goldsworthy

I recently came across an artist's work on the www that I liked called Andy Goldsworthy. He's a British land artist who works with a variety of natural materials. Much of his work is lasts for a short time as they're made with things that will quickly blow away or decay, such as with his leaf pieces.

We have a big sycamore tree in our back yard and it's dropping it seeds and leaves right now. We made dragonflies with the seeds here and I wanted to do something with the leaves. Last year we made this lovely coloured window art using them.

A week ago I collected leaves from around our section. I pressed them under magazines for a few days so they were flat. I showed the kids some Goldsworthy images and asked them if they wanted to make a 'pattern' to show dad when he got home, they were keen as usual. Starting from the centre we worked outwards. I talked about the circle shape, the ways the colours changed etc.

Here's some examples of Goldworthy's work:

 

And here's our effort, it's not Goldsworthy worthy but for some mum and kids time spent sitting in the front garden enjoyong the Autumn sun- it's just right : )

More of Goldsworthy's work here

We also used the pressed leaves for some good old leaf rubbings. The kids got frustrated with their leaves moving around so I found that if I taped the leaf to the table they were able to create more satisfying images. Oil pastels also work better than crayons.

T had to 'make' a llama, he's in to discussing llamas and alpacas at the moment : )