Land Art on the Beach

Last week we just got back from our Ocean Beach Vacation and we missed it so much that we decided to go to our Local Lake Beach for some fun before school starts next week.  It is a little more than an hour away but worth the drive.  It was a gorgeous day... beautiful blue skies, warm water, and a nice breeze. We may be back for another day or two.  While we were there we swam, collected rocks/sea glass (not many shells), flew a kite, and created some awesome Beach Land Art.  There was an abundance of rocks and seagull feathers so that became our medium of choice.  Check out some of our fabulous work and please be inspired!

Flying a Kite!

Beginnings of our Mandala Rock Sun.

C adding feathers.

My face with feather hair.

C's HUGE feather mandala.

Finished!

Good Bye Lake Beach for now we had fun...

Have you created Art on the beach?

Art comes so naturally on the beach...sand castles, land art....

We Love Dandelions

"To some the dandelion is a weed;  but not to me, unless it takes its share of space,  for I always miss these little earth stars when they are absent.  They intensify the sunshine shimmering on the lawn, making one smile involuntarily when seeing them.  Moreover, they awaken pleasant memories,  for a child in which dandelions had no part is a defective experience." ~Excerpted from "The Home Acre," by E.P. Roe


We love dandelions here.  C has been picking me little dandelion bouquets each day and marveling at these "earth stars"! The quote above is great..couldn't imagine a childhood without them.  We even made a Dandelion Heart as part of our Land Art collection.

Now most of our dandelions are going to seed, but still they are so exciting to a child. Now we have dandelion "puff ball" bouquets!

What have you been creating with dandelions?

Picture of C last year enjoying the dandelions!

Snowy Hearts

If you've been following me a while you know that I LOVE Land Art.  We've done quite a few Land Art Posts that you can check out here or at the end of this post.  Winter introduces a whole new medium: SNOW!  It adds a crisp white background to everything.  We made Snowy (Land Art) Hearts since Valentine's Day is on our mind! Check them out and let me know what you think!

Evergreen Bush and Cranberries

More Evergreen and Cranberries

C painting our Snow heart on a tree
Recipe for snow paint click here

Finished Painted Snow Heart

A great book to go with our Snowy Hearts is Snow Valentines by Karen Gray Ruelle. The brother and sister cat in this book create Snowy Valentines because they want to be unique! This is such a sweet Valentine book!

I'm sure we will be doing more Snowy Land Art this Winter!

Stay tuned! 

Land Art Posts:

Our Land Art

Outdoor Fall Leaf Art

Rain Shadows

This post is linked to: Link and Learn

Outdoor Fall Leaf Art

Fall seems to be coming to an end in this neck of the woods.  Mostly all the leaves have fallen and there are a few isolated trees that have some color on them.  Winter will be here before you know it so we decided to take advantage of this past beautiful weekend to enjoy a little hike through one of our local parks.  Whenever I am out in the woods I think about the Land artist Andy Goldsworthy and am tempted to create something with the surrounding natural elements.  Usually I can get C to get involved because it seems to come natural for children to create with what is ever around them!!!  Also, we have done quite a bit of Land Art here and here and here so it didn't take much inspiration.  Here is our creation:

Placing the stems of each leaf into the bark of the tree.

Admiring our creation and wondering if we should add more leaves?

Or not...?

It was a simply BEAUTIFUL day!

C had a lot of fun jumping and running through the woods!

Do you see she lost one of her front teeth??

We LOVE Fall just in case you haven't noticed!!!

Coffee Table Rock Art

Cassie and I collected some Lake Worn Rocks at the beach the other day!  We never had a chance to do any Land Art on the beach, but I inspired her to create some "Coffee Table Rock Art" one day!  I created a  huge spiral on our coffee table with the rocks and that instantly intrigued her to create her own "Rock Art."

Rock Person!

Here is the same "Rock Person" with arms and holding a newspaper!

Another Rock Person...with a BIG smile!!!!

Artist doing some serious work!!!!

My FAVORITE!!! The Flower!!!

We'll be going back soon to gather more rocks or to build some sand sculptures!!!

If not sculpture....Swimming!!! This girl LOVES the water!

This post is linked to:

It's Playtime

Our Land Art

We've created Land Art throughout the summer that I'd like to share.  Cassie and I were inspired by Artist Andy Goldsworthy and his film Rivers and Tides to do Our Rain Shadows (that post is here) and all the following shown below.

Sun and Leaves by Mom

Water, Leaves, Grass, and Flower Floating, by C

Branch Sculpture By C

Branch and Leaf Sculpture By C

Leaves that Blew away By Mom

A found sculpture at a State Park

Mom's Rock Snake

Cassie Building her Rock Sculpture

Nature is so inspiring! I see so many possibilities for Land Art when we are outside and especially while hiking.  If you ever watch the Documentary River and Tides with Andy Goldsworthy.... you will be inspired!!

Other Inspirations 

TinkerLab has a beautiful post on Forest Land Art here.  Be sure to check this out!

Also, be sure to check out Richard Schilling's Land Art Blog here.

Another great Land Art Blog: Land Art For Kids.

I hope all this has inspired you to create Land Art!!!

I'm sure we'll be doing more Land Art in the future!

This post is linked to:

It's Playtime

Rain Shadows

We were inspired by Land Artist Andy Goldsworthy after viewing his film Rivers and Tides to create Rain Shadows! It is a fabulous Artist documentary if you enjoy that sort of thing.  The artist creates one of these rain shadows during the documentary!  Cassie actually enjoyed this film and has been inspired to create other land art too!  Basically to create a Rain Shadow you need to lay down on the pavement just before it starts to rain and lay still until it looks like the rain has covered the pavement around you.  Then when you get up you should see your Rain Shadow.  Cassie and I were lucky enough to be around right when it began to rain and tried this. I laid on my back and C was on her side.  it was very refreshing and freeing laying down and letting the rain fall on you, but I'm not sure it was for C! Here are our Rain Shadows!

Looking at our Rain Shadows!

We tried creating some Rain Shadows by spraying the hose over each other too! It was more difficult to get the water to come down without going under our bodies!  You would probably need to spray the water up higher so it would fall more like rain.  Also with such HOT pavement it made it difficult to lay down! BE CAREFUL!

Before!

After!

OTHER IDEAS FOR RAIN SHADOWS:

You could also try different objects to see what rain shadows that they create.

Also, you could observe natural occurring rain shadows left from parked cars or trees that the rain cannot rain through because it is a light rain!

WHAT DO YOU THINK???

This post is linked to:

It's Playtime