North County Landscapes
North County Landscapes. This project, revolving around a series of hikes around North County, incorporated Biology and Art-related topics.
Art
In art class, our team painted large-scale landscapes inspired by the works of the artist Marilyn Anne Fraser. We were put into groups of four and assigned to collaboratively choose a location, photo, and design for our painting. Each of us chose and drew a mini version of how we would like our painting to look and then we all voted on the best one. The image I chose was one of Elfin Forest reserve (seen below).
I wanted to do something unique from the rest of the class so I chose an image with words and that was a long panorama. I used bright colors and interesting lines when translating the image onto paper and, in other words, took a lot of creative liberty. Below is an image of the rough draft I created.
After a lot of discussion and planning, my group finally decided that we would use my image for the large-scale piece but with some agreed edits that would make it look better. Our next step was to choose some canvases (we chose five canvases to place side-by-side) and then trace the projected image onto the canvas. With four of us working on it, this didn't take too long. We spent the next day and a half planning what colors would go where so that the rest of the process could be an easy paint-by-numbers project. This was a little frustrating as my group, who claimed they have little to no artistic talent, were not very helpful. next was the painting and, I believe, one of the most painful stages of the project. I started off very headstrong and excite to whip out my painting skills but soon lost my enthusiasm as we continued. I soon became very frustrated with my group as, like I said above, claimed to know little of painting. This means that, throughout the entire process, I was made to mix all the colors, find all the materials, and literally hand the paint and paintbrush to my group in order for them to paint. This gave me very little time to paint. I also felt I had to constantly tell my group how to paint as they were being very sloppy in my opinion. Looking back, I know I could have been a little more easygoing but I guess I really wanted the painting to turn out perfect. This probably made my group very frustrated with me and was some of the reason they wanted me to tell them what to do all the time. As the process wore on, though, I started to make them do more things independently and stopped getting so frustrated if they made a mistake or something. After several weeks, the large painting was finally done and, though it was not perfect and sorta far from it (which I regret), it was done and I was happy. Near the end, we started getting really lazy and basically 100% done with the project so that's where some parts got messy. I wish, perhaps, that I could have balanced my efforts to not be so much in the beginning and to be more near the end.
Biology
The biology component of this project consisted of the hikes we did as a team and the lessons we taught while on them. The idea of this component was that of the "Outdoor Classroom" meaning that we would not spend so much time sitting in desks in a dull building but more time outside in nature and sunshine where we can, hopefully, learn better. In groups or in solo, we were required to create lessons and activities about the various locations our hikes an them teach them o our group members when at the location. The location I was assigned was the same as the one I did for the landscape painting: Elfin Forest Nature Preserve. After doing much research, I was able to present about the geography, history, preservation, native species, and impact of Elfin Forest and put together a really funny scavenger hunt activity for the location. Below, you can see my lesson and activity plan/notes.