Inspired by the beautiful blossoms at High Park , this week in Art in Action student’s learned about Sakura pronounced Sa-Koo-La; the Japanese name for flowering cherry trees or simply for “flower viewing.” In Japan there is a legend that each spring a fairy maiden hovers low in the warm sky, wakening the sleeping cherry trees to life with her delicate breath.
On April 1, 1959, the Japanese ambassador to Canada, Toru-Hagiwara, presented 2000 Japanese Somei-Yoshino Sakura trees to the citizens of Toronto on behalf of the citizens of Tokyo. The trees were planted in appreciation of Toronto accepting re-located Japanese-Canadians following the Second World War. Many of these trees were planted on the hillside overlooking Grenadier Pond and around the east shore of the pond. In 1984, an additional small grove of Japanese cherry trees were planted along a pathway west of the Children’s Adventure Playground in High Park. In 2001, 34 more Sakura trees were donated and in 2006, 16 more trees were planted near the original planting site. These were all done through the Consulate General of Japan in Toronto’s “Sakura Project.” Plaques commemorating each of the plantings can be found under the cherry trees in High Park.
This week, students used a scraping technique to create their background and then used oil pastels to make the branches and create shadows…
Students used acrylic paint and large brushes to create their blossoms. We talked about the principal “variety” when creating their blossoms. Students were “deliberately random” when choosing where to place blossoms; some close together, some farther apart, some large some small, some mostly white, some with a hint of pink…
The end results were spectacularly beautiful!
