keep you posted on the progress!

Forest Fairies

My first genius hour project is completed and I am so happy with it!

After getting the supplies from the woods and compost bins I began the process of assembling the fairies dresses. This was so much fun and I'm honestly wondering if I should change my major to fashion design?? Just kidding! But the dresses turned out lovely! For the summer fairy I layered the leaves with small flowers sprouting out and used a rose petal as the top half. I used grass and leaves for the rest of her dress! For the winter fairy I used a lot of dead leaves, weeds, and tree bark to make her dress and the platform she was standing on. There were a few struggles along the way though! The hardest part was figuring out a way to represent them and what colours to use in the background. How they are placed on the paper is probably the most important part of the picture because it is when nature and art really merge! Originally I was going to have them be in the same frame to contrast each other, but I felt I could not properly highlight their colours in this way. I had to ask many opinions and look at many pieces online with contrasting colours ad ultimately I decided to have them side by side because I felt it really that the differences complimented each other and helped them both to stand out more. This was the best decision because like winter and summer, both contrast each other drastically but both are beautiful and unique in their own way. Hopefully the next one will take a little less time, this one took me over 5 hours to put together!! I would love to implement an activity like this in my future classroom. Firstly, it was easy to find all the materials and the only money I spent on this project was five dollars for a small water colour set that can be used again and again. Students can be creative with their designs and they can create any kind of background to have their fairies stand in! I loved this activity because it gives students the opportunity to transform nature (especially disregarded pieces such as dead leaves, grass, and bark) into something new and beautiful! For my next piece I am looking at a way to represent nature without actually using pieces from nature. I will be looking at photography, painting, and drawing for my next piece because I like to contrast the styles I am using. Stay tuned!! Vanessa

First Day in the Woods

Today I made my first trip into the woods to get supplies for my art project. I had decided on the design that I posted last week but I decided on a few changes. In their design they design individual characters and the children decorate them. I feel that that alone was not enough to represent the beauty of nature and what I wanted to capture with this piece. I decided to create two or three nature fairies with natural materials (i.e. sticks, leaves, bark, etc.) while also creating a background for them using water colours and other natural materials.

I went to short hills today to look for supplies for my first drawing. I was hoping that for this piece I would have one fairy with cool colours that represented winter and one fairy that represented spring with warm colours. One problem I seem to be running into however is that there is not a huge variety in colour in the forest right now due to the subzero temperatures. For this first piece however I would like to use natural materials and I can use more colour in the background to compliment the cool colours of the fairies.

                                                          Vanessa Kiedrowski (2017)

I am thinking that most of the materials that I would find in nature at this point would be the colours of browns, greys, and possibly greens at this point. After this piece is completed I will likely create a piece that is some kind of representation of nature rather than directly taken from nature. Until next time friends!