Arts Integration Residency with Montalvo Arts Center in Campbell, CA.

We started the session with a look at the paintings on the wall. We had a short discussion; there were some comparisons between the landscapes made by the different classes (6 in total).

Before we went outside, I explained what the idea with the session’s exercise was: we are artists and naturalists, we are going to try to look at the rock(s) we will find outside with a lot of attention.

“Do you think it is possible to find two rocks strictly identical?”
I drew an example with a rock I had in front of me.
I gave them the choice to work with a Sharpie or an extra-smooth graphite pencil or both – They could make several drawings if they wanted to (and they did!).

We went outside to explore an area where we could find rocks. I asked them if they knew where the rocks come from – got some good responses: they come from the mountain they just painted, the Santa Cruz mountains they can see in their landscape. It was a long time ago, the mountain is very old and lost a lot of rocks. The place where we found the rocks at school is not covered by any construction and was apparently not changed (I showed the area to my mom when she came and she said it looks pretty much untouched). So it is interesting because there is this small area of “natural space”.

Each student selected one or two rock(s).

Then drawing session –

 

We went back to the class, each student carrying 2 rocks they chose. (Next session we’ll wash them and we’ll see beautiful colors appear. We will make a painting of a few of them).

We looked at all the drawings for a few minutes. The discussion was about finding interesting things in the drawings and saying why.

It was fun and the kids did an amazing job at really looking and drawing!