Land Ho! - Outdoor Art from Nature

LAND ART is type of art created in nature, using natural materials like soil, rocks, branches or leaves, and even water. Sometimes they're made to stay around for long time, but sometimes they are made in snow or sand so the don't last as long.

Something that has stayed around a long time are the "Nazca Lines" of Peru. They are giant pictures carved into the ground made a very long time ago (500 BC). They show different animals and people, but no one knows exactly why people made them. One idea is that the carvings were a giant calendar that used the stars to mark time.

Some of these can only be seen from an airplane they are so big. They can be almost 6 miles (9.6 km) wide.

 Nazca Line - Spider

Nazca Line - Monkey

A well known artist named Robert Smithson started making big sculptures out of rocks and other things in nature. He made "Spiral Jetty" in 1970.
It is 1,500 feet (450 m) long, and 6,500 TONs of rocks and earth!

It is in Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Artists can do a lot of different things with what they find in nature. Patterns in the sand or snow, rocks, leaves, flowers, pine cones can all be used to make art.

Tony Plant is an artist from England who walks on the beach with a gardening rake to make beautiful designs in the sand. They only last a couple hours because the tide comes in and washes them away.

This is how Mr. Plant makes his art by walking with a rake to make the designs.

Simon Beck is another artist from England, but he makes designs in the snow in the mountains of France. He maps out the design on the computer. He also uses different markers around him like trees so he knows where to walk in the snow to make the pattern. It can take him between 6 HOURS and 2 DAYS to make one design.  

Detail of the pattern in the snow

Mr. Beck standing near one of his creations.

Michael Grab is an artist who takes rocks and balances them. It almost doesn't look real, but the way they are stacked is what is holding them up. 

This a picture of the artist stacking up rocks to look like a ball on top of another rock. It takes a lot of time to figure out how to place the rocks, but the artist said he really likes it because it makes him think.

  

Kathy Klein makes patterns called "mandalas" out of different materials she finds in nature. "Mandala" means "circle". She uses flower petals, vegetables, and pine cones to to make the patterns.

Link to more pictures of land art in sand, snow, and balancing rocks

This is a "geoglyph" which means it is a picture made out of the earth. This is an eagle made by Andrew Rogers in You Yangs National Park in Victoria, Australia in 2006. It is 328 feet wide (100 meters),  and 1,500 tons of rock!

   
See the Google Earth Map from way up high! 

Richard Shilling is a land art artist who has a great interview on the blog "The Artful Parent" in a 2010 interview. He gives suggestions on how to get kids into making things from the environment around them.

Interview with Richard Shilling about Land Art

Richard Shilling - Land Art for Kids
(book is out of print, but used copies appear to be available)

There are so many wonderful ways to express yourself with materials right outside your front door.There is no wrong way to do it or any age limit, young or old.