Teacher preparation:

Overarching learning goal: By participating in this activity students will recognise that there are multiple forms of environmental art. They will also understand that materials and practices are as important to creating art as the message and intention of the art.

Teacher content information: If creating and looking at art helps you to explore the world, then it makes sense that artists would incorporate the natural environment into their art. Increasingly, environmental art is being explored as a way of interrogating human relationships with the natural world and as a way of improving our relationship with nature.

However, not all environmental art is about taking environmental action. Broadly speaking, environmental art can be broken down into several loose categories:

Art that describes the natural world;
Art that celebrates personal engagement in the natural world; and
Art that directly addresses environmental issues (sometimes known as ‘ecological art’ or eco-art’).

A lot of environmental art is ephemeral; it is made to disappear or transform, much like aspects of the natural environment. Alternatively it is designed with a particular place in mind. Increasingly, environmental art is a collaborative effort between artists, scientists, or the community.

According to the website greenmuseum.org, some environmental art:

"Informs and interprets nature and its processes, or educates us about environmental problems;
Is concerned with environmental forces and materials, creating artworks affected or powered by wind, water, lightning, even earthquakes;
Re-envisions our relationship to nature, proposing new ways for us to co-exist with our environment; and
Reclaims and remediates damaged environments, restoring ecosystems in artistic and often aesthetic ways."

Student and classroom organisation:

Preparation: There are three options for the photo used in this activity. You will need to decide on what source of photos you will use before you begin this activity, as students will need the photos for this activity. The options for sourcing photos include:

Ask students to bring in a photo of a place in nature they have visited that they enjoyed, or of a place in nature that they would like to visit. Have a number of extra photos available for students who forget their picture or who don’t have any suitable pictures.
Alternatively, ask students to take photos of scenes from your school or neighbourhood. Encourage students to look for scenes that include natural elements.
Finally, you can provide students with images – you can use images printed from Google Images, pictures from old calendars or pictures from magazines.

Step 1.

Begin this activity by showing students some of the works by Ben Heine.

Students can answer the following questions as part of a class discussion, or work in small groups using the student worksheet.

What materials are used in these images?
What processes are used by the artist to create these images?
What words come to mind when you look at these images (e.g. playful, funny, weird etc)?
Do you like these images? Why or why not?
How do these artworks make you feel (e.g. happy, sad etc)? Why?
Do you think you would feel differently about these images if the artist had used different mediums, for example, oil paintings instead of photos and charcoal drawings instead of cartoons?
How would you have drawn the cartoons if it were up to you?

Step 2.

Explain to students that they will be creating their own version of these images, using photos they have sourced or have taken, or using pictures you have provided (see Preparation note).

They will first need to think about the following points (questions also available on the student worksheet):

What is this picture of?
How does this picture make you feel?
What things from nature can you see in this picture?
How do you think nature could be improved in this picture?

Step 3.

Ask students to start creating their cartoon to go in front of their photo. The content of the cartoon can be based on reality or fantasy; however, it must incorporate elements of nature. Students should:

Think of a name for their artwork;
Consider what their artwork says about nature and our environment? For example, does it have an environmental message, or is it a celebration of nature, or does it describe the relationship between nature and humans?

Ask students to answer these questions on the student worksheet or write a short paragraph answering these questions.

Step 4.

Once students have completed their cartoons, take a photo of them holding the image in front of their photos (as in the Ben Heine images). Print these pictures out and display them in the classroom.

Assessment/Reflection

Ask students to present their work to the rest of the class. Use the following points to prompt discussion:

What is this image called?
If they chose the photo themselves, why did they choose it? What is special about this photo?
What is their cartoon about and why did they draw it?
How are the photo and cartoon related? How do they connect?
What was hard or easy in drawing their cartoon?
If you were to do this again, what would you change? What do you think could be improved?
What was the intention of this work? Were you hoping to send an environmental message, or make people think more deeply about nature, or just make people smile?
What does this image say about our environment? What is the environmental message of this image?

Extension/Homework

Take a photo of a landscape or nature scene and stick it in the middle of an A4 piece of paper. Ask students to extend the scene in the photo onto the piece of paper, using colour pencils, crayons, texta's, paints or collage. The extension should go all the way to the edges of the paper.

Creating a nature cartoon-scape

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