'Drawing From Nature'
A SCIENCE AND ART LESSON FOR KIDS
This appeared on July 6, 2003  in the Los Angeles Times

THE KIDS’ READING ROOM

By Carol Felixson
Special to The Times

July 6, 2003

What bird makes a humming sound as it flies, lives off the sweet nectar of flowers, flies both forward and backward and can even hover in midair? If you said a hummingbird, you are right!

Brothers Aviv, 9, and Amit, 12, created this art showing hummingbirds in their natural environment. Aviv made the origami hummingbird and flower, and Amit did the background using colored pencils.

Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding. "Paper is folded in different ways to create plant and animal shapes," explains Aviv.

Before beginning their art, both children did research on the birds. "The average hummingbird lives three years and has wings that can beat up to 80 times a second," says Amit. They learned that hummingbirds have different kinds of beaks, and this determines which flowers they visit.

Hummingbirds are most attracted to tubular-shaped flowers that are orange-red to bright red. In our local mountains, hummingbirds like to visit flowers with names like Indian paintbrush and scarlet monkey flower. Amit made sure to put these flowers in his Japanese-style landscape. Using greens, blues, oranges and reds, he also included a road running through the mountains, and the sun and sky. In some places his pencil lines are soft and feathery and in others, solid and defined.

Origamido, "the way of origami," is the Japanese word that describes the patience Aviv needed to make his figures. After practicing, he decided to use a single piece of shiny green paper for his hummingbird and a piece of reddish-pink paper for the flower.

Good job, guys!

Carol Felixson is director of education and community outreach for UCLA Stunt Ranch and UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden. To see previous lessons from this series, go to http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/kids.html and http://nrs.ucop.edu/Reserves/stunt/newsforkids.html

 The next lesson appears on this page on Aug. 3.

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