A Big Dog Party

 Although it wasn't intentional, this week's art reminds us of the big dog party at the top of the tree in Go, Dog. Go!  The preschoolers love that book as much as I love reading it.

Our mixed media art is the result to two sessions drawing our chain, ladder, web, and the Chinese dragon in the lunchroom.  We looked at the wire sculptures in different ways, and used some materials we rarely try, like chalk, oil pastels, and glitter crayons.

There's a reason why I don't get out the glitter crayons, and now I'll remember it for awhile.  What a mess!  They are soft, flaky, and stain the floor.

Since the art is so springy, I will share several samples to brighten your day.  Climb the ladders to your own dog party in a tree.

Above--age 4 and a half
Left--age 5
Below--age 3

Love these colors!


Left--age 3
Below--age 4 and a half
(and a half is very big in preschool)

Left--age 8.  The elementary kids did the same project with exciting results.
Below--age 5

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Chicken cups and songs

Listening to the students practice their chicken songs for the music festival, I remembered that Dad's chicky cup and cereal bowl were now high up in a kitchen cabinet.

The "chicky bowl" has lost much of its decoration due to generations of spoon scrapes. The "chicky cup" has a small crack, but the exterior images are clear. Filled with daisies, the cup would make a good still life for the elementary art students to use for a quiet line drawing.

The cup and bowl date to my dad's childhood in Pierce, Nebraska in the 1920s. There are no markings on the undersides to indicate origin. The baby chick images matched perfectly with the collection of nursery story books on the bottom shelf in Grandma's living room. I wish I had those little softcover books of the Billy Goats Gruff and Little Red Hen. It was a special event to eat from the bowl and cup on a weekend visit to Pierce when I was a child.

The children are singing a song called "Chook, Chook". It goes like this:

Chook chook
Chook chook
Good morning, Mrs. Hen.
How many chickens have you got?
Madam, I have ten,
Four of them are yellow,
And four of them are brown,
And two of them are speckled red,
The nicest in the town.

I don't remember that from my childhood nursery rhymes, but I did know two versions on another song:






Ever since Gene Hardy's "Childrens Literature" class in the UNL English Department in the mid-Seventies, I've been alternately annoyed and intrigued by those deep, hidden meanings in nursery tales. Is this Hickety Pickety rhyme an easy one for skipping, singing kids just learning to read with simple phonics? Or is it about racism and prostitution?

I'm teaching children who don't know that milk comes from cows, eggs come from chickens, and veggies grow in dirt. Did you know applesauce doesn't begin in handy three-pack individual servings?

I hope to post some of the elementary students' line drawings of daisies in Dad's old breakfast cup soon. The children liked hearing the history behind the cup.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Honk if you love hawk haikus

Fascinating afternoon art class with the first-third grade kids during the downpour. Being encircled by the charcoal clouds and shockingly green foliage seemed perfect for our brush drawing session.

Because the kids are still talking about the presentation by Blackland Prairie Raptor Center last month, I chose owls and hawks for our subject. The children were introduced to haiku earlier this spring.

Popped a cd of Chinese bamboo flute music in the player for the children, but I really wanted to hear some Mary Lou Williams piano jazz. A dark, rainy day, a bamboo calligraphy brush, and piano jazz were always ingredients for successful paintings in Gail Butt's classroom overlooking the Sheldon sculpture garden.

After a very short practice of needle, bone, and growth/decay brush strokes geared to the children's level, we tried to discover the essence of owls. "Essence" isn't a word for this age, so we tried to find what is important about owls, what owlness makes them owlish.

We brainstormed owlness:

fly silent
hollow bones
talons hold
soft feathers
big eyes
eat mice
head turns all the way around
huddles in crook by tree trunk
night hunting
feather tufts make taller
ears high and low
spread wings
sleep days

We had the beginnings of a brush drawing and maybe even a poem. I told my experiences walking in the woods near my house in Millard, Nebraska, being surprised by great horned owls, and then surprising the owls and sending them flying off down the creek. Although I had to move away, this place is special in my memory because of the owls, I told the students. This intrigued the children. They wanted to know why I left this place where the owls meant so much to me. Was I a little kid then? Was I a grown-up? Was I a mom? Why did I like to walk in the snow? Why do families change and move?

Far too many questions to answer, even if I could. Still, the job of the artist and the poet is to describe the owlishness of life in the most economical, clear, and beautiful way possible.

I don't have any photos of the brush drawings. They are still in the drying rack. At the end of class the children wrote poems and haikus on scraps of paper using our brainstorming phrases.

If you are counting syllables to make a 5-7-5 haiku, it's tricky deciding whether owls is one syllable or two. Owl? Ow-ull? Awles?

One boy circumvented the problem by writing about red-shouldered hawks instead:

Honks

I Like How They Fly

The[y] eat Mice

Honks are Cool

Honks are indeed very cool, but that is a different chapter in my story.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Older and wiser owls

These lovely owl prints were made by seven and eight year olds. The owl sitting on the utility pole is an original solution. Hawks often perch on a utility pole near the school playground, visible to the students.


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Holy Skiing Lemurs, Batman!

On the longest day of the year, it is good to have a cool mental image for refreshing inspiration. I share with you my niece's wintery slope fashion designs for a lemur.

As a MOBO, it's fun to have a niece who shares my interests in art and sewing, even if she lives very far away. I think she would like this tiny spider I discovered between two flower pots on my little patio. This arachnid fashion designer is less than a quarter inch long including legs. The crazy zigzag pattern at the center of its web is about the size of a dime. I worry that the little creature got one of its feet stuck on the pedal of the world's smallest Singer sewing machine!

My junior high Home Ec teachers, Mrs. Meston and Mrs. Starr, didn't let us zigzag, and neither did my mom. Zigzagging was considered kind of like cheating in those days. If you couldn't do it with a straight stitch, it probably shouldn't be done --decadent behavior unbecoming a young seamstress!

Maybe the little spider is just trying to fashion a cooling snowflake on this hot day.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Cat in the cream jar

We'd only been married a few months when my spouse went into a Doc Watson/John Fahey acoustic guitar/bluegrass phase. I was totally unprepared for this jog in the newlywedded-bliss road. Suddenly, the Charlie Daniels Band held the stage in my harvest gold apartment kitchen right next to the avocado green crockpot and the free toaster we got when we opened our account at the Savings & Loan downtown.

As if being married wasn't surreal enough, my spouse was sprawling there in the black vinyl beanbag* chair actually studying the Slim Whitman "Yodeling Cowboy" K-Tel commercials on our tiny black & white tv between the "MASH" and "Barney Miller" reruns. It was as jarring as the spilled popcorn on the Husker red shag carpet.

My spouse rushed the stage at a Charlie Daniels Band concert in the then-new Bob Devaney Center at the Nebraska State Fairgrounds. Dang, but if mosh pits had been invented back then he would have been squeezed into apple cider! ***

These days my little students are singing "Fire On the Mountain" for their spring music festival. This traditional folk fiddle song was known to me only from those Charlie Daniels** years. The devil went down to Georgia and engaged in a fiddle competition to gain a country boy's soul.

The kids sing, "Fire on the mountain, run, boys, run. Hey, get along, get along Josey. Hey, get along, get along Jim. Cat in the cream jar, run, girls, run. Hey get along, get along Josey. Hey get along, get along Jim." Two boys made this poster of the cat in the cream jar:



They sing a new-fangled verse, "Chicken in the crockpot, mulligan stew," to Skip-To-My-Lou. Thank heaven they didn't have to put the chicken in the George Foreman Grill!

*The littlest kids like to sit in the "bing-bang chair" while I tie their shoes after naptime.

**When the devil finished
Johnny said well you're pretty good old son
But just sit down in that chair right there
And let me show you how it's done
Fire on the Mountain Run boys, run
The devil's in the House of the Rising Sun
Chicken in a bread pan picken' at dough
Granny does your dog bite No child, no

***Just FYI, our sons turned out pretty normal. Only one listens to Pat Green.



Thinking now of the Marshall Tucker Band--more of a marinaded and grilled chicken tender song:

Fire on the mountain
Lightnin' in the air
gold in them hills
and it's waiting for me there

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Frosty's New Years Eve party

You are invited to the hottest cold party to usher in 2008. Frosty the Snowman and all his friends will be doing the Limbo, the Bump, the Twist, the Frug, the Moonwalk, the Pony, the "White Man's Overbite"*, and some New York City Music Hall Rockettes and Kilgore Rangerette numbers later in the evening.



Take the tarp off that lighted Bicentennial disco dance floor. Do you know how to party??? Can you spell D-o-r-i-t-o-s? Can you spell In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida? Can you spell chocolate-frosted sprinkle donuts??

Frosty and friends are so Jumbo Tron! They've got Velveeta, refried beans, and original Ro-tel melting together in the Harvest Gold crockpot. They are having snowball fights out in the front yard.



The elementary art students took the concept of a snowman's party and ran with wonderful results. Some of Frosty's guests may melt just past midnight. We liked learning that Dean Koontz wrote a story about where snowmen go when they melt that is included in his THE PAPER DOORWAY: Funny Verse and Nothing Worse.

My students weren't contemplating "the white man's overbite." Most of them are missing so many teeth they can't bite an apple. Still, disco snowmen brought to mind Billy Crystal's line from "When Harry Met Sally."

*Harry : You meet someone, you have the safe lunch, you decide to like each other enough to move on to dinner. You go dancing, you do the white man's overbite; go back to her place, you have sex, and the minute you finish, you know what goes through your mind?"How long do I have to lie here and hold her before I can go home?""Is 30 seconds enough?"
Sally : That's what you're thinking? Is that true?
Harry : Sure. All men think that. How long do you like to be held afterwards? All night, right? That's the problem. Somewhere between 30 seconds and all night is your problem.


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Pondering embroidery faith

Over and under. Over and through, then through and under. Over the river and through the hoop. The K-2 kids are stitching, and it's a wonderful way to improve eye-hand coordination, spatial awareness, and spatial vocabulary.

We've been attaching all sorts of groovy stuff to pieces of net, so that stitches above and below are all visible. I've stabilized the net creations on felt squares. Some items sewn to the net are now sandwiched between the net and the felt.

The kids got to choose from a wide range of items to stitch onto the netting:

CDs
buttons
ribbon
keys
metallic punch ribbon
weird hardware
beads
laminated pressed leaves and postage stamps
playing cards
pipe cleaners
sari fabrics
Formica samples
paper clips
jingle bells
burlap
cut up promotional credit cards

They chose their own path for the yarn and thread.




While their beginnings were fairly random, the next step will include compositional development, and greater fine motor control. Back in the early Sixties kids developed the same skills by solving dot-to-dot puzzles and "sewing" shoestrings through lacing cards. Somehow we arrived at the point where we could poke a needle up through fabric exactly where we wanted to start our embroidery.



How do we acquire that ability, that confidence that our brain won't let our hand below the fabric prick the hand above the fabric? Back in the Sixties we knew the danger of pricking your finger on a spindle. No bibbity bobbity boo for you!

These days with my old lady eyes trying to thread needles I have to rely on an internal sense. Maybe it is faith. Watching the kids wield their needles, "conviction of things not seen" popped into my head. Hope over, under, and through the net held in the hoop... Satisfying inner awareness without hope of Disney princess marketing tie-ins at Burger King.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Merlin Goes Mod

Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian tales, has been portrayed as a time-traveler. My students discovered that Merlin had spent some time visiting the last half of the twentieth century, a time most mod, hip, and groovy, when they interior decorated their wizard towers last week. They also gave his tower a moderately mad scientist look with a telescope on the roof and a chemistry lab by the fireplace. The spells and potions books they made were quite similar to Texas roadkill recipes. I just wish we'd had enough time to make little Oster blenders so Merlin could make nutritious/delicious [eye of] newt smoothies.



History may look back on the past forty years of architecture and interior design with a critical newt eye. I've lived through flocked wallpaper, foil wallpaper, and flocked foil wallpaper. Do-it-yourselfers put crinkle veined mirror tiles on bathroom, living room, and allegedly elegant dining room walls. Both VWs and bathtubs got groovy daisies. The bathtub ones were non-slip, at least. Law students studied in eyeball chairs at the University of Nebraska. Student apartments were hung with black light posters. New construction homes and ancient mildewed basements both got very scary shag carpets in red, burnt orange, and avocado green.



Perhaps strangest of all were the early-1980s personalized custom travel vans with shag carpet on most surfaces. These family vacation get-away van exteriors were done up with airbrush paintings that were part NRA hunting billboards, part carnival midway caricatures, and part drunken truck driver tattoos. A Nascar vehicle looks sophisticated and understated by comparison. That may have been too much for Merlin, as the fad seemed to disappear from the face of the United States as if someone said, "Abracadabra, please and thank you very much!"

Peter Harlaub wrote in the 10/04/05 San Francisco Chronicle about this mysterious disappearance. His story is, "Once, custom vans ruled the road" is worth a read.



My students didn't have to travel through time to style their wizard towers. We received a goodly batch of gift wrap samples that took the place of foil, flock, and crinkle veins. It was a magical riot of cut and paste, plus glitter tempera paint! If only we'd had some shag rug samples--and a disco ball or two.

The Lone Ranger's Regret

The elementary kids are making toy theatres again. After making theatres with royal boxes last time, I was seized with the idea of making a stage set for Romeo and Juliet. The kids understood immediately when I started a melodramatic recitation of the balcony scene. It was time for the french fry boxes again!

I keep deep-frying my brain to come up with uses for the french fry boxes. When we bought the case of them six years ago I had to promise to find ways to use all 5000 of them. It would be a snap at McDonald's, but it takes awhile in art class. Alas (swoon), I wasn't able to take any photos of the balcony scenes, but here is one of the theatres with its Playbill. I love that the six year old girl won't let children under ten come to her show!



As the class got more amped up, I got more tongue-tied. "Wherefore art thou," became, "Where fort out there?" Or "Kemo-Sabe, Kemo-Sabe. Where fort out there, Kemo-Sabe?" And that's when the Lone Ranger knew that loaning his Complete Works of William Shakespeare to Tonto was a bad idea!

Judge Roy Red Beans & the Cantalope West of the Pecos

My job doesn't pay much, but I get five two-week imagination vacations every summer. I'm writing you, my darlin' Clementine, to tell you somebody robbed the stage, and made off with the gold. The buffalo are stampeding, and them nasty outlaws done robbed the First National again.

My elementary art students are creating Old West main street scenes with false fronts worthy of many wild west Front Streets and more than a few Hell's Half-Acres. The preschool students have made Plains Indian shields and headdresses. Now they are making corrugated cardboard Sioux breastplates.

It's easy to forget how far I've gone deep undercover with my Quick Draw McGraw method acting until I realize I'm conversing with the Albertson's checker like I just fell off my hoss, and I'm pullin' cactus prickles outta my britches.

I can't begin to figure the number of times I have read Lois Lenski's Cowboy Small to small children. When Cowboy Small rides out on the range to fix the fences he cooks beef, red beans, and coffee on the campfire. If we didn't have a county burn ban because of the drought(which some Nebraskans pronounce drouth)I'd be tempted by that menu myself.

Art Varmint

"Miz Nancy," my serious seven-year-old student says in a slightly nervous whisper, "did you know there is something big, black, and furry under the paint shelf, AND IT'S MOVING?" Holy Orwellian moly! Please don't let it be a rat!!! Of course, it's not a rat, but what if it is a tarantula?

The student and I trade knowing looks. We've got to sneak up on the big, black, furry thing without alarming the rest of the class. My hot glue gun is of no use at this range, so I slide it back into my holster. We have to rely on our own grit and determination, as the telegraph wires have been cut. Armed with just a broom, I shut one eye tight, and get down on one knee. Geez, Louise! That furry moving thing is one big scary dusty blue feather blown about by the air conditioner. What a relief. I sweep it into the dustpan. The student breathes a sigh of relief. We wordlessly agree not to notify the press corps.

"Varmint" seems to be a variant of "vermin", not to be confused with "victuals" or "vittles". In my classroom it's not a good idea to eat anything that's been on the rug!

Restroom Inclusion

Just hope they all flush and wash their hands!

Velcome to Haunted Taco

May I take your order?

Imagine Vincent Price's all organic zombie select celebrity hot sauce for worthy causes. .. Morticia Addams at the pick-up window. .. Alfred Hitchcock's Heart Healthy Menu Choices ...

I'm deep in the middle of a three-week art unit involving a fictional drive-through taco restaurant. The kids are totally into the project, but I'm starting to have taco burn-out. It was a gift when a kindergarten student changed his restaurant picture from "Happy Taco" to "Haunted Taco". Zat vill be $4.78. Please drive up to ze vindow.

No use crying ...

...because I'm over it now. Thursday afternoon's word, I'm sorry to report, was sour milk. After hearing it used a couple hundred times in the space of an hour, everyone but the user was mightily sick of sour milk. We were all beginning to make faces that must have resembled the one the student's mother made when she found sour milk in her refrigerator.

In the second hour of class we had a new diversion. Mr. Sour Milk announced he had learned a "new not good word" at school, and he would be happy to whisper it to the other art students. The others were indeed interested, but I did not allow this transfer of strategic information. He wanted to give hints to the other kids, so he told them the not good word was an "onomatopoeia"! I have to love the dichotomy of the first grader who gets all excited about a new potty word, but who can use "onomatopoeia" in an off-hand and correct manner.

Taming the busy

This is the finished "Venn Berrygram" painting. It may look frenetic to you, but it is very much calmed and tamed from its wild origins. Peer down to the early layers and you will sense the State Fair bumper car ride meets The Gnat energy. The hair on my head stands up for dread!



How do we pick the blueberries? How do we make choices in our art? Can we make things clearer? Can we let go of some parts to make the picture better? Simplifying without losing meaning, you think. You are right, and it is a life's work.

Meanwhile, back at the monastery...

Intriguing discussions with my 8-10 yr. old class about George Rodrigue's "Blue Dog" paintings and works by Paul Klee yesterday. The girls arrived at the conclusion that Blue Dog is the artist's representation of himself, and that he puts himself in different situations by painting Blue Dog in those symbolic scenes. Pretty abstract thinking! Later we were looking at a Paul Klee watercolor with geometric shapes and very clean pastel colors. They were able to perceive a zigzag spatial effect, so we were chatting about the difficulties we had creating the illusion of space and perspective in our group "Pet Shop" mural. Then the girls decided the Klee painting was of a "trying-on-clothes place". Took awhile for me to understand they were talking about a folding Japanese screen. Sddenly one girl announces the painting, "isn't a screen. It's an empty mind." I love that kid. She's a breath of fresh air twirling Tibetan prayer wheels, or maybe the third eye of Sponge Bob! When her mom let her pick out a print at the MOMA show in Houston to give me for Christmas, she couldn't decide whether Van Gogh's "Starry Night", or a Dali of "hallucenogenic goddesses" best fit me.

If I can't be a princess, I wouldn't mind being a goddess!

Heaven

Two seven-year-old girls were discussing death while they waited for a turn in the restroom. The discussion was brought on by the idea of eating Australian long-necked turtles for supper.

Girl #1: When you die, you get to go to heaven. Then you get to be an angel with wings.
Girl #2: But if you want to be a mummy in a museum, then that's a different story.

Indeed.. ... What do you want to be when you grow up?
I want to be a mummy in a museum.
But, ew, like wouldn't that be icky? The clothes are so old.
Yes, but the jewelry is nice.