Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire and now lives/works in Scotland. Throughout his career, most of his artwork has been made in the open air, and then recorded as a photograph. The materials he uses are those he finds at the places he visits: twigs, leaves, stones, snow and ice, reeds and thorns.

Most of his artwork is ephemeral; lasting only a day. He leaves his art where he makes it, so that it can return to nature. Ice sculptures are allowed to melt, leaves to fall from their thorny supports, twigs to fall in place as they might have naturally.

His art demonstrates an extraordinary sense of play and place.

The shapes he makes from natural materials are simple: spirals, circles, cones, arches, columns, spheres, and lines.

Often his art will surround a naturally occurring object such as a tree or boulder.

Other times his work seems to play with objects, hanging from them or leading to them.

Some of his art work is designed to play with light and shadow.

To make art like Goldsworthy’s, we need to know about the Six Elements of Visual Art:

Line Shape Form Space Value Texture

Line

An identifiable path of a point moving in space. It can vary in width, direction or length.

Shape:

A two-dimensional area or plane that may be organic or inorganic, free-form or geocentric, open or closed, natural or of human origin.

Form:

A three dimensional volume or illusion of three dimensions. Form is related to shape, which is 2-D.

Value:

Light and dark; The gradual shading of light and dark on the surface of objects.

Texture:

The surface quality of material; either actual (like when you touch it), or visual (to the eye).

Space:

The emptiness or area between, around, above, below, or contained within objects. Shapes and forms are defined by space around and within them, just as spaces are defined by the shapes and forms around and within them.

Oak leaves in holes

Locations…

Ideas and examples.

Working in pairs. Choose an ELEMENT to work towards. Go on a nature walk, brainstorm and source a location and materials for your artwork. Blend artwork into the landscape using only natural materials. Consider: COLOUR. CONTRAST. PLACEMENT. Document the process and the final result.