Day 19. Fun Lesson: WEATHER SYSTEMS, Part 1
A very important "inside art lesson" in two parts
Helllllooo GUT Peeps!
Let’s get right into it.
Weather & Art
Weather has been a subject in art since cave artist etched human’s earliest drawings into cave walls. (It’s been speculated that cave artists were in fact documenting natural cycles including thawing of rivers and growth of plants in their mark making - aka weather tracking!) Later, artists like Leonardo Da Vinci looked up to the sky and used drawing to make sense of weather patterns. Geologist and Renaissance art expert Ann Pizzorusso claimed Leonardo da Vinci was the first person to predict the weather.
Later, the impressionists became obsessed with understanding how light works. Artists like Monet studied the impact of the sun and storms and rain on landscapes. Here is an example of two very different paintings Monet created on the cliffs of Normandy in the 1880s.
AND LATER STILL, artist Olafur Eliasson created 'The weather project' in 2003, an installation in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London. Eliasson used a semi-circular screen, a ceiling of mirrors, and ton of artificial mist to create the illusion of a dramatic Sunscape, immersing the viewer in a surreal sunny atmosphere.
Here’s a photo of visitors experiencing the piece:
Clearly the natural elements and weather have been a subject of art since art first started. But is artists obsession with weather really about predicting the next storm, exploring light or reproducing the outside indoors? Or is there something else going on, too?
Inside Weather in Art
Let’s go back to our old friend Leonardo for a sec. In addition to working out the particular swirling of a cumulonimbus, historians noted that Da Vinci drew those cloud studies in the last years of a very troubled life. Perhaps this obsession with destructive storms was also the expression of an artists feelings as he gets closer to death and reflects with hard feelings.
And those Monet paintings above created while on retreat? Sure, he was there to paint and study the changing landscapes. He had also recently lost his wife of many years. It’s hard not to speculate on the emotional connection between that loss and the expressive moods reflected in his paintings.
And finally, that Elisason? From a piece published Coco Jiang, “Eliasson’s inspiration for this project actually developed in London, on a warm day when he overheard people discussing global warming because it had snowed just the day before; he found that the weather was quite dynamic.” That definitely gives the piece an emotional twist.1
There is weather outside. And there is weather inside. Art connects the two.
The subject of weather offers a vehicle for exploration, expression, reflection and communication of the emotional changes we regularly experience… if we are in touch with them.
Today’s “Fun Lesson” is about how to use art to connect with our feelings so that we can use translate that into our art, and even use art to help ourselves cope with our changing feelings.
Inside Weather for Kids, The DT Classic
If you participated in any DrawTogether with WendyMac classes for kids - live, video, or podcasts - you’ve probably heard me mention Inside Weather.
Here’s the link to the Inside Weather video for kids, and here is the podcast episode.
It’s by far the most well-loved and oft-used class in homes and classrooms around the world. Young people in the phenomenal program Colors of Connection in Goma, DRC create DrawTogether Inside Weather Charts to support socio-emotional skill-building and promote healing.
And kids in Educator and GUT member
’s classroom at PS9 in Brooklyn, New York painting an Inside Weather Chart mural at their school!!
What makes DrawTogether’s Inside Weather chart drawing experience so popular??
The process of drawing weather systems connects art with feelings; it connects our brains and hearts with our bodies. What do STORMY feelings signify? And how do we talk about that? How does it feel to experience them, and how does it feel to draw them? And how do we feel AFTER we draw them??
Having these conversation (while drawing!) helps young people step back and start to learn to identify and articulate feelings, and learn ways to manage them. Having a finished piece of artwork that contains that learning serves as a tool we can use during hard times, when we can’t find our words, or identify our feelings. Where words fail, drawing steps in.
Kids aren’t the only ones who need help figuring out feelings.
I know one person who recently threw a temper tantrum over an email because she had big feelings she wasn’t able to identify as sadness and fear about something entirely unrelated. (🙋♀️ It me!)
We can all use a little help with our feelings from time to time. We can all use an inside weather chart.
Where words fail, drawing steps in.
Inside Weather for Grown-Ups
Weather chart drawings with kids can be pretty literal. Sun for happy feeling, rain drops in the sky for sad feelings, etc. For us grown-ups (and for kids who still can connect with their radical imagination!) we can be a little more experimental. And we can use it as an opportunity to explore different kind of drawing. Whether it be using different mediums, ways of moving our bodies to draw, metaphors, personification of weather… we can create an inside weather chart that best serves us.
And that is what we are doing today.
Our fun lesson today is not about How to Draw Shadows, or Contour Drawing, it’s about getting better at connecting with our feelings through art, which in turn helps us be kinder to ourselves and one another. Which helps create a better world.
To inspire you, here are a few more examples of weather-focused artwork by artists who were not afraid of their feelings .
Sunny
Rainy
Stormy
Okay, with that inspiration in our brains and hearts, let’s make some art.