Natural Memory

Do you remember a time in your life when you felt extremely close to nature?  This is the question I posed to the Mind Move Make students at the beginning of our class this week.  After reviewing our central idea, we live in an interconnected world, we told stories about our experiences with the natural world.

After our discussion, we had a collection of beautiful memories shared by each student that were inspired by nature.  One student mentioned a time her English teacher took her class outside to read the book Charlotte's Web.  She recalled the texture of the grass as well as the color of the sky on that day.  Another student shared a time when she was at the Pacific Ocean.  She was using her boogie board as a surf board when a wave came and knocked her off the board.  In that moment she saw a large fish swimming under her through the water.    A third student discussed snowshoeing along a quiet path and coming across a waterfall.  She remembers the sound of the trickling water in the still, show-filled world.

I told the students that they could use these experiences as inspiration for their artwork.

After that I showed them many pictures of artist and illustrator Soyeon Kim's work.  Here are a couple of her images to inspire YOU as well!  I asked the students to notice the multiple layers of different media.  I also asked them to identify the many different materials she used in both pieces to create mixed media artwork.

Image courtesy of Soyeon Kim

Image courtesy of Soyeon Kim

After that it was time for relaxation.  The students came into a comfortable position on their yoga mats, either sitting or lying down.  I instructed the students to return to the place and time that they felt close to nature and to try to recreate that moment in their minds.  I reminded them to also follow the path of the breath while imagining the scene in their heads.

For the movement part of the class we played a new game called Pass the Drishti.  During our first class  I taught the students that drishti is a point of focus for our eyes to help us maintain our balance when we are in a challenging pose.  It also reminds us to concentrate during movement practice.  For Pass the Drishti, the leader of the game has a rock on his or her yoga matt.  He or she instructs the class to come into a pose and watches to see who is the most focused.  The leader then places the rock onto the matt of the most focused student and that student becomes the new leader.

After moving through many different poses we were ready to settle into creating artwork.  One of my requests for the students' completed piece is for each of them to include a self-portrait in the illustration.  I provided them with this hand-out to help them consider the proportions of the human figure (courtesy of http://www.drawinghowtodraw.com/).
 

Most of the students are choosing to illustrate one of the ideas contained with the book You Are Stardust.  Here are a few of their pieces of artwork so far.  Hopefully for our next class we can dive into adding color to these creations!