FUN WITH ADJECTIVES CHEETAH POSTER: Projects and Activities Inspired by My Books

Class poster about cheetahs.

Many of my books are about animals and when I do school visits I often find that these are the books the children have read, especially if they have done animal reports. At one school I visited the class had read my book about cheetahs, focusing on all the adjectives in the book that described the cheetah. Then, as an art project, they made a large poster of cheetahs and the words they had learned.

My book CHEETAH is available online as an ebook.

CAMP BOVEY 75 YEARS: Poster and Cards

"Ho,ho,ho, ho, I'm a Hodagger--rowing, fishing, swimming in the sun..." Camp Bovey, the ESNS camp in northern Wisconsin founded by my father is celebrating its 75th year! My brother Thomas Scheaffer created a wonderful painting, now available as a poster and as greeting cards. You can order them at the Camp Bovey Canteen Zazzle site. Every item you buy at the Camp Bovey Canteen helps to support Camp Bovey!

Cards are also available at the Zazzle site of Tom's beautiful painting of a moonrise over the lake at Camp Bovey.

This Saturday from 4-8 pm, Beats4Bovey is a free family party celebrating Camp Bovey's anniversary at ESNS in Minneapolis. I wish I could go. If you live in Minneapolis, come help celebrate! For more info go to the Camp Bovey Facebook page.

Camp Bovey is a small, rustic campground in northwestern Wisconsin that offers nature education in an exciting summer camp setting. We make learning about the environment fun while also helping campers feel confident about their outdoor skills and their ability to learn new things. Since 1949, campers have been calling Camp Bovey their summer home. From fishing in our private lake, to camping across our 200-acre property, to singing songs around campfires, Camp Bovey has helped thousands of youth build lifelong connections with friends and lasting connections to our Hodagger community.

DRAW AND WRITE: Fun Family Activities at SFMOMA

Family Activity Guide at SFMOMA 

On my recent visit to SFMOMA in San Francisco to see the Diego Rivera exhibit, I picked up a free brochure at the entrance— DRAW AND WRITE--a family activity guide with suggestions for looking at the art. Each page has room to draw or write in response to the question.  What a great way to engage children visiting the museum and encourage them to think about and interact with the art! The same activities would work well when doing a virtual visit to a museum on the internet.

Here are some examples of the activities in the brochure.

Find something you have never seen before—a color, shape, object, or message. Write what you see here.

A surprise for me was to see Diego Rivera’s studies of hands—which reminded me of the assignment I had in my first life drawing class. The difference was that Diego’s hands were giant—perfect for the large figures of his murals.

Look for an artwork that was made with unexpected or everyday materials. What unexpected materials did you find?

An unexpected material that I found at the museum was a stack of plastic frying pans made into an abstract vertical sculpture, showing that ordinary objects can become extraordinary.

And the most intriguing suggestion was the last:

Write a letter to a piece of art you discovered today. Tell it what you liked the most.

My letter is to a painting by Joan Brown, The Golden Age: The Jaguar and the Tapir (1985).

Dear Painting,

I love your bright colors and the way the tapir and jaguar contrast with the red and green background. You remind me of one of my own pieces of art, an illustration for my book A Day and Night in the Rain Forest. I cut my animals from colored paper and glued them onto the background. That included every one of the jaguar’s spots! I think it would be much easier to paint them as your artist did. And, of course, you are much bigger than the pages of my book. I’m so glad I met you at the museum.

Sincerely, Caroline Arnold

NATURE INSPIRES ART: Paintings by Tom Scheaffer

Mission Trails Regional Park. Oil painting by Tom Scheaffer

My brother Tom Scheaffer loves the outdoors and frequently hikes at Mission Trails Regional Park near his home in San Diego, California. (See his post from January 17, 2022.) 

Mission Trails Regional Park.

Fall colors at Mission Trails.

Tom is an excellent photographer and a talented artist. Some of his work was recently exhibited at the Maya Moon Collective in San Diego .

Art by Tom Scheaffer. Pastel and white glue on  black paper. The glue makes black lines when it dries.

A recent walk at Mission Trails to see the fall colors has inspired two new works, one in pastels and the other an oil painting. Each one captures the richness and subtlety of nature's palette. The black lines on the pastel drawing remind me of the paintings of the French artist, Georges Roualt. 

ART PROJECT: FLOWERS IN THE GARDEN

 

Spring Flowers, Lu Sutton Elementary School, Novato, CA

My brother Tom, a third grade teacher in Novato, California, loves to garden and loves to do art projects with his students.  In the fall, the children planted bulbs along the walkways by the classrooms.  By early March the tulips, daffodils and a host of other flowers had sprouted leaves and burst into bloom.

The students then took their drawing pads outdoors and sketched the flowers, making close observations of the shapes and colors of the plants.  Back in the classroom they turned their drawings into beautiful, colorful paintings–a perfect way to preserve and share the beauty of spring!

Note: This post was first published 5/22/13. My brother Tom is now retired, but he still loves to garden, planting bulbs, roses and other plants in his garden at home.

TWO MONKEYS by Peter Breugel

Two Monkeys by Pieter Breugel

When I was researching my book Monkey (Morrow Junior Books, 1993), I ran across this unusual painting by 16th Century Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder depicting two red-tailed macaques chained to a windowsill overlooking the harbor in Antwerp. My book, illustrated with photos by Richard Hewett, depicts the same species and follows the growth of a young macaque at the Los Angeles Zoo.

A friend just sent me the link to an article about the painting, which is currently on exhibit in Vienna. The panel is one of 28 paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (only 40 of his works are known to survive) on display in a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
No one knows what might have inspired Pieter Bruegel to choose the monkeys as his subject in this small painting or what they signify. However, the red-tailed macaques, native to the forests of west Africa, surely must have been as fascinating and exotic to the citizens of Antwerp as they are to visitors to the zoo today.
My book Monkey is out of print in hardcover but available as an ebook on Amazon.