A selection of lesson plans for the visual component of Experiencing Nature
Deborah Mitchell, Rock Formation, Custer Park, 2002
Getting ready to paint!
During week one we will start out with instructions on watercolor, composition, perspective, and various other visual concepts. Basics of watercolor
materials and equipment and how to use them: brushes, paper, and paints.
Natural experience: Create a painting or drawing from memory of the first time you became aware of the natural world. Was it a scary experience
such as walking on a snake in the grass or almost drowning in a riptide? Or, did it fill you with awe, such as the migration of thousands of butterflies or
the northern lights? You can use abstraction, realism, fantasy or whatever it takes to get across your idea of the power of nature.
Natural journey: (A continuation of your natural experience) Think about growing up and create a map of your neighborhood at any point
in your life that inspires you. Emphasize the spots were the natural world is barely holding on by a toehold such as grass growing up through the
pavement. Next include places where there is barely a sign of human existence, such as deep in a pile of leaf mold where the worms are busily churning
out loam. Try making the map to the scale of an animal other than a human say very large for an elephant or extra small for an ant. Put a scale on it
and a guide to the features. Illustrate what the creature using the map might encounter. An elephant might have to step over a stone wall that would
take an insect all day to travel over before deciding to move onto the deep forest of a grassy field. Create this in a format similar to a traditional map,
i.e. tri-folded, mileage scale, landmarks, events.
Honing memory and visual perception: Through out this week choose a natural phenomenon to observe. With out drawing or painting study it
and try to describe it very specifically in words alone. Make a list of all the things that strike you about it.
Think of all the information you would need
to know to recreate the image later. When you are ready to paint see if you can call up the visual image with enough details to be able to paint it
from memory. For example if you were looking at a sunset: the sky is a light cerulean blue that fades to a dull, yellow ocher at the horizon. The
mountains are glowing a deep, thalo-blue, the clouds are a dirty lavender with a brilliant yellow edge. The yellow ocher color behind emphasizes the
clouds. The edge of the mountains are very sharp off to the side but where the last rays of the sun are shining the edges are obscured by the way that
the light is diffused.
If you do not have enough information to complete it stop and leave it unfinished! Think about what was missing in the written description. What
should you have considered more thoroughly? What could you confidently paint based upon your description? Write what you think is successful,
what is not convincing. What would you change? Next go out and try another observational study of a totally different subject matter keeping in
mind some of the things you learned from your first one.
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