Patterns and Shapes in the Landscape
Easter Art Camp at Murton Trust was all about seeking out patterns in the landscape. We used the flora and fauna of the Nature Reserve as a catalyst for our creative making.
We kicked started the day by looking at work by textiles designers who use nature as inspiration and use motifs to create distinct and bold designs – such as Mariemekko and Orla Kiely.
The focus on the first half of the day’s activities was making transient art in the landscape. Using a variety of foraged materials from Murton, wooden slices and plants from my garden – the children explored shapes, colours and patterns. Using the wooden slices as their ‘canvas’ they used the natural materials, each with different qualities, (smooth, rough, spikey, shiny, soft) to create compositions and play with juxtapostions and repeating patterns.
After a break we spent time at one of the look-outs on the Nature Reserve, seeking out interesting shapes and patterns and making sketches of these using pencils and pastels. Leaves, birds, trees and stones were some of the things the children chose to sketch.
After lunch, we used all our findings from the morning to make a large painting focusing on big, bold colours and a repeating or random pattern – referring back to the designers we had studied at the start of the day – Marimekko and Orla Kiely, and even how Andy Warhol used repeating imagery in his artwork.
The children were encouraged to use one or two shapes they particularly liked from the work made during the morning, and chose just a few colours to create their designs. They made stencils with cardboard and playfully used these to make their designs. The end results were all differnt, but all were colourful and delightful – from the shapes of pebbles, to ducks, leaves, flowers and trees. Another brilliant day at Murton!!
