Formica shades of gray

Walking shoe and Formica chips

Rooting around in a disorganized teacher box in search of a piggy finger puppet I find a cache of Formica samples circa 1965. Give myself  The Talking To where I insist that something I haven't needed or even known existed should be thrown out in the interest of leaving less mess for my kids should I happen to die. Then I talk back to myself and whine.

I fail to put myself in Time Out.  Instead I reach a compromise whereby I keep the gray samples since they are relevant to an ongoing discussion, and chuck the others in the dumpster.

The Formica samples provided some further names for gray:

Bunny grays

haze
platinum
seagull
stardust
white kid leather

Newport, Oregon beach in December

ninja
orchid
optix
graceful oak
ice
surf




Just getting warmed up to the challenge plus inspired by Formica, I add these shade suggestions:

Very large sauerkraut crock

crock
tomato cage
bubble wrap
mystery meat
Duct tape
mockingbird
junco
freezer burn

Hairstreak butterfly

window screens
retro diner
comfy sweats
nap-time tantrum
no bars of service
mirror
shining armor
flashlight batteries
Velcro
wasp nest

Rock and roll is here to stay

fan oscillations
typewriter ribbon
Tut's tomb
tar pit
rocks
aspen bark
tumbleweed
windmill

Remote grays

Miss Haversham
sorry old guys' nasty undershirts
Brillo
air quality alert
technology
obituary
socket set

VCR gray

coming down with something
paper shredder
cable service outage
coin collection
dog-eared textbook

Hindenburg
tax return
charm bracelet
armadillo
clean the grill

Scared of the basement gray

furnace filter
tinted window
dryer lint
cafeteria fork
Mt. St. Helen's
required reading
sensible shoes
emery board
Dragnet
stink bug

Pale bucket gray

lichen
safe deposit box
pewter
tarnished
Edward R. Murrow
toad
cream of mushroom soup
mercury

Lichen or not

but fear itself
jammed stapler
fish scales
snowed-in

teen car oil spot
utensil
Stonehenge

Cozy afghan knit sofa snoozy gray

AV club
pencil shavings
galvanized bucket
pocket protector

dried Elmer's
firework snakes
desert lizard

toenail fungus

Fritzi's wastebasket

aging Tupperware
sink caulk
laundromat
padlock
snowplow
wet mitten
small kitten


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

How many shades?

Click beetle gray

Stood in line in the airport bookstore behind females of various ages all purchasing Fifty Shades of Grey to read on their flights. Dull, putty graphite me, I was buying the New York Times for the crossword puzzle.

As an art teacher and fan of Mid-Century Modern design, I'm a connoisseur of gray. Like the Inuits describing snow, fifty seems a small number for the distinctions of gray.

In art class we call the project a value study. I'm not a prude. I've read lots of reviews for the bestsellers, but they do not tempt me. It's interesting that gradations and degradations both pop to mind.

Taunting no rain gray clouds

gray

Texas mountain laurel tree gray

ash
silver
chrome
charcoal
nickel
slate
mica
gravel road
flint
frost
smoke
smudge
fog
drizzle
asphalt
foil 
onyx
basalt
dust


cement concrete
storm
granite
grime
silt
clay
Kodak
tin
aluminum
sleet
scum
grout



stainless
granite
stone
institutional
eraser
sage
moth
lead
pistol
weathered driftwood
smog
mushroom
mouse
fox
tornado
mildew




© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Mystery lemurs, lavender pandas, Part I

Preschoolers have a lot of trouble distinguishing the colors and remembering names for tan, gray, lavender, and olive.  That speed bump must have provoked my construction paper choices for our latest art project.  We have been making directed drawings of black and white animals on lavender and olive paper.

Directed drawings are a step-by-step way for students to feel safe and confident working with simple shapes and lines.  It's also good vocabulary practice. "Make a circle in the corner" isn't as fun as "put stripes on your hot dog," or "begin with a question mark and add a sausage."

A lot of days begin that way.  I will go visit Dad before heading to work at the library in the morning with question marks.  We are in uncharted territory as his exit seems near. Or not.

Skunks wear four socks.  Dad kicks off socks.  Or did.  Dad doesn't have enough energy to kick socks off.  We take socks off to look at his feet for indications of approaching death.


Dad has lost the ability to move liquids or mashed foods to the back of his mouth for swallowing. He doesn't have the strength to suck a protein shake through a straw. He bites the straw. He bites the rim of a cup. A tiny bit of liquid tipped into his mouth just runs down his chin.

I will have to continue this later.

Put on your cheap sunglasses for the hot dog zebra drawing!

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Can't go over it

Can't go under it

Gotta go around it

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard are having some trouble because the water level in the creek is very low.  We need rain here, for the ducks, and to ease the grass fire threat all across North Texas.  Also to justify my lounging on the couch reading for days at a time.

The ducks' legs are one of my favorite colors.  I'm calling it carnelian today.  Another day I might call it pimento or coral.  I had some gorgeous tights that color just the other day, well, actually in 1969.  They went with this outfit and a lovely peach blouse with a fancy ruffled front that was STORE BOUGHT!  The wool outfit was lovingly and perfectionistically made by my mother.  Fritzi could do amazing things with remnants, but she tended to ignore that wool MAKES ME ITCH.  Not that I am bitter!  She also knit a sweater vest to match the tights.

The ducks look a tad silly, like first grade soccer players whose socks reach all the way up to their shorts.  The Woolly Mammoth's first grade team included a player who will not be named.  That boy's socks always went way up in his shorts, but were not enough to protect him from tiny scratches.  In a less enlightened time we might have considered this child a wimpy, weenie, cry-baby especially when he wouldn't quit sobbing for the team photo.  Get over it!!  I think I offered to buy him a Slurpee if he would quit blubbering and say "cheese" so we could all go home.

I saw that kid at a burrito restaurant recently.  He is about twenty-four years old, and completely covered with tattoos.  He has piercings on every visible surface, and probably some that were hidden, thank heavens.  Somewhere over the years his pain tolerance must have risen.  Somewhere in this ramble of ducks and needles there's a point.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Please help name this color

Teal blue. What is it? Please help a confused art teacher who can't name a color!

There's a blue dragonfly taunting me on the patio. A lapis blue dragonfly, and quite pleased with itself. He's way too cool to be named.


The tag on my MOG dress names its color "Pacific". That's not a meaningful color name when I describe my problem to the fabric store clerk. She is very helpful, but her understanding of "teal" is "peacock" to me. It's deja vu all over again, Yogi Berra famously said, although he wasn't altering a full-length gown with a sparkly jacket at the time.

When my great-aunt Emma died in 1974, she left written instructions that she wanted to wear her "teal blue dress" to the open casket funeral. Family members weighed in about "teal" as we searched Em's closets. Nothing fit our collective concept of "teal". Emma was dressed in a dark, vaguely blue dress. I wonder if she has been annoyed ever since at our failure to conform to her color specifications. It would be the pits to lie a-mouldering in the grave in the wrong outfit.

Sorry. That is disrespectful of the deceased. Trouble is, I'm still confused about blue vocabulary approaching a far happier event.


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Goatweed leafwing

My one-block walks are solidified in my MWF afternoon routine. The walks take close to an hour now, since I'm drawn to both sides of the creek. Wednesday afternoon I finally got a photo of the illusive orange butterfly. My knees are complaining about the scrambles up and down the creekbank.

I've lived in subdivisions as flat and "earth tone" as a camouflage leafwing butterfly in a pile of old leaves. The streets had names like Bankside, Creekside, Parkside, Whispering Creek, Stone Creek, Ripple Creek, Sandy Creek, Timbercreek, Timberview, Stepping Stone, Hickory, Shadybrook, and Edgewater.

None of these street names have hinted that boys wading in the creeks would stain their socks a rusty red no amount of Clorox could remove. Even the most rustic appellations did not suggest there was a six-lane street two blocks over.

This vanishing artist is also one block from a six-lane thoroughfare. Maybe somewhere there are streets named Goatweed and Leafwing. When the Goatweed Leafwing flies, its wings are a bright and velvety rusty orange.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Plum and eggplant

My son's wedding last weekend was very purple and yellow, those autumn mountain colors for asters and aspens. Color vocabulary and recognition are on my mind because we are wondering if one of our preschool students may be colorblind.

When I got home from the wedding I was tempted by the blueberries, plums, and red cabbage in my grocery store produce aisle. I considered the purchase of an eggplant.

I needed to read the history of purple and it's royal connotation. It's good the mums around my patio are beginning to bloom, as I've not yet met my purple quota!

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Somewhere over the rainbow

Thought it would be fun to have a sort of drop down menu on the sidebar for color-related posts. Click on a color in the rainbow, and it would take you to all the posts with that color label. Pink, Red, Magenta, Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, White, Black, Gray

True, I've just been fooling with it for an hour, and my knowledge of coding fits in a hummingbird's egg. So far, I can't even get a drop down menu to work with my color labels. I was using HTML Basix to generate the code.

Ideas anyone?

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Hyphenated married bird names

The preschoolers are learning to identify common birds. Red-headed woodpecker, ruby-throated hummingbird, red-winged blackbird. The older children are learning more exotic birds, like the scarlet macaw.

I'm thrilled that they are learning synonyms and subtleties for red. Crimson, scarlet, and ruby just make language more interesting!

To hyphenate, or not to hyphenate? That was my question. Some of our bird materials hyphenate "red-headed" and "red-winged". Others do not. My trusty Birds of North America prefers hyphenation across the board.

Visiting with one girl about the woodpecker, I remarked that it is a "very handsome" bird. "Yes," she said, "he looks ready to get married." She seemed to think the bird's markings resembled a rented wedding tuxedo! I can see her point. He just needs a bowtie. What will the bride be wearing? Are the owl and the pussycat invited?

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Neapolitan Sky

This evening's storm was short, but a doozy. The electricity went off twice, so the LEDs are blinking their irritation. Walked outside afterward. The sky to the north above the Walgreens store's red neon glowed as a dessert delight. A little bit neapolitan ice cream, a big blast of patriotic bomb pop, and a just-washed fresh fruit parfait, completely harmonious, but each competing for the spotlight. If I were the slightest bit meteorological, I'd say that the ions were tingling.

Just above the Walgreen's the sky was a cut glass trifle bowl of homestyle vanilla ice cream scoops just the teensiest bit melty. The next layer was a thin band sometimes watermelon pink, but changing to raspberry sorbet the next glance in my rearview mirror. On top was the widest band of tingling velvet blue frosted with lavendar like a close-up photo of a blueberry, or a lush, gorgeous, itchy mohair sweater designed by Mark Rothko.

Here in Dallas, we are really tired of television weather personalities talking about "upper level lows". To separate the problems, I'm tired of the weather allegedly produced by "upper level lows", and I'm sick of weather personalities on television news programs. The weather segment of the news keeps expanding to fill in for the absence of actual news reporting. Now we have to hear about "dry lines" and be broadcast live from somebody's backyard picnic.

Top Ten List of what I want from my local weather report:

10. An honest family guy writing with chalk on a blackboard map who can pronounce city and county names correctly. Bowtie optional
9. One brief report of somewhere in the world having a hideous weather calamity so I can say, "Thank heavens I don't live in _________."
8. That the phrase, "ask your doctor if _______ is right for you," doesn't arrive in any of the sponsoring commercials.
7. A Doppler radar map in purdy colors.
6. An air quality/allergy/ozone report summarized as "Don't inhale."
5. Rainfall total for the month
4. Expected overnight low temp
3. The current temperature
2. Do I need to take cover for the approaching tornado right now?
1. Will it be a school snow day in the morning?

I became a cloud watcher in the summer of 1973 at Ten Mile Lake near Hackensack, Minnesota. After my first airplane flight I spent a couple extremely rainy weeks at a friend's cabin on the lake. The days of rains chained together, braided with the Senate Watergate hearings and Johnny Miller's win at the U.S. Open on the black and white tv screen.

Never mastered the names for the clouds, or any of the science. It's only as a painter that I'm interested. The painter, and the kid sitting in the grass eating a ten cent bomb pop.



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Sherwood Forest and Emerald City

After enjoying some afternoon nature walks, we are considering the incredible variety of greens around us during art class. The children are mixing paints to make a wider variety of greens, and trying to use descriptive terms for the colors we mix. Greens vary in value, the relative darkness or lightness of the color. Greens vary in hue, their place along the spectrum between yellow and blue. Green also varies in saturation, being bright or dull. Greens can be described with these terms, for example dark yellow green or bright blue green. The color variations can also be described with more fancy specific names like lime, chartreuse, jade, swamp, pine, hunter, avocado, army…or even mint chocolate chip ice cream green!

Color adds such richness to our experience of the world. Color names add important distinctions to our descriptions of the world. Did you eat a cucumber, a pickle, or a Hot Wheels classic 1968 Camaro? I dunno. It was something green.

Growing up around Cornhusker football fanatics, it bothered me that the team colors for the University of Nebraska, and its fiendish rivals Oklahoma U, Alabama U, and Arkansas U were all red and white. We could not ALL be the best team in the known universe! We could not all yell “Go Big Red!” It was comforting to learn that NU was the Scarlet and Cream, which was clearly superior to Oklahoma’s Crimson and Cream, Arkansas’ Cardinal Red, or that dastardly Crimson Tide of Alabama.

Will it ever be important to know how to mix twelve different greens? Yes, this knowledge has a very practical application. As a MOBO, (a Mother Of Boys Only), I received many requests for army camouflage birthday cakes. The food coloring box has red, yellow, green, and blue. You’ve got a brand new package of plastic toy soldiers and flags for the cake top, but you have to frost the cake. The guests will arrive in less than an hour. Green is for GO!


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Winspear Opera House

Now that I have some grown-up clothes, I like to do the occasional grown-up outing. I like the outing to be free to the public, but reservations requested. It was quite splendid that the schematic designs for the Winspear Opera House in the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts were being unveiled in the Horchow Auditorium of the Dallas Museum of Art on Friday morning during my break before summer sessions begin. Have chartreuse dressy sandals, will travel! Since I bought these sandals to wear to a wedding, I have to wear them A LOT to justify the purchase.



The Dallas Arts District already includes the Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher Sculpture Garden, the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Meyerson Symphony Center, the Annette Strauss Artists' Square outdoor festival area, and the Booker T. Washington Magnet School for the Performing Arts. Before this decade is out, it will add the Winspear Opera House, the Wyly Theatre Center, a completely renovated Magnet School campus, and the City Performance Hall. If I visit all of them wearing my chartreuse and black sandals, the purchase will be justified. Never mind that the sandals aren't really very comfortable, or that chartreuse will soon fade as the accent color of the moment.

I loved getting up close to ponder the architect's models for the Arts District, the Flora Street area, and the Opera House. The models were made with natural wooden geometric forms, like the blocks we had growing up.

I thoroughly enjoyed Spencer de Grey's presentation about the proposed and amended Opera House design, its energy efficient aspects, historical inspirations, acoustic considerations, CAD simulations, and other Foster and Partners' projects with solar canopies.


The traffic and pedestrian flow aspects of the design need some serious reworking. I'm suggesting that a mom who has spent eighteen years in the Pickov Andropov lanes at public schools could give the folks at Foster & Partners some practical advice.

My consulting fees are quite reasonable, and my sandals are up for the task!

Cool Frogs

I sure hope you saw “The Triplets of Belleville”! That is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I’ve only seen it once so far. There were some very cool frogsicles, and other frog delicacies in it. But today, boys and squirrels, I’m not talking cinema. I’m talking papier mache with kindergarten and first grade students.

We have been working on our giant frogs for several weeks. Used cantaloupe-size balloons, plastic Easter egg halves, and corrugated box cardboard to start our frogs and lily pads. We slimed them with newspaper and Ross Art Paste while discussing the hoarding of toenail clippings (papier mache projects bring out the most primitive in all kids).

Added “fun foam” legs and eyes today. Each frog gained personality plus! Then we brewed up paints in every green imaginable:

Lime
Swamp
Slime
Poison
Army
Oobleck
Severe weather radar
Tornado sky
Blond swimmer chlorine hair
Spinach
Jade
Broccoli
Christmas
Mowed grass
Cactus
Seaweed
Lettuce
Mallard duck
Sage
Guacamole
Tropical island
Picnic table
Out-dated cottage cheese
Tree moss
New leaves
Parrot
Hansel & Gretel forest
Skunky aquarium
Jello
Mustard
Leak under the car
Robin Hood
Tinkerbell
UFO

Hope you haven’t had a green OD. If you did, just put the lime in the coconut…

Briny and sweet

In the past month I've been to four movies in theaters! This is a personal record. Many years I see less than two. Don't rent videos, either, since I got in a huff with Blockbuster and mailed them my chopped up card several years back.

Anyway, I've been going to movies, but not eating popcorn, which lifts me aesthetically above Your Average Movie-goer. Not that I feel morally superior, just middle-aged rotund.

Went to see "Something's Got To Give" on a misty evening. Yes, it made me want to walk down a beach even if I couldn't have Diane Keaton's character's fabulous beach house. Was it an artist date? Hardly. Driving home in the cool, misty rain with black bare trees silohuetted against the trapped-light urban night sky was a feast for the senses. Caviar, lox, melon, champagne, licorice, hot springs, sandstone, steam, grapes, must, slate, shrimp, frost, charcoal, ash, oxygen.

I went out for a ride and I never came back...

Floating on a wave of optimism after posting so smoothly, I ventured forth into a glorious Lone Star evening to purchase three Quick Pick tickets--one for each college education. The sky is a lovely shade that I can only describe as the hue of vanilla ice cream when the carton is placed on top of the fridge instead of into the freezer. You discover the mistake the next morning, when it is certainly not convenient, especially before coffee. The ice cream has melted all down the side of the fridge; you see the gelatins, dyes, and other mystery components that have separated and recongealed into subtle agate bands of color. Alas, you find it has also affixed the kids' drawings, pizza coupons, emergency phone numbers, cutesy magnets, and Christmas card photos to the fridge in a very enduring way. Into this twilight glow, please imagine thin bands of canned salmon, not yet mixed with Campbell's Cream of Mushroom, and sprinkled lightly with violet powdered tempera paint from your first grade classroom, with the rust from the a/c evaporator coils you can't afford to replace. The only thing needed to complete this idyllic vision is a red and white 1961 Plymouth Sport Fury with push-button transmission and rectangular steering wheel.