How Do You Know if the Art Work Is the Natural World Theme

"Imagination is more important than knowledge.  For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the whole earth, stimulating progress, giving nascence to evolution."-Albert Einstein

We are connected to everything on our planet and beyond, well-nigh simply by the stuff we are fabricated of. Children comprehend this implicitly. Adults can encourage this understanding in immature people. Creative expression, with a focus on the natural world, is a slap-up means of developing a young person's sense of identity and belonging within the grand web of beingness.

Collecting and assimilating knowledge about the natural world is crucial to our agreement of the interrelated systems that make up our planet. It is our imagination that drives our employ of that knowledge: making connections between facts and possibilities, expressing the awe we feel at our growing knowledge, and creating space for empathy with our fellow creatures on this earth.

We spend our lives in human-centric environments, and and then the feel of oneness with the other inhabitants of earth tin feel so distant, so abstract. Yet the truth, confirmed by researchers, is that we are one planetary family despite all the ways nosotros divide, categorize and emphasize differences. Then, how can you connect to our natural environment? Of course, y'all can spend fourth dimension outdoors, visit our national parks, go camping ground, hiking, canoeing, only be in nature in an unmediated way without technological gadgets, headphones, etc. But what about afterwards you become domicile? What about the times y'all cannot get exterior, for whatever reason?

Nature programs such as Wild Alaska are wonderful for educating and connecting u.s. with animals and landscapes to which we might not otherwise have admission, just what nigh when the program is over? How can we internalize what we have seen or experienced in a fashion that is both highly personal and tangible?

The Beauty of Art

Making art, whether it be music, dance, writing, acting, drawing or sculpting – or any number of other forms – is 1 of the most powerful and personal ways to develop one's understanding of existence and ane's connection to the world at big. It'due south also a lot of fun.

Below are a couple of activities ("rainy solar day projects" as my mom used to phone call them) that can effectively encourage:

• focused attending
• complimentary and creative thought
• curiosity nigh and empathy with the natural globe
• self-expression and confidence
• storytelling: verbal and visual

"A painter told me that nobody could describe a tree without in some sort becoming a tree." -Essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson

No special supplies are required for these. Whatever you take on hand, and like to utilise, will work!

"WHALE Vocal"

Ane of the many types of whales we see in Kodiak is the humpback whale. Whales are amazingly intelligent, sing in their own linguistic communication, and have rich social and emotional lives. We humans have the capacity to discern meaning from sounds and languages that nosotros don't empathise past paying attending to what we hear and to our own responses to it. Basically, we read betwixt the lines. Search "humpback whale song sound" on YouTube, and you'll find dozens of quality recordings. Listen to a few, and selection the one that "speaks" best to you, and play it on repeat. This exercise has options, both involving listening closely to the sounds, and gauging your own emotional responses to them or pictures that come up to your mind. A fun way to do this is with a friend, and encounter how similar or different your interpretations are. The corking thing? In that location'due south no i right way to do this.

Some options to explore:

1. Write a poem/song to the whale song. Basically, write the lyrics. What could this whale be going on about? Is she happy? Celebrating something? Or is she singing about lonesomeness and longing? Who is she singing to? Is it some other whale shut past, or maybe i very far abroad…peradventure she's giving directions, or announcing a feeding spot. Or, perhaps the story is much more poignant. Mind without preconceived ideas, and but tell the story that comes to your imagination through the beautiful, strange and echoing language of the whale herself. Try and make your poem last the duration of the recording. When it'southward finished, read it aloud to the accompanying recording. Or, if writing is non an selection (or we are non quondam enough to write and then much) then share the story out loud as the recording plays. Be the whale's interpreter.
2. Envision in your mind'southward center the sounds as colors, shapes, lines. Coordinate your hand with the cadence of the whale's vocal. Don't attempt and paint a "picture" but rather, create a field of visual sound on the paper (or whatever you lot're drawing on). Is there emotional content to the sounds? If the song seems happy, what colors do you encounter? Is in that location drama to the vocal? How does that affect the kinds of marks yous brand? Exercise certain sounds seem to have a shape in your mind'southward eye? How do the sounds make you feel? Do you get a sense of infinite from the song? Of light, of dark? Your art may wait very foreign to you lot, and that would be ok: wasn't the whale song strange to you equally well? From listening so closely and interpreting it through a different sense (from aural to visual), you will come up to know it more than richly than if you had passively listened.

"CHIMERA"

(Pronounced "kai-MEER-uh")  A chimera is a mythical/fictional creature comprised of characteristics/parts of various animals—-imaginative, often implausible. What are the three (or more?) animals y'all have seen on Wild Alaska that you lot like best? What if you lot picked your favorite characteristics of each, and made them all one animal? [I do this all the fourth dimension in my own piece of work, though I abstract the forms somewhat, plus I contain plants in my bubble.] For this project, y'all can draw or sculpt in clay or plasticine. Y'all get to name your Alaskan super-creature, besides. Imagination takes over. Maybe some of the characteristics are not fifty-fifty visible simply you know they are in that location…for instance, maybe your bubble is part sea otter, office Dall sheep AND has the ability to clasp through an extremely tiny opening to escape capture only similar the escape artist, the octopus! All animals have special talents, strengths and intelligence unique to them. How would you mix them up to create your own super animal? Perchance your chimera has some plant characteristics? This projection may take some added inquiry into your favorite animals.

Alaska is home to some of the well-nigh amazing wildlife, so there are endless possibilities of interpretation for this activeness. What is your chimera'southward preferred environs? What does it consume? Is information technology plant eater or carnivore, or omnivore? Is it a social animal, or solitary? What'southward its temperament similar mellow, cheerful, wary, or aggressive? Does information technology hide like a behave? Is it stationary like a clam, does it build a nest or drift? How many offspring does it have; just one, or whole litters? Or, does it lay eggs? How does it become through the long, nighttime Alaskan wintertime?  Think about all these things as you decide on the dissimilar parts/characteristics.

We are connected to everything on our planet and beyond, most simply by the stuff we are made of. Children comprehend this implicitly. Adults can encourage this understanding in young people. Creative expression, with a focus on the natural globe, is a great means of developing a young person'due south sense of identity and belonging within the grand web of existence.

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Source: https://www.pbs.org/education/blog/art-beauty-and-the-natural-world

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