Today was the first clear blue sky sunny day we’ve had in what seems like a long while. I headed out to Ruckle Park again in the far southeast of the island with a lovely group of students from a local ecological center.
Students creating at Ruckle Park shoreline
We set out to learn about medicinal plants, draw, paint and have a camp fire. I introduced the students to the idea of keeping an Artful Nature Journal. I created small books for them to use and they each found a plant to draw. I invited them to draw with both hands in sequence and with their eyes closed as well. They drew Violets, Buttercups, and Fawn Lilies for the most part.
Fawn Lily
On the way to the park I noticed beautiful shadows all over the road and along the path as we walked through the ferny undergrowth towards the rocky outcropping where we created.
Shadow on the path
This time last year I created shadow drawings and paintings of our Transparent Apple tree ( see Light and Shadow artivity). That was the first time I’d worked with shadows and ever since they have been a passion of mine.
So today I invited the students to also work with the shadows created by the flower they were working with. The results were quite inspiring.
Drawing Violet shadow
Try this yourself. It is truly unnecessary to unroot the plant you want to draw. You can simply place your page under the shadow created by the plant and draw.