Honoring Nature: The Art of David Driskell

Part 1: A Close Look at the Art of David Driskell

Introduce:

• IDENTIFY: Project the artwork Down by the Brook (if you can’t project, have students look at this piece in the Finding Similarities in Art guide). Ask students:
  • Observe: Where does your eye go first? Where does it go next? Then, where does it go?
  • Lines: Let’s look at the lines he uses. Does he use straight lines or curvy lines? How about vertical or horizontal lines?
  • Shapes: Now let’s look at the shapes. Does he use geometric shapes, like triangles, squares, and rectangles? Or does he use biomorphic shapes, which we see in nature, like flowers, animals, and clouds? Or does he use both?
  • Colors: Finally, let’s look at the colors he uses. Are the colors he uses mainly warm colors or cool ones? Does he mainly use primary colors like red, yellow, and blue? Or secondary colors like orange, green, and purple? How about how he puts the colors next to each other? Does he use complementary colors like red and green, purple and yellow, or orange and blue?
    • Teacher note: Use the color wheel in the Finding Similarities in Art guide as a reference to help guide students through examining Driskell’s colors. 
• Put students in pairs and have them look closely at the three paintings on the Finding Similarities in Art guide. Then ask them to answer the questions that follow the paintings. 
• When students are done, as a whole group, discuss the similarities they noticed. Jot down their responses on chart paper. Ask students the following question:
  • Based on the paintings you looked at, what do you think was something that inspired David Driskell, the artist we will talk about today? 
    • If necessary for younger students, define inspired as an object, person, place, experience that makes someone want to create something.
    • If students need some prompting, ask them to think about the objects they saw in each painting. 

Part 2: Nature’s Influence on Our Lives

Explore:

• Share with students that they will learn more about David Driskell, a Black artist who was also a historian and helped the world learn more about Black art. His art reflects things that were important to him, in particular nature. 
• Watch this video of David Driskell discussing the influence of nature on his work.
  • Have students watch the video in its entirety once.
  • Then have them watch it again and pause the video after each question on the Nature’s Influence on Driskell worksheet. Allow students to jot down their responses to the question. They can discuss with a partner. 
• After taking notes on the video, as a whole class, ask students:
  • Look back at the three paintings we examined earlier. What things from nature can you find in these paintings? 
  • How can you tell that nature was a big influence on David Driskell?

CONNECT: 

• Share with students that nature is an important part of how we live our lives. Driskell’s art helps to remind us of nature’s beauty and the ways in which we rely on nature to live. 
• “Think, Pair, Share”: Nature’s Influence on Me 
  • Think: Have students individually complete the Nature’s Influence on Me worksheet. 
  • Pair: In partners, ask them to discuss similarities and differences in their responses. 
  • Share: Ask students to share some things from nature they listed. Jot these down on a piece of chart paper to use in Part 3 of the lesson. 
• As a whole class, discuss:
  • Why is nature so important?
  • What can we do to protect nature?

Part 3: Honoring Nature

EXPRESS:

1. Introduce: Remind students that David Driskell honored nature through his artwork. They will create their own artworks inspired by nature. 
2. Select: Ask students to select one object or living being from nature. They can use the class list they generated in Part 2 to help them pick something. 
3. Brainstorm: Have students create an inspiration board using this template. The goal of the inspiration board is to notice Driskell’s lines, colors, and shapes and then to use those as they create their own artwork inspired by nature. 
   • Teacher note: Students can look at the thumbnails of the images in the template. If you’d like to share larger images or learn more about these paintings, have students look at the Phillips website.
4. Create: After completing their inspiration boards, have students use that to guide their own artworks. 
   • They can choose to use colored pencils, markers, crayons, paint, or any other materials you have available to create their artworks. 
   • Remind students to use some of the lines, colors, and shapes they captured on their inspiration board to create the object or living being from nature they selected earlier. 

Share:

• Have each student share their piece with the class. 
• As each student shares, they should describe the lines, colors, and shapes they used.
• The rest of the class should try to guess which object from nature inspired the piece.