- Hi, welcome to the creative corner.

My name is Lauren and I'm an art teacher with Art for the Journey.

I am so excited to have this time to share with you all kinds of amazing things from the world of art and creativity.

Today, we're going to explore the connection between art and the Earth.

I have two really fun hands on art projects for you to try at home, and don't worry.

The supplies are almost all things you already have.

I also have a special guest today who's coming to us from another country.

She's going to show us some dope music made by students like you.

So come on in and let's get creative.

(upbeat music) Did you know that coffee comes from a plant?

That's right.

Every cappuccino, macchiato and ice coffee we pour starts with a tree that produces a fruit called a coffee cherry.

When coffee cherries are ripe, they are picked, processed and dried.

The seeds of these fruits are what we call coffee beans.

That's what gets roasted, ground up into a powder and brewed with hot water to make coffee.

Today, we're going to use that coffee to make some art.

Let's gather our supplies for this project.

Now, I've taken some supplies from my art stash so I've got lots of different sizes of paint brushes.

I have a pencil just in case I want to sketch out my ideas before we start painting.

And I have a couple of different kinds of paper.

You want your paper for this project to be a nice light color.

So if you have normal everyday writing or printer paper, that's going to work fine.

You can use construction paper as long as it's a light color, but if you have thicker paper at home, that's going to be even better for this project.

The other place I went looking for supplies is my kitchen, which was really fun.

So, I have a couple of different glasses here.

They don't have to match.

They can be any size for mixing our paint colors in.

I have a spoon to do my stirring and mixing, and I have some coffee.

If someone in your house drinks coffee, you can use leftover coffee from this morning just make sure it's nice and cool before you touch it.

This has been sitting around for a couple of hours, so it's nice and cold.

If you don't have already made coffee, you can use your coffee grounds, which are coffee beans that are ground up into little pieces, or you can use instant coffee, which is just coffee that's already made into powder.

Now, this instant coffee dissolves in water really easily.

This is going to make mixing our paint shades really, really easy.

So if you have instant coffee, you can use that.

If you have regular coffee grounds, that's fine too.

Are you guys ready to make some paint?

The first thing we're going to do is add our coffee, which is going to add the pigment, or color, to our paint.

So I'm going to take my spoon and add a big spoonful of coffee to each of my cups.

I'm going to add the same amount to each one.

Now I'm going to add some water to each of them.

Water is going to make this into liquid and make us be able to paint with it.

So I'm going to add just a teeny tiny bit of water to my first cup, just enough to get all the coffee wet.

I'm going to add a little bit more to my second cup and you can tell, cause they're right next to each other, so this one's a little bit higher.

And then just a little bit more water to the third cup.

And then we get to mix them up.

You want to stir your coffee until all of the coffee is dissolved in the water.

So there's no solid pieces left, it's all liquid.

A bonus of this project is that it smells really good.

Smells like coffee.

Now that I'm done using my water for mixing, we can use it to rinse our brushes and our spoon.

So I'm just going to put my spoon right there so it doesn't get my table all messy.

Coffee is brown, so all of our paint is going to be some shade of brown, or tan, or maybe a light yellow color, but the more coffee that's in there, the darker it's going to be.

If there's more water, it's going to be a little bit lighter.

So, what we're going to do now is test our colors and make a color swatch.

A swatch is like a little sample of something to show you what it's going to look like.

I want you to grab a small piece of paper and let's make a color swatch.

Remember, less water makes a darker color, more water makes a lighter color.

So I'm going to dip my brush in my dark coffee color, and I'm going to paint a little stripe on my paper.

Okay?

Then I'm going to rinse out my brush.

Dry it off a little bit.

And then I'm going to test my second color.

So this one in the middle here has the same amount of coffee and, kind of, a medium amount of water.

So it should be a little bit lighter than my first color.

Looks good.

Alright, rinse my brush, dry it off.

And let's test our third color.

So this color should be really light.

It's got the most amount of water in it.

I have tested my three shades of coffee paint.

They're all the same color, but they're three different shades, which means some are lighter and some are darker.

So if I want a really, really light shade, I can just keep adding water to my brush and that's going to keep giving me lighter and lighter colors.

So, now we have our swatch.

We know what all of our colors, or our shades, are going to look like when we use them in a painting.

So I think we're ready to paint.

I'm going to paint a bird.

And I'm going to start with a small, skinny, little paint brush like this so I can do a little bit of an outline.

I've got some water handy to rinse my brushes off and I've got a paper towel to make sure I don't make a mess.

Alright, so I'm going to start with the lightest color or the lightest shade of paint that I have, which is the one with the most water in it.

So I'm going to get some of that on my brush, not too much.

And I'm just going to make an outline and maybe get some feathers in the tail.

Now I can start adding a little bit of shade or color and make some legs.

And you know what?

I think I'll give him a little branch to stand on.

I think it's really cool that even though we used the same coffee to make all of these shades of paint, they all show up a little bit different when we put them on the white paper.

They all have different concentrations of coffee.

Some are really concentrated, they have a lot of coffee and just a little bit of water, and some are less concentrated, so they're more watery.

That looks good to me.

Alright.

I think my painting is done.

I'm not going to pick it up yet.

I'm going to let it dry while it's nice and flat so that the coffee and the liquid water doesn't run all over the place.

It's a little bit prone to drip.

So I'm going to let it sit flat and dry before I pick it up.

For this project, we used some unexpected art supplies.

Coffee beans made their way from a pod on a tree all the way into our kitchens, where we used them to make paint.

I hope you guys had fun painting with coffee and keep your eyes open.

Who knows, there might be other things lying around your house, just waiting to be made into art.

In the meantime, I have something really amazing to show you.

It's a music video made by some students at the Tlakukani primary school in South Africa.

Here to introduce the video is my friend Rex.

Rex works with an organization called Earth Song that uses the power of music to spread messages about preserving natural resources and saving our planet.

Welcome to the creative corner, Rex.

- Hi Lauren.

Thank you for having me.

My name is from Reekelitsoe Molapo from Lesotho.

- [Lauren] Awesome, thanks for being here, Rex.

We're going to have a fun conversation about music.

So why don't you start off telling us what role music plays in your life and in your culture?

- Well, music plays a pivotal role in my life personally because I use it to uplift my spirits, and I also just use it to communicate certain messaging.

Because I'm a musician and I'm a singer, it's a part of who I am really.

And I have always been involved in music ever since I was a child.

And then in my culture, it's also played another huge role because growing up, I remember we used to use music to teach lessons either in a classroom or in family settings.

I remember that my grandmother would be passing on certain messaging to us through music and would be teaching us certain things about our culture through music, what they usually call oral tradition.

Yeah.

And that's one form that she would use to pass on certain important messages to us in our culture.

And I always tell people that as Africans, music and artistic expression is really a part of our identity and it's been done for years and years before we were born and up until now today.

- [Lauren] Yeah, that's so cool.

So music is a tradition, it's something that's been used or enjoyed for a really long time.

It's something that can be fun and enjoyed and make you feel good or make you want to dance.

And it's also something that can serve a purpose and spread a message or teach us things.

So that's awesome.

And that's kind of what you do in your work.

So tell us about the organization that you work for and what your mission is.

- Okay, so I work for Conservation Music and Earthsong.

And our mission is to put music to work for its people, planet and society in general.

So, yes.

- [Lauren] Fantastic.

So we're going to watch one of the music videos made by Conservation Music and Earthsong.

It is one that was made in South Africa by some artists and some students who worked together to create this song and this performance called "Protect Our Water".

So, why do you think it's so important to think about how we use water and try to protect it and conserve it in the world that we live in today?

- It's important to protect our water because one, water is essential to life, without water, really there isn't much life.

One can go on a certain period of time without food, but not necessarily without water.

So that's how essential water is.

And then it's important for us to conserve whatever water sources that we have in order for us to be able to live.

That's how important it is.

Just recently in South Africa, we went through a terrible drought and where some water sources really ran dry and people were not able to have drinking water, their livestock was affected, and the vegetation in general.

- [Lauren] There are lots of ways to spread a message around the world, so if we're trying to get people to live sustainably and protect the planet, there's lots of ways we can spread that message.

So why did you guys choose music?

- Well, because music is a universal language, really, most people get it.

It's staying power, and its ability to unify people and also how it's so inclusive.

And most people are able to understand it because it is indeed a universal language.

- [Lauren] I have a feeling that everybody here in Virginia, who's going to watch this video at home is going to absolutely love it as well.

So, I'm excited to show it to them.

So, thank you so much for being here with us and helping introduce our music video.

And I think everybody's going to love getting taste of some African music.

- Yay.

Great.

That's amazing.

I'm happy that people are going to be able to share a little bit in our culture and be a part of our culture for a few minutes while they're watching that music video.

And I hope they enjoy it.

So, yes.

(rain falling) ♪ Water ♪ Let's save our water (singing in foreign language) ♪ Protect our water ♪ Starve is the water ♪ Save our water ♪ When the sunshine's overwhelming ♪ ♪ And the elders are requesting ♪ ♪ Through a rain dance calling out to Mother Africa, ♪ ♪ Do you hear me?

♪ Save our water, let it rain upon Ali ♪ ♪ Let the rivers flow into infinity, ♪ ♪ Though she brings joy to the community ♪ ♪ Still she stays quiet in humility ♪ ♪ Cause if she had the upper hand ♪ ♪ She'd get acknowledged by the government ♪ ♪ And all the children that she's mothering ♪ ♪ Wouldn't thirst again, let the water cleanse ♪ ♪ The people bringing healing to this land ♪ ♪ Let's celebrate them on the bulletin ♪ ♪ And all the suffering and the ignorance ♪ ♪ Bring it to an end ♪ Protect our water ♪ Starve is our water ♪ Save our water ♪ Protect our water ♪ Starve is our water ♪ Save our water ♪ How do we live now ♪ In a world without rain?

♪ Our rivers are dry now ♪ And my people live in pain ♪ But we can make it ♪ If we unite together again ♪ Love is the answer ♪ And they're healing, the kids are saying ♪ ♪ Without you there is no life ♪ I need you now ♪ Show me where you are ♪ I need you now (singing in foreign language) ♪ Save our water ♪ Starve is our water ♪ Save our water (singing in foreign language) ♪ Protect our water ♪ Starve is our water ♪ Save our water ♪ We call you Mother Nature ♪ You keep us alive ♪ Through pieces of your making ♪ ♪ We learn to survive ♪ It's time we came to realize ♪ What we have in you ♪ And what we stand to lose (singing in foreign language) - The song "Protect our Water" and the music video we just watched were created by a group of musicians from South Africa, working together with students at the Tlakukani primary school there.

If you want to see and hear more music from around the world about protecting our planet's natural resources, visit WeAreEarthsong.org or follow we.are.Earthsong on Instagram.

Now that we've made some plant-based paint and seen how artists today are using their work to protect the Earth, it's time for an Earth art throwback.

And I mean way back.

Let's talk about cave paintings.

Cave art is some of the oldest art on planet Earth.

10, 20, even 35,000 years ago, people were making paintings, drawings, and carvings on the sides of cliffs and inside of caves all around the world.

The way that you or I might take a picture of something, maybe write a journal or a diary entry, even write a song or make a work of art about something that's important to us or something that happens in our everyday lives, people thousands of years ago were doing the same thing by picking up materials that were readily available in their environments and using them to make pictures on the walls of caves.

Caves are protected from the elements.

They don't get a lot of wind or rain to erase the paintings.

They've lasted for a really long time.

That's kind of hard to believe and really, really cool.

A lot of cave paintings feature pictures of people and animals like bison, horses, deer, or even birds.

If you go to a specific cave in Brazil or South Africa or England, you're going to find different pictures because the people in those places were living surrounded by different types of animals and doing different everyday activities.

Some of the most famous cave paintings in the world were discovered in Lascaux, France by a bunch of teenagers.

They followed a dog into a little hole in the side of a cliff.

And when they lit a match to look around them, they discovered more than 600 paintings on the ceilings and the walls of the cave.

How great would that feel?

It would be such a big surprise.

Today we're going to experiment with making our own cave paintings.

We're going to go around the house and find some readily available materials that we can use to make art just like people did thousands of years ago.

All you need to make your own cave painting at home is a plain paper bag, a pair of scissors, and anything you can paint or draw with.

Next, I want you to take your rectangle of paper from your bag and crumble it up into a big ball.

(paper rustles) Give it a really good squish and then unfold it.

It should be nice and crinkly.

Now we've got a nice place to make our cave paintings that looks just like a rock.

Smooth it out a little bit more so I can draw on it.

And now you get to use whatever materials you want to make your pictures.

So, if you have pencils or crayons or something that smudges really easily, it's fun to blend on paper.

So I'm going to start out with these crayons here.

I'm going to try to use really natural colors in my picture and imagine that I am making this picture outside in a cave or on a cliff and I have to find things in nature to make it with.

So that's usually colors like brown, red, orange, yellow.

They tend to be warm colors.

I'm going to add lots of different layers of color.

I started with a brown outline, adding some red.

Now I think I'll add some white to make these nice and bold.

I can use my finger to do a little bit of blending and blend my colors so they're nice and smooth on the surface of my fake rock.

Thousands of years ago when people were making cave paintings, they would have been using materials like different rocks and minerals that they could find on the ground or pieces of charcoal from a fire or even things like plants or bugs that could be squished up and made into paints and dyes.

Let's get some yellow in here.

Alright, now I'm going to see if I can draw a horse.

So I'm going to take a black crayon and I'm going to draw a long nose or face, a long neck, and some long legs.

And maybe I'll give him a buddy, maybe this one will be running, and then I'm going to give them some color.

Let's get kind of an orangy brown color for these two.

What's really fun about soft art materials like crayons and oil pastels or chalk pastels is that they blend really easily so you can put two colors together and you can blend them together.

Adding some little speckles around my horses to make it look like there's maybe some texture to the rock that we're painting on.

And let's see, what else can I do?

Let's see if I can fit one more animal in here.

Make kind of a wild boar here, with some tusks.

Make a little nose.

And with that, you are the proud creator of your very own cave painting.

I've had a great time experimenting with art today and exploring the intersections between the arts and the Earth.

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have, painting with coffee, exploring caves around the world, and listening to music from South Africa.

And I hope you'll come back next week and hang out in the creative corner.

- [Narrator] The mission of Art for the Journey is to overcome barriers and transform lives through creating art.

Every day, Art for the Journey provides art programs designed to promote well being for children and adults in underserved communities.

We believe art heals.

Hundreds of volunteers and support from the community make our work possible.

To learn more about Art for the Journey, visit our website at www.artforthe journey.org.

(upbeat music)