'Drawing From Nature'
A SCIENCE AND ART LESSON FOR KIDS
This appeared on September 7, 2003  in the Los Angeles Times

THE KIDS’ READING ROOM

By Carol Felixson
Special to The Times

September 7, 2003

WHAT animal has a bushy tail and a black mask?

If you said a raccoon, you are right! These shy but curious mammals are active at nighttime, have good hearing and vision and are strong climbers and swimmers. They eat meat, fish, frogs, mice, insects and plants.

After studying about raccoons, Annie, 7 and her sister, Samantha 10,  decided to draw a picture of one using a technique called pointillism. This is where tiny dots are combined to form a picture. When dots of two or more colors are placed next to each other, the eye mixes the colors together. "I placed green dots next to yellow and purple dots to make the pond blue," said Annie, describing how it works.

The sisters learned that many people think raccoons like to wash their food in water before eating it. Actually, they're just playing around with it. Raccoons also like to sleep in trees. "They prefer living in nature but have adapted to the city's easy access to food, water and shelter," Samantha explained. In fact, raccoons have learned how to open cans and latches and can even turn on faucets! The young artists decided to show their raccoon balancing on a log in the middle of a pond.

The girls first drew their design in pencil, then filled in the areas with dots using watercolor markers. Annie painted the background and Samantha did the raccoon.

Georges Seurat, who lived in Paris in the 1800s, was well known for his pointillist paintings. At the time, people thought Seurat's work was fuzzy or messy. Today, people think of it as fun!

What do you think?


Carol Felixson is director of education and community outreach for UCLA Stunt Ranch Reserve and UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden. Both sites offer ideas for drawing from nature. Previous lessons from this series are at http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/kids.html and nrs.ucop.edu/Reserves/stunt/newsforkids.html. The next lesson appears on this page on Oct. 5.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times