Art Making and Meaning:
Understanding through Questions
The World Around Us -- Physical Environments Question for Understanding If you were thinking about making an artwork, could you get ideas or materials from your environment? Objectives Students recognize features of the natural and/or built environments in which artists live and work. Students recognize how some artists use tools and materials from their environment. Students recognize how some artists incorporate features of their environment into their art. Activity Ideas for All Students Show the DVD segment, “The World Around Us,” asking students to listen for ways the natural and built environments affected the artists. Give students practice and feedback by using some or all of the interactive “The World Around Us” CD activities, which you can project for an entire class or which individual students can view in a computer lab. Students can use the CD to 1) review what they learned on the DVD, 2) apply what they learned to their everyday visual world, and 3) recognize how inquiry into the natural environments applies to artists from the past and living today. Display and lead a discussion of how artists, such as Charles Sheeler, Tomas Moran, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, or Georgia O’Keeffe, have been inspired by the environment. Activity Ideas for Art Students Ask students to investigate art materials used in the art of indigenous people across the globe. They might experiment with refining their own clay, making ink from soot, using sticks and ink for drawing, assembling sculptures from found objects, etc. Complementary Activities from Stories of Art |