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I will use the artists Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty and Andy Goldsworthy's Stones sinking in sand Morecambe Bay, Lancashire. I may also use Richard Long's A Line is Walking.

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Artists communicate through visual art creation ways that change is inevitable over time in the environment.

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I am looking at using this idea as a back drop for my own art assignment. This is a brief lesson plan idea which gets the teacher thinking on ways to develop a lesson that shows art changing over time. This art project idea uses the art by Andrew Goldsworthy called Stones Sinking in the Sand. Here students see that his artwork slowly disappears over time, which emulates the process of beach erosion. Goldsworthy's art forces viewers to contemplate the effects of beach erosion. This short lesson gives the art teacher ideas on how to use public art as a means to advocate for community responsibility around coastal erosion.

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The Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM

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Lesson Overview:

View the image Stones Sinking in Sand from Andrew Goldsworthy. Ask students what elements (water, earth) they see and what they think is going on in the image. Explore the idea of line, shape, color and how the elements are effecting the visual art.

Review the concept of erosion over time and how changes in weather and time can effect the earth. How can that explain what is going on in the Goldsworthy image?

LESSON PROCESS

Step 1: Explore other examples of Andrew Goldsworthy's work and his artistic process of documenting how art can be transient based on where and how it is created.

Step 2: Explain that students will create a work of art outside using materials they find in their outdoor space, similar to the work of Andrew Goldsworthy. The transient artwork should demonstrate: a. Changes over time b. The process of Erosion and c. The physical properties of rocks and minerals.

Step 3: In student groups, move outside and have students explore the materials and create their artwork that demonstrates the above criteria.

Closing: Each group (or the teacher) takes a photograph of their group artwork. Each group presents their work to the class and explains each criteria.

ASSESSMENT:

Critique each presentation on: the use of color/design/ elements, clarity of message, connection of the art and science.

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View the image Stones Sinking in Sand from Andrew Goldsworthy. Ask students what elements (water, earth) they see and what they think is going on in the image. Explore the idea of line, shape, color and how the elements are effecting the visual art.

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This is a video which I am basing the art project off of. It is on the art created by Robert Smithson. This video shows how the original artwork has changed based on environmental changes. Objective is that Artists communicate through visual art creation ways that change is inevitable over time in the environment.

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Environmental Art

Another idea: Change because art can show that change is inevitable especially as it relates to the Environment.

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This is a conversation on Richard Longs artwork called A Line Made by Walking. This brings in part of the idea of change overtime in the environment can be man made. While this does not deal with coastal erosion it uses photography to record changes to the area where he walked. Recording change through photography is part of the art assignment.

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Richard Long's A Line Made by Walking  | Amanda Thomson | Perspectives

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Visual Literacy

4.V.1 Use the language of visual arts to communicate effectively.

4.V.1.3 Infer meaning from art

4.V.1.4 Understand how the Elements of Art are used to develop a composition

Contextual Relevancy

4.CX.2 Understand the interdisciplinary connections and life applications of the visual arts.

4.CX.2.2 Apply skills and concepts learned in other disciplines, such as math, science, language arts, social studies, and other arts, in the visual arts.

Critical Response

4.CR.1 Use critical analysis to generate responses to a variety of prompts.

4.CR.1.1 Use visual clues to interpret the content of art.

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Earth and Human Activity

ESS.4.3 Understand changes caused by human impact on the environment.

ESS.4.3.1 Ask questions to infer whether changes in an organism's environment are beneficial or harmful.

ESS.4.3.2 Engage in argument from evidence to explain how humans can adapt their behavior to live in changing environments (e.g. recycling wastes, establishing rain gardens, planting native species to prevent flooding and erosion).

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Change

Communication

Diversity

Loss

Solutions

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Time

Art

Community

Environment

Biodiversity

Erosion

Movement

Communication

Strategies

Influence

Purpose

Emphasis

Balance

Relationship

Creation

Belief

Choice

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Students understand that: Change is inevitable in the environment and this is especially true of beach erosion.

Students understand that: Artists communicate using different visual art mediums ways that change is inevitable over time in the environment.

Students understand that: The visual arts emphasize scientific research concerns when asking questions related to community and the environment.

Students understand that: Artists communicate strategies related to the protection of a communities natural resources.

Students understand that: Artists influence community members when using the elements of art to develop a composition on community and environment.

Students understand that : Artists create artistic inspiration to advocate for community responsibility surrounding the communities environmental concerns.

Students understand that: Scientists provide evidence on humans impact on the natural environment within their community.

Students understand that: Artists use visual cues when creating balance between artistic interpretation and a communities environmental concerns.

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How do the visual arts emphasize scientific research concerns related to community and environment?

How do artists communicate strategies which protect a communities natural resources?

How do artists use the elements of art to influence community members involvement on environmental concerns?

How do artists create artistic inspiration which advocates for community responsibility around environmental concerns?

How do scientists provide evidence on humans impact on the natural environment within the community?

How do artists use visual cues to create balance between artistic interpretation and a communities environmental concerns?

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What is coastal erosion?

What causes coastal erosion?

What solutions have scientists discovered that mitigate and/or improve coastal erosion?

What are the elements of art?

What artists have used artistic expression affectively to show how the environment changes an artwork just like it changes a community?

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Should art be used to show concerns related to coastal erosion?

Should artists use visual art to raise awareness about coastal erosions causes and mitigations?

Can we understand through visual art creation the artist's intent related to coastal erosion?

Should scientists collaborate with artists to impact the community related to environmental concerns?

Should artistic inspiration come from students when it concerns the community at large?

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Science Based Lesson Plan: Where's The Beach

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Science Based Lesson Plan: Where's The Beach

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While this lesson plan is predominantly science based in nature, it provides a thorough understanding related to coastal erosion. There are also additional materials to educate the teacher and student on coastal erosion. This lesson considers relevant and recent storms as part of its study. On page 6, #6 the lesson recommends using a concept map on coastal erosion. This sounds like something that could help students know what part of coastal erosion they would like to focus their artwork on.

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Scaffolding Technique to Landscape Drawing.

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Scaffolding Technique to Landscape Drawing.

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This gives a break down into how a teacher could approach a landscape drawing curriculum in stages. It incorporates more than just drawing skills, it gets students thinking about what a landscape is and what it has. This lesson applies, because students will be focused on creating artwork around coastal erosion, consequently, their artwork may involve drawing the coastal or beach areas.

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Project Idea: Dichotomous Landscape Drawing

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Project Idea: Dichotomous Landscape Drawing

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I felt this would be a good project to start with art students on coastal erosion because it give students a chance to talk about their love of going to the beach. They can connect personally to the art project. And in deep contrast, students can highlight erosion and it affects now and into the future giving urgency to the problem of coastal erosion. This would also give students practice on using the elements of art to convey meaning.

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Going green is more than just color these days. It is a lifestyle! Today, recycling, eating organic, and starting a compost pile are as trendy as the next dance on TikTok. While these are fads that have the potential to even out our carbon footprint, you may be wondering how to incorporate some environmental thinking into your art classroom. After all, these approaches to integration can cause a shift in students' attitudes about the environment and create an overall awareness of what is happening in the world around them. Art can be a safe way to explore these big topics.

Here are three environment-themed art lessons for you to try out this year.

1. Dichotomous Landscape Drawings (Grades 3-5)

A dichotomous landscape drawing basically means a drawing with two parts. In this case, it will be a two-sided drawing. One half of the picture will depict everything great with nature, and the other side will depict some things that are not so great.
These are the four steps to get your students started on dichotomous landscape drawings:

1. Brainstorm with your students.
Create a list of ideas that represent when nature is perfect or when nature needs help.

2. Fold papers in half.
Using any size drawing paper, students fold either "hamburger" or "hotdog" style.

3. Draw in pencil.
Let students choose whether to start on the "nature is perfect" side or the "nature needs help" side. Use ideas from the brainstorming session, or let students come up with their own new ideas.

4. Add color!
Medium choices are up to you, but you can't go wrong with keeping it simple. Crayons, colored pencils, washable markers, or permanent markers will get the job done. Discuss how colors can affect the mood of each side. For example, brighter colors can be better suited for the "nature is perfect" side to create a cheerful, happy mood.

Students often use their artwork to voice their concerns about world problems. Giving them time to explore this topic can help them think through what is good for the environment and what we can do better. Hopefully, this will inspire change or encourage students to consider how to take care of our environment. If you are interested in a similar lesson, check this one out using markers and plein-aire sketching!

2. Nature-Themed Glue Paintings (Grades 4-6)

Do not let the title of this lesson fool you-your students will not be painting with glue! This lesson mixes traditional watercolor painting with a twist. Students will trace their pencil marks with glue. When painted over with watercolors, it will create a resist-like finish, leaving a lighter shade of the color and an interesting texture.
Here are four glue painting lesson steps:

1. Choose an environmental theme or keep it open-ended.
Students research or brainstorm to get ideas flowing.

2. Draw ideas in pencil.
Poster board works best for this project. Encourage them to draw larger than normal since they will outline things in glue.

3. Trace pencil marks with liquid glue.
Go slow when tracing and squeeze the bottles gently.

4. Paint with watercolor.
Demonstratebasic watercolor techniques and let them roll!

This lesson and technique lend themselves well to certain textures like rocks, tree bark, water ripples, and more! Getting students to draw larger and go slow with the glue are the trickiest parts to achieving good results. When they finish, the change in watercolor shades and textures will be quite enjoyable to look at. This makes for a nice change of pace if you are looking to spice up some traditional materials.

3. Paper Animal Masks (Grades 2-3)

Masks have the ability to hide our identity, make us a different person, or transform someone into something else, like an animal. Art can be a form of play for a child, especially in their earlier grade school years. Since playtime means learning time for our youngest artists, our job is to tap into this natural schema and use it to our advantage. This paper mask-making lesson is perfect for letting their imaginations run wild!
This is how to get started making animal masks out of construction paper:

1. Choose an animal.
You can let them use computers to look up facts and pictures. For a screen-free option, use a large stack of animal books from your school library.

2. Draw their animal masks.
Students select one base color of sturdy construction paper to draw on.

3. Cut out the mask parts.
Show students tricks for cutting out their animal eyes, such as gently folding the paper and cutting a slit to insert the scissors. Provide scrap paper to cut smaller parts.

4. Glue the mask parts together.

5. Decorate masks.
Use crayons, markers, colored pencils, string, or even glitter to add details and other adornments to the masks.

6. Add a headband.
For younger artists, pipe cleaners work great.

7. Wear the mask and pretend to be the animal!
Remember, building in "playtime" after the artmaking experience is developmentally critical to let them learn, explore, and use their imagination.

The most difficult portions of this lesson are cutting out the eye holes and putting on the headband. You know your students' abilities the best, so choose a method that works for you and your group. Students can help each other, and you can change materials or have students form a line and let you help them one by one. No matter what happens, they can put their masks on and be something else for a part of their day. This makes for a memorable artmaking experience!

Environmental art is important in the art room to help our students become aware of and process what's happening in the world around them. A simple way to get started is to add art lessons around environmental themes, like the three suggested above. Dig deeper by considering how your art materials can engage eco-friendly and responsible decision-making, like in this fabulous papermaking lesson. Hopefully, one of these lessons inspires you to give it a go! If you are looking for more, here are some other great art projects to get you and your students thinking green.
Do you already have environmental art lessons you teach? Can you tweak an existing lesson to focus on an environmental theme?
Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.

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3 Environmental Art Lessons to Get Your Students Thinking Green

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3 Environmental Art Lessons to Get Your Students Thinking Green Curriculum Design % %

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This is an expert on climate change, who at several points during the video, mentions how climate changes affects coastal regions. One way that she mentions is the destruction of coral reefs. Coastal storms also effect coastal erosion. Students from three different classes are also featured in this video which helps to connect younger students to current issues.

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How Climate Change Affects Us and Nature, and What We Can Do About It

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Short Video Clip: How one ocean lover is trying to save coastal ecosystems

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Short Video Clip: How one ocean lover is trying to save coastal ecosystems

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This short video clip gives the teacher and students a local resource and information on actual work affecting the New Hanover County coastal region. One scientist talks about ways that she is working to mitigate the loss of coastal erosion by building living shore lines in the marshes. This video also talks about the work she did to help with a local elementary school's flooding issues in the parking lot.

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Coastal Erosion Solutions | State of Change | PBS North Carolina

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Coastal regions in the U.S. are some of the most densely populated areas in the country, and they are also the most vulnerable to sea level rise.

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Article: The Solution for Coastal Erosion 

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Article: The Solution for Coastal Erosion 

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This website gives easy to understand reasons along with a diagram explaining coastal erosion. Students are also given choices to solving coastal erosion. This article leans towards natural solutions as opposed to building a sea wall. The article also links students to academic journal articles validating claims that natural solutions are better than building a sea wall.

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A local non-profit that preserves coastal land in North Carolina protecting natural coastlines and preventing residential and/or commercial development. This is another local source which give students the opportunity to understand areas of concern locally which can give them direction for their artistic investigation and creation. There is a map on their website that shows all the protected areas along the coast and which ones accept visitors. Bringing in someone to the class that works here could be helpful for students, so that they could ask questions in developing a plan for their artwork.

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Art Lesson Plan: The Art of Sustainability, Grades 3-5

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Art Lesson Plan: The Art of Sustainability, Grades 3-5

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This lesson plan is developed by the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, WI. While it is not local to North Carolina, it gives the teacher an idea to look for local artists in museums in North Carolina whose art is focused on Environmental concerns. While the lesson plan uses Wisconsin Educational Standards, this can still be helpful for an art teacher trying to connect a lesson in interdisciplinary ways. This lesson plan has students learn how to interpret art while making connections to their community and sustainability.

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Overview

This module investigates ways artists represented in the Chazen's permanent collection address environmental sustainability and the complex relationship between humans and nature. By carefully examining artwork from the Chazen's collection, students will be able to consider what sustainability is and how it relates to them and their community.

Goals

Students will be able to:

Refine their observation skills by closely examining works of art.

Examine the complexity around issues of sustainability by looking at multiple perspectives.

Reflect on how their community and environment connect to sustainability.

Context

Artworks from the Chazen Museum of Art's collection included in the lesson plans address a variety of environmental issues including, but not limited to, pollution, natural disasters, and environmental racism.The artwork is diverse in medium, subject, tone and message. However, several universal themes are present.

The artwork in the lesson plans connects to sustainability through:

Examining community, environment, and place

Considering our environmental impact on the future

Bringing awareness to environmental issues

The close-looking prompts here help students make observations and think critically about the works of art. After the students take a close look and record their observations, they can proceed to the guided discussion questions and learning activities to connect the artwork and themes to their experiences.

This collection of lesson plans includes

An introduction the topic of sustainability (discuss before looking at the artwork) with additional resources

Close-looking prompts to help students examine the artwork

Lesson plans with a link to the artwork image, background information on artwork and artists, discussion questions, and learning activities

Relevant Standards
Art & Design:
3-5 A.A.Pr.4.i: Develop Meaning: Explore and make connections through comparison of artwork from personal, historical, and contemporary artists.

3-5 A.A.R.8.i: Interpret: Use details, subject matter, and context to interpret an artwork's mood or meaning.

3-5: A.A.R.7.i: Analyze: Compare and contrast how the use of media can influence ideas.
Environmental Literacy and Sustainability:
3-5: ELS.EX3.C.i Describe how cultures relate to their environments.

3-5 ELS.EX5.A.i Explain how one's cultural identity and views can influence decision-making and sustainability in natural and cultural systems. Identify parts, relationships, and perspectives present in a local issue, and examine the impact of individual and group choices on natural and cultural systems.

3-5 ELS.EN6.B.i Analyze the role of civic and personal ideals in enhancing natural and cultural systems. Analyze the short- and long-term impact of personal choices on the environment and sustainable communities. Investigate how individual and societal rights and responsibilities relate to healthy environments and sustainable communities.

3-5: ELS.EN6.C.i Understand the differences between renewable and nonrenewable natural resources and the outcomes of using each type of resource on the environment and people.

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The Art of Sustainability, grades 3-5 - Chazen Museum of Art

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Overview This module investigates ways artists represented in the Chazen's permanent collection address environmental sustainability and the complex relationship between humans and nature. By carefully examining artwork from the Chazen's collection, students will be able to consider what sustainability is and how it relates to them and their community.

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Communicating through animation: How do people affect the coast?

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Communicating through animation: How do people affect the coast?

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This is an example of how students can tell compelling stories through a digital medium to create understanding about coastal erosion. This video does a good job of enabling a young viewer to gain deeper understanding around the theme of coastal erosion. Art students could be divided into groups to develop a similar narrated story around their focus related to coastal erosion.

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Coasts for Kids - Episode 4 - How do people affect the coast?

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While this art project is less artist activist and more about the science of erosion, it still gives the younger student a visual on how erosion works. What happened to the sand at Wrightsville Beach? This project uses dirt but you could change it up with sand and students could attempt to answer this question. Students could use this project to start their investigation to see where they want to go with their art project.

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This is an art curriculum on painting weather and a landscape. This project helps students learn how to use the elements of art in the painting of a landscape. This also gives students ideas on story telling and connecting to the community through art creation. There are slide presentations included and vocabulary. Watercolor is a medium that can also be explored through this lesson.

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Artist Maya Lin is an example of an Artist focused on environmental issues. This is video where the artist talks about several sculptures she is working on which show the water disappearing in Lake Chad. This is an example for students on how artists create art in the perspective of art as activism around environmental issues affecting a particular community.

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Maya Lin discusses her marble sculpture series, Disappearing Bodies of Water, shown in progress at her Manhattan studio. Lin's collective process of researching, drawing, model making, and mechanized fabrication led to these forms that highlight the erosion of Lake Chad, the Aral Sea, and the Arctic Ice Shelf.

Growing up in Athens, Ohio, Lin staged protests against environmental crimes and cruelties. She continues to be an activist today, using her art to encourage closer examination of the natural world.

More information and credits

Credits

Producer: Ian Forster. Interview: Ian Forster. Camera: Rafael Salazar Moreno & Ava Wiland. Sound: Ava Wiland. Editor: Morgan Riles. Additional Graphics Courtesy: National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder. Artwork Courtesy: Maya Lin.

Closed captions

Licensing

Interested in showing this film in an exhibition or public screening? To license this video please visit Licensing & Reproduction.

Maya Lin catapulted into the public eye when, as a senior at Yale University, she submitted the winning design in a national competition for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be built in Washington, DC. She was trained as an artist and architect, and her sculptures, parks, monuments, and architectural projects are linked by her ideal of making a place for individuals within the landscape. She draws inspiration for her sculpture and architecture from culturally diverse sources, including Japanese gardens, Hopewell Indian earthen mounds, and works by American earthworks artists of the 1960s and 1970s.

Interview

Artist Maya Lin discusses her three-site installation piece, Groundswell (1993).

The discussion was out of how much damage we were doing, as a species, to the rest of the planet. It's really personal, and I love the environment. I love the world around us.

Art21 is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization; all donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

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Disappearing Bodies of Water, Maya Lin - Art21

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Art21 is a celebrated global leader in presenting thought-provoking and sophisticated content about contemporary art, and the go-to place to learn first-hand from the artists of our time. A nonprofit organization, Art21's mission is to inspire a more creative world through the works and words of contemporary artists.

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This is another resource to learn about an renowned artist who has created many different types of art around environmental concerns. Her art is varied and has amassed a large following as noted by the curator Dorothy Moss. This talk takes place at The National Portrait Gallery which featured Maya's art two years ago.

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Interactive Digital Art: What is Missing?

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Interactive Digital Art: What is Missing?

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This is a digital art multi-media art piece by Maya Lin that invites the viewer to engage in the discussion on environmental problems on Planet Earth. It creates a dialogue where the viewers of this art can join the artist in finding solutions to the many problems related to the health of the planet. Because this is a digital art that allows the viewer to contribute, it now contains links to all sorts of information on coastal erosion. Viewers share how places that they love have been affected by climate change. This gives students the ability to see that through multi-media opportunities they can gain a wider audience.

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This gives a good background on Maya Lin as the artist for this curriculum. She connects science and art in many of her works. Her hope is that her art would be used to help people to connect to their own environmental journey where they can see that they also have a part in making the planet healthy.

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Maya Lin (American, b. 1959)

Maya Lin is known for her large-scale environmental artworks, her architectural works and her memorial designs. Her unique multi-disciplinary career has "resisted categories, boundaries and borders" (Michael Brenson). In her book Boundaries, she writes I see myself existing between boundaries, a place where opposites meet; science and art, art and architecture, East and West. My work originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings."

Nature and the environment have long been central concerns for Lin who attended Yale University where she earned a BA in 1981 and a Master of Architecture degree in 1986. Lin was thrust into the spotlight when, as a senior at Yale, she submitted the winning design in a national competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be built in Washington, D.C. She has gone on to a remarkable career in both art and architecture, whilst still being committed to memory works that focus on some of the critical historical issues of our time.

Lin's art explores how we experience and relate to landscape, setting up a systematic ordering of the land that is tied to history, memory, time, and language. Her interest in landscape has led to works influenced by topographies and geographic phenomena.

Her artwork has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions at museums and galleries worldwide, with works in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art; The Smithsonian Institution; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; and the California Academy of Sciences, among others. She is represented by the Pace Gallery in New York.

Her architectural projects, largely undertaken at the request of non-profit institutions include the newly renovated Neilson Library (2021) at Smith College, the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Cambridge Campus (2015) in Massachusetts, the Museum for Chinese in America (2009) in New York City and the Riggio-Lynch Interfaith Chapel (2004) and Langston Hughes Library (1999) in Clinton, Tennessee. Her designs create a close dialogue between the landscape and built environment, oftentimes juxtapose old and new construction, strive to be harmonious within their site- whether it be an urban or rural setting and she is committed to advocating sustainable design solutions in all her works.

In 2009, Maya Lin started work on her last memorial, What is Missing?, an on-going, multi-sited multimedia installation that raises awareness about habitat loss and biodiversity loss, emphasizing how protecting and restoring habitats can help protect species and significantly reduce climate change emissions.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Lin has been profiled in TIME, The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker, among many other media outlets. The 1996 documentary about her, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. In 2009, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts, the nation's highest honor for artistic excellence. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Lin the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, praising her for a celebrated career in both art and architecture, and for creating a sacred place of healing in our nation's capital.

Born in Athens, Ohio in 1959, Lin holds degrees from Yale and the Yale School of Architecture. She lives and works in New York City.

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Maya Lin (American, b. 1959) Maya Lin is known for her large-scale environmental artworks, her architectural works and her memorial designs. Her unique multi-disciplinary career has "resisted categories, boundaries and borders" (Michael Brenson). In her book Boundaries, she writes I see myself existing between boundaries, a place where opposites meet; science and art, art and architecture, East and West.

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Comprehensive study of the elements of art

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Comprehensive study of the elements of art

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This is a British Columbia's in depth discussion on the elements of art. This can be useful as a reference for teacher and students. Students can refer back to this article when they are unsure about an element of art and its use. Or they can refer to this when looking to include dynamic attributes to their artwork in order to tell a compelling story.

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'Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life' is the pinnacle of representational art. It is painted with a remarkably realistic technique but it is more than just an example of skilled craftsmanship. Each object has a unique symbolic meaning and works together to create a moral narrative within the group. To discover more about the hidden secrets of this artwork: Harmen Steenwyck - Vanitas Still Life Painting.
​
'The Blue Fan' also uses accurate representational shapes which play a major role in the composition of the work but the balance of the other visual elements is altered for creative effect: tone and texture are suppressed to allow the expressive qualities of shape, color and pattern to flourish.

Cézanne was not interested in the

creating a balanced arrangement of shapes, some of which may be distorted for the benefit of the composition.

defining depth and form with the natural properties of color, where warm colors appear to advance while cool colors recede.

adapting his painting technique by using regulated brushstrokes to emphasize the unity of surface in his work.

Impressionists' attempts to imitate the fleeting effects of light and color in nature. He called his paintings 'constructions after nature' [1] where the colors and forms that he observed were reconstructed as 'something solid and durable, like the art of the museum'.Abstract artists attempt to stimulate an emotional response by arranging the visual elements in a harmonic or dynamic configuration, much in the same way that a musician uses sound, pitch, tempo and silence to compose a piece of music. A musical analogy has often been used to help describe the effect of abstract art on the viewer.
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Most people find it difficult to look at an abstract image without intuitively trying to interpret it through their understanding of representational forms. When looking at abstract artworks, the viewer often needs to take a transcendent leap and open their mind to the metaphysical properties of the visual elements, embracing a more spiritual response as opposed to an analytical one.
As a serious art form, pure abstraction is a rarified atmosphere. It requires the artist to look inwards with a rigorous discipline and to rely entirely on their own instincts and experience of the visual elements to inspire their creative vision. The representational artist has a far greater degree of freedom with both the natural and fabricated worlds accessible as the source of their inspiration, but the abstract artist has the unique opportunity to create something that has never been seen before. Perhaps the best art like 'Broadway Boogie Woogie' has a foot in both camps: it can create an idealized image that lifts the spirit but it also has a reassuring hold on reality.

​There were two things that Davis loved which had a profound effect on his painting: New York and jazz. The title of this painting is a humorous reference to the ambience of New York as the inspiration for the shapes and colors of the work while acknowledging the European origins of its style. His love of jazz is reflected in the syncopated rhythm of his shapes as they oscillate between a positive and negative reading across the composition.

​Tribal masks were mostly used in ceremonial dances as a channel of communication between the natural and supernatural worlds. Wood, the most common material used for making masks, was chosen not only for its abundance in the forest but also for its quality as a spiritual medium. Some tribal artists would take time to pay their respects to the life-force of a tree, requesting its permission to be cut down and used to make a carving. They felt that the tree had its own soul and that its wood was the natural host for the spirit of their work. This kind of holistic approach to carving invested the form of a mask with a certain integrity that reflected contemporary ideas about 'truth to materials' where the sculptor respects the natural properties of wood or stone and allows them to show through in the finished work.
The adoption of these so-called 'primitive' conventions by modern artists actually widened the parameters of artistic creativity and encouraged a more experimental attitude to the development of the form, medium and content of an artwork.

'There are universal shapes to which everybody is subconsciously conditioned and to which they can respond if their conscious control does not shut them off.' [5] As you walk around Moore's 'Reclining Figure' you register an impression of the sensual curves of the female form: the angle of a shoulder as it balances above the prop of an elbow, the line of a back which glides into the swell of a hip and the bulge of a thigh which flexes at a bulbous knee. On the same walk around the work, the ambiguity of these undulating forms may assume a geological metaphor where the figure adopts an Neolithic quality, like a stone that has been worn smooth and hollowed out by centuries of erosion. With another perceptual shift you may discern the configuration of a landscape where the form of the sculpture takes on the nature of hills, valleys, canyons, cliffs and caves. This synthesis of figure and landscape is one of the major themes of Henry Moore's work.
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'Reclining Figure' is also an exemplary illustration of 'truth to materials'. Its skillful carving and polished finish highlight its wood grain which behaves like an ingrained drawing that defines the contours of its form.

In our detail of Rodin's 'Call to Arms', which was originally modelled in clay before it was cast in bronze, you can see the vitality and physicality of the artist at work in the energetic imprints of his fingers and hands as he pushes and pulls the clay over surface of the sculpture.

'Call to Arms' was originally designed as a competition entry for a monument to commemorate the defence of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war but the conservative jury rejected Rodin's sculpture as too radical in its concept and technique. However, the work was later cast in 1920 as monument to the French soldiers who fought at Verdun during the First World War. It comprises two figures emerging from a 'non finito' base and back. The lower is a wounded soldier who represents the victims of war and the upper is a Génie ailé (winged genius) who symbolizes the liberty gained through the heroic sacrifice of those who died. Both figures also reference existing icons of sacrifice and liberty: the soldier is remarkably similar to the figure of Christ in Michelangelo's unfinished 'Rondanini Pietà' in the Duomo in Florence, while the winged genius recalls the 'Genius of Liberty' in Francois Rude's relief of 'La Marseillaise' on the wall of the Arc de Triomphe.
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Rodin's figure of the winged genius from 'Call to Arms' reappears as an independent form in 'The Spirit of War', a freestanding sculpture of 1883. Rodin often recast figures and used them in different configurations and contexts, an approach to composition that was adopted by many 20th century artists.

Giacometti's earlier work was first associated with Cubism, then Surrealism, followed by the influence of the spindly Etruscan bronze votive figures that contributed to his mature style. He claimed that his work of this later period was motivated by witnessing the death throes of his neighbour, ​Tonio Potosching, in the days before and hours after he passed away. He describes this traumatic event in 'Le Rêve, le Sphinx et la Mort de T', a bizarre essay for 'Labyrinthe', the art journal published by Albert Skira in 1946: 'Standing motionless by the bed, I looked at the head which had become an object, a little box, measurable and insignificant. At that moment, a fly approached the black hole of the mouth and slowly disappeared inside.' This surreal encounter deeply affected his daily life as he experienced disturbing episodes where he envisaged all those around him as lifeless. The existential gap that he perceived between the state of 'Being and Nothingness' became the theme of his work for the rest of his life. He tried to exorcise his psychological trauma by pursuing the elusive spirit of his subject matter rather than simply describing its physical presence.

When Giacometti started a work like 'Grande Tête Mince' he worked from both the model, in this case his brother Diego, and from his imagination. He would eagerly shape and reshape the head in his search for that ephemeral spirit of 'being'. Giacometti always worked directly in front of the model, so intensively fixed on a perpendicular perspective that his observation and insight concentrated his vision into the pinch-edged form that we recognize as his style. He later tried to explain the artistic struggle that he experienced in this approach, 'The more I looked at the model, the more the screen between his reality and mine grew thicker. One starts by seeing the person who poses, but little by little all the possible sculptures of him intervene. The more a real vision of him disappears, the stranger his head becomes. One is no longer sure of his appearance, or of his size, or of anything at all. There were too many sculptures between my model and me. And when there were no more sculptures, there was a complete stranger that I no longer knew whom I saw or what I was looking at.' [9] There comes a point in this process where Giacometti exhausts all configurations and possibilities and has to accept a conclusion that is subjectively felt as much as it is objectively observed. The elusive spirit of Giacometti's work is discovered when he achieves that point of balance.

​Oldenburg has an amusing sense of irony in the contradictions between his medium and its subject. He subverts the expectation of our senses by making soft objects like the gym shoes out of a hard material like plaster, and hard objects like a drum kit out of soft vinyl cloth. He also plays with the scale of his subjects which lifts them out of context, forcing us to reappraise their form.

The spatial language that Gabo used to create works like 'Head No.2' was derived from the type of 3-dimensional models used by mathematicians and architects. Gabo constructed the work using a framework of planes that penetrate and organize the space that exists within its mass. The edges of the planes delineate the form of the head and unite its internal and external space.

Turrell is known for his 'Skyspaces'. These are architectural installations on specific sites around the world that frame an expanse of sky on a ceiling by masking the surrounding area. With a careful balance of proportions, transitional ambient lighting, comfortable seating and no visible edge to the opening, Turrell creates an intangible portal to the heavens that stuns the observer with a mystical vision of 'the spiritual side of light.'

'The Spiral Jetty' by Robert Smithson is probably the most famous and most influential earthwork in modern art. It is 15 feet wide and projects 1500 feet into the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Smithson built this structure in three weeks using a bulldozer and dump trucks. He chose the site for its magical ambience as the lake changes color from a pink to lilac to red due to the build up of beta carotene in the high salinity of its shallow water. What he particularly sought was 'landscapes that suggest prehistory. As an artist it is interesting to take on a persona of a geological agent and actually become part of that process rather than overcome it.' Not only does the work look prehistoric but the symbolism of its spiral also incorporates the myth of the lake: the early Mormon pioneers believed that the Salt Lake was connected to the Pacific ocean by an underground channel that influenced its fluctuating water levels. The torque of Smithson's spiral is a metaphor for the ebb and flow of this force. In actuality, the lake is fed by three rivers but has no outflow to the sea and its water level rises markedly in wet years and falls during dry years. It is also affected by evaporation and the volume of water that is diverted for agricultural and urban uses.
By 1973, three years after the Spiral Jetty was built, the water level rose again, eventually submerging it to a depth of around sixteen feet. Robert Smithson never saw the work again as he died in a plane crash that year while surveying sites for another work. By 1993 the jetty reappeared, encrusted with sparkling salt crystals. It had taken on his 'persona of a geological agent and actually become part of that process'. It is a dynamic form in a dynamic environment that is now, in equal measure due to the untimely death of the artist and its remote location, a bucket list destination for artistic pilgrimages.

At the start of the 1930's Alexander Calder brought a sense of humour and playfulness to art in America with the introduction of his constructivist influenced 'mobiles' - painted metal sculptures with moving parts that were incorporated as elements of their construction and composition. Naum Gabo had previously explored the concept of kinetic sculpture with his 'Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave)' of 1919-20 which was operated by an electric motor. The great advantage that Calder's 'mobiles' had over Gabo's 'Standing Wave' was that they were naturally propelled by air and did not need a separate power source. Their elegant construction technique allowed Calder more scope to focus on their aesthetic form, unhampered by the necessity to find a wall socket or disguise a cumbersome battery.
Alexander Calder created two different types of mobiles: 'hanging mobiles' which were suspended from the wall or ceiling and 'standing mobiles' which moved in relation to a fixed base. As the components of a Calder 'mobile' ease into action, the changing relationships of their colors, shapes and form echo the graceful and fluctuating dynamics of natural motion. His inspiration for their colors and shapes evolved from a witty combination of Mondrian's pure abstraction with the biomorphic forms of Joan Miró. Although Calder's 'mobiles' have these obvious influences, they are not simply animated versions of a Miro or a Mondrian. They are an assimilated concept that is immediately identifiable as Calder's work and very much part of the American idiom of cut, bolted and welded steel sculpture that influenced many sculptors of the 20th century including his fellow American, David Smith, and the British artist, Anthony Caro.

See images below that have been chosen because they all use value in an inspirational manner. Each art work has been analyzed to demonstrate how great artists use line as a creative force in their work:

See images below that have been chosen because they all use colour in an inspirational manner. Each art work has been analyzed to demonstrate how great artists use line as a creative force in their work:

See images below that have been chosen because they all use texture in an inspirational manner. Each art work has been analyzed to demonstrate how great artists use line as a creative force in their work:

​Negative space is also a key element in many abstract paintings. Many times a composition is offset to one side or the top or bottom. This can be used to direct the viewer's eye, emphasize a single element of the work, or imply movement, even if the shapes have no particular meaning. Piet Mondrian was a master of the use of space. In his purely abstract pieces, such as 1935's Composition C, his spaces are like panes in a stained glass window. In his 1910 painting Summer Dune in Zeeland, Mondrian uses negative space to carve out an abstracted landscape, and in 1911's Still Life with Gingerpot II, he isolates and defines the negative space of the curved pot by stacked rectangular and linear forms.

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'Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life' is the pinnacle of representational art. It is painted with a remarkably realistic technique but it is more than just an example of skilled craftsmanship. Each object has a unique symbolic meaning and works together to create a moral narrative within the group.

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Students' empathy for the environment through eco-art place-based education

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Students' empathy for the environment through eco-art place-based education

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This is a study of environmental art education programs in Scotland. The study shows how art can be used to educate students on environmental concerns more effectively. The goal of this study is through art-eco education students will develop deep understandings around the problems with the planet, and as a result they will become proactive in protecting the planet as adults .

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What are ways that artists can communicate environmental concerns within their community?