Royal National Park Environmental Education Centre

Telephone02 9542 1951

Emailroyalnatpk-e.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Artists in nature

Creative Arts – K-6 (2024) & (2006) Syllabus

Program overview

Students will gain a deeper understanding of how to create interesting and engaging artworks using nature as their guide. Using the Elements and Principles of Art, students will develop a rich source of ideas to create and appreciate both art and nature.  

Learning experiences

Ephemeral art & journal

Students are guided on a nature walk where they observe their surrounding environments. They identify art elements such as form, texture, contrast, symmetry, pattern and how they can be found in nature. Students select and collect objects they find along the path before discussing the work of ephemeral artists such as Andy Goldsworthy. Afterwards students create and photograph their own ephemeral art.

Throughout the bushwalk, students create a nature journal through a range of activities, such as sketching and shadow drawing.

Print making

Students print leaves and other natural materials onto various surfaces. They experiment with other techniques such as leaf rubbings. Each student creates and takes home a canvas bag.

Program feedback

"In science we are looking at plants and pollinators, so focusing on plants was beautifully connected."

Recommended excursion site

Key syllabus outcomes

Students:

  • represent the qualities of experiences and things that are interesting or beautiful by choosing among aspects of subject matter (CA-VAS2.1)
  • use the forms to suggest the qualities of subject (CA-VAS2.2)
  • acknowledge that artists make artworks for different reasons and that various interpretations are possible (CA-VAS2.3)
  • identify connections between subject matter in artworks and what they refer to, and appreciate the use of particular techniques (CA-VAS2.4)

CA2-VIS-01

makes artworks using art forms to represent subject matter and ideas, and describes ways artists convey ideas about their world to audiences through artworks

Visual Arts

Making: Artists represent their world through subject matter and ideas in artworks

  • Represent subject matter and ideas in artworks, making choices based on own interpretations of the world

  • Use drawing materials and techniques to create effects with texture and tone to represent subject matter and ideas

  • Explore relationships between colours and tones, using primary, secondary, complementary or analogous colours to represent subject matter and ideas

  • Experiment with the qualities of paint and painting processes using tools to blend colours and create surface effects

  • Investigate printmaking processes to create rubbings and repeated prints, using sustainable materials, self-made tools or objects