Climate Crisis Artwork

In April, Eighth Graders engaged in discussion and creative work around the issue of the Climate Crisis. Each student undertook a self-designed project- they chose one particular angle of the Climate Crisis, researched for facts and data, developed an opinion or emotion to convey, and chose materials to work with for a final artwork. Each student reflected upon their work with an Artist Statement for their piece.

"Earth Changing"

Aseli

I think that simple things in our society are causing problems to our earth every single day and our earth is getting damaged. To create my art work I use pictures and I gathered many photos of climate change and mashed them all together into a shape of our earth.

With my project I hope I may portray the idea that our world is changing for the worse and there is a lot of work to fix what we have started.

"Rising Waters, Sinking Cities"

Helen

My Climate Crisis Artwork explores the effects of rising sea levels on cities around the world. This topic is such an important issue that seems to be overlooked by the media and countries, which is why I found it important to create art on it. This piece was inspired by Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, which is rapidly sinking. Its residents are struggling each day to salvage their homes or relocate. Though the capital of the country, the Indonesian government is not working to save the city. They are simply moving the capital away from the disaster. My artwork was a tunnel book made of mixed-media paper.

Creating art about the Climate Crisis, and all social issues, is a powerful method of advocacy. Not everyone is able to make speeches on news outlets or pass bills for a nation, but everyone can create art. The messages artworks spread to the community and the inspiration it can strike is truly the root of change. Through “Rising Waters, Sinking Cities”, I hope people can grasp the emotions of those losing their homes to the Climate Crisis and feel inclined to make a difference.

"Our Peril

Taylor

I explored how fossil fuels are one of the strongest bases in a web of problems of climate change. I explored how the burning of them leads to pollution of things such as smog and greenhouse gasses, which in turn lead to golbal warming, which leads to glaciers melting, which leads to the flooding of cities, and so on. I just found it interesting that most of the climate change problems are interconnected in some way or another, and I wanted to explore that.

"Comforting Friends"

Eliza

The topic I have explored in my Climate Crisis Artwork is what industries and aspects of daily life contribute to climate change.

This topic was interesting to me because it is familiar to me, but also seems so far away, even though we see many of the effects of it slowly but surely taking action.

I think that time for us to take action is in fact running out, which means that the longer we wait or put it off, the more we are going to end up paying for it in the coming years.

"Stranded Polar Bear"

Luke

The topic I have explored in my Climate Crisis Artwork is polar bears stranded on ice caps

This topic was interesting to me because polar bears are one of my favorite animals and I wanted to bring recognition to this issue.

To create my artwork I used Photoshop. I first imported a background and a polar bear to use as a stepping stone in order to build off of. Then, I added different masking layers to tweak the hue and color of the image. And, I added a snow overlay and a white smoke overlay to add more detail. Finally, I added the sun to make the image more realistic.

"Recycle"

Elliot

The topic I have explored in my Climate Crisis Artwork is the polar bears and the melting ice caps. This topic was interesting to me because I have seen a lot of pictures and paintings that really spoke to me about this topic. I also wanted to do a deeper dive into the problem. I think the changing climate should be a priority and that we should use more sustainable energy and recycle plastic bottles to help slow global warming.

To create my artwork I used pencil and shading to help portray the moment.

"Ocean Pollution"

Charlie B.

The topic I explored in my Climate Crisis artwork is pollution and trash in oceans. This topic was interesting to me because I already knew a little bit about ocean pollution and thought it could provide some interesting things to draw. I also think it is a really important issue and spreading some awareness around it would be great. To make my artwork I used a digital drawing app on my iPad. I sketched and planned out my piece, then went over it in color and finally added shading and some texture.

"California Fires"

Cole

The topic I have explored in my Climate Crisis Artwork is the California Fires. This topic is interesting to me because we all live in California and I think that it is interesting that the fires have increasingly gotten bigger in the past 10 years. I think that it is too bad that it is happening because California is so beautiful and because of us littering and not caring, the awesome forests are getting destroyed.

"We Are Sinking"

Audrey

My idea for the Climate Crisis project was a metaphor of how our world today is sinking just like the myth of Atlantis. I used watercolors to create this, and paint for the highlights. So my initial thought when starting the project was to have an idea of what I wanted to convey to the people who look at it. I feel like people only start to realize what’s happening when it starts affecting them. Since we live in the bay area I decided to draw the Golden Gate bridge. I wanted to show the ruins of Atlantis and show the bridge above it.

"Rising Seas"

Clare

The topic I have explored in my Climate Crisis Artwork is rising sea levels.

This topic was interesting to me because I feel like it is a real issue, and it is very current, and a lot of people do not realize how this issue will affect them.

I think that illustrating an image that will show people how rising sea levels will affect them, will open their eyes to the gravity of rising sea levels.

"2000 vs 2021"

Matt

For my art project I wanted to show how much the world has changed in just 20 years. I wanted to take some images of the ocean from the 2000’s and compare them to images of the ocean from 2021. I made a background image and digitally cut and pasted some separate images to make it look like an environment. I tried to blend the colors of the different images. The goal of my project was to make people realize how much of an impact we have had on the earth in just 20 years. If we made that big of a negative impact without even trying, I couldn't imagine how quickly we could turn that around if everyone just tried to help out by picking up trash they see, or even using less plastic items.

"We are the Cause"

Paola

It is scary how much of an impact we have on earth and i think we got a glimpse of it right after quarantine started when the world moved on and we were stuck at home. The animals came out, pollution is much less, and less negative effects were making the earth change. So from this we can see that we are not crucial to earth in fact we are going to kill our environments and along with that ourselves because we are harming the environment. My drawing is depicting the footprints as our damage while the rest of the world without the footprints is normal and healthy.

"Stop the Melt"

Chase

The topic I have explored in my Climate Crisis Artwork is The Great Melt

This topic was interesting to me because I love animals and it is very important for me to learn about this and spread awareness. It is important to make Art about Climate Crisis because it is important to spread awareness about these world issues.

"Polar Bear and Cub"

Charlie S.

"Snow in Texas"

Samantha

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