Growing Artists From Fynbos
The Year 9 and 11 Art and design students enjoyed a field trip to the botanical gardens at Kirstenbosch, Cape Town. The vast and beautiful gardens are situated on the side slopes of Table Mountain that hosts South Africa’s most famous fynbos fauna and flora.
The steep mountain paths and shady tunnels through parts of the “forest garden” gave us not only a good workout, but allowed us to observe a wide variety of wild flowers and grass species. In art we encourage students to use all their senses when gathering and collecting material or ideas for their art concepts. They were very fortunate to experience South Africa’s national flower, the King Protea and took many photo’s as reference for their art topics.
The highlight of the day was a walk about over the famous Silver Slangboom bridge that towers over the tree tops and gave the students a different viewpoint on a vast pallet of treetop colors. An indoor glass house hosted indigenous succulents, bonsai trees and bulbs where the students could sit quietly and observe the plants and create drawings from these first-hand studies.
We concluded our outing with a visit to an art exhibition of local artists’ work where students learnt how to read paintings and distinguish between the mixed media that has been on display. They gathered enough visual evidence for their upcoming photographic art exhibition. Watch this space!
Ms Ilse du Plooy
High School Art Teacher