Handbook of Nature Study: Benefits of Giving it a Try

The last ten weeks have brought me to a new understanding of the Handbook of Nature Study. Pulling together and organizing the Outdoor Hour Challenges every Friday on my blog has pushed me to really get to know how to use and benefit from this rather large book.

Here are the some benefits so far:
1. I have read the introductory pages of the book about ten times, highlighted and underlined the parts that spoke to me, and found many gems to share with others. These pages teach *me* to help my children better with their nature study.
2. Our family picked a focus area in the book and used that focus area to learn more about garden flowers. There were about ten flowers listed in the book that we have access to and we have used the observation suggestions from the book to help us better know about the flowers we have in our local area. Even when a flower isn't specifically covered, the garden flower introductory pages helped us learn the basic structure of the flower and so much more.
3. I know now that I won't find every item we want to study in the book and have gathered a few local field guides to supplement our study.
4. We are regularly working in our nature journals and keeping up with making field guide cards for our focus area.
5. I am no longer trying to fit our nature study to the book but rather the book to our nature study.

Are there things I don't like about the book? Yes. Do I think that this is the only book we need for nature study? No. Is this book a positive influence on our family? YES!

If you decide to try the book, go through the first few Outdoor Hour Challenges and read the suggested pages to get you started. You don't need to follow the activities but just reading the assigned pages in the book will give you a better idea of how you can use this book in your family.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

OMG!

There’s only one word I would use to describe the whole Annie Leibovitz/Miley Cyrus flap. WEIRD!! Of course it was initially a manufactured controversy on the part of Vanity Fair to sell more copies – that’s why they released the pictures to the media in advance of the issue. Then the story started to feed on itself as television picked it up, mothers were stopped in the street and encouraged to voice their outrage, and the next thing you know people are literally calling out for Miley Cyrus product burning. All because she showed some back!?!

The WEIRDER pictures to me are the ones of Miley and her Dad which are not the way I would want to pose with my nearly 13 year old daughter (who is incidentally a big Miley fan) and who thinks the whole thing is pretty silly. But I guess if you’re a New York City kid and you and your friends religiously watch Gossip Girl, this is pretty tame stuff.


My feeling looking at the picture above is that Billy Ray Cyrus was so engrossed with his moment in the spotlight (not to mention his own hair and make-up) they could have taken Miley out and re-created the complete works of Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe as far as he was concerned.

What about the pictures themselves? As someone who worked with Annie editorially for ten years and represented her as a gallerist for a subsequent ten, I would say she did her job extremely well. The whole point of these kind of pictures is to get attention for the magazine by creating a striking and newsworthy picture - and that’s exactly what she did. Miley Cyrus is 15 years old - a crossroad these now infamous pictures convey well. I’m more put off by the lipstick which looks either a little post-make-out smudged or badly applied, than the sight of a naked 15 year old back.

But who are the Disney and Cyrus family minders kidding about their shock and dismay? The most superficial study of Annie Leibovitz's work reveals four things: one – she likes to get people to take off as many clothes as possible; two - she loves to photograph skin, loves the different textures and colors; three – she loves to show a family bond and loves to show touch; four – she designs her pictures to cause a reaction. Her work is about making contact on every level.

Annie has taken flak for so long she’s used to it, but give her a break! She’s probably done more for the visibility of photography in America over the course of her career than anybody other than Ansel Adams. (About whom more will be posted shortly in the great car picture-taking controversy.)

April Showers of Photos: April 29 Yellow Rose

Here is one of my many yellow roses that are blooming. This one has a little friend. Click the photo to get a good look at him.

Thanks to Jennifer for hosting an April Showers of Photos challenge on her blog S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Elephant

I keep stumbling upon all sorts of interesting things in London. I am reading and web searching to try and learn more about them all. Mostly though I just like finding them. This elephant is opposite the London school of economics and political science (in Holborn). All I know about it is what is written on the plaque. Its not very big, but rather lovely don't you think?

Popel Coumou

A year ago today I had the pleasure of being a judge at the Hyeres Photo Festival. This annual event takes place in the small French town of Hyeres – halfway between Marseilles and Nice - in the inspiring setting of the modernist Villa Noailles, a hangout of Picasso and Man Ray. For three days 10 young photographers and 10 international judges meet and critique before a winner is eventually selected.

All the photographers’ work is exhibited for an entire month, drawing visitors from around the world, and the winner receives a commission to shoot a new series of pictures in Hyeres which are exhibited the following year. Our jury was split equally between an American, Jessica Roberts, and a Dutch photographer, Popel Coumou, so we ended up awarding a joint first prize.

Anyway, I just received an e-mail from Popel with the images from her commission and I was highly impressed. Her work had originally consisted of constructed and re-photographed room sets – not usually my kind of thing. However, for the commission she mixed her constructions and manipulations with pictures of real locations in Hyeres and came up with something that was an organic progression and advance in her work. It's also totally original.

I had not voted for Popel, but I often find that work I need time to come around to ends up having a greater resonance than what I like right away. I could make a whole list of things like this starting with Weegee and 19th Century photography and moving on to the paintings of Joan Mitchell, the music of Cat Power, and Indian cuisine.

(By the way, I'm now talking to Ms. Coumel about exhibiting her work in New York.)










Below - a Popel Coumou set-up prior to photography.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #10 Our First Outdoor Dinner/Picnic

We had been trying all week to get outdoors to have a picnic to complete Green Hour Challenge #10 but the weather just did not cooperate. It rained and then even though the sun was out, it was really still too cold to eat outside. I was determined to eat out on the deck this weekend and it could not have worked out better. We spent the whole weekend working in the backyard because the weather was perfectly perfect.

We added a few more plants to the new butterfly garden, replaced some jasmine plants that didn't make it through the winter, and I found two new hydrangeas that I wanted in my newly made flowerbed...a pink one and a pretty blue one.

Sunday evening rolled around and we threw some steaks on the barbeque and got out the chair cushions for the deck chairs. All was going well. The kids lit the tiki torches just fine and we went inside to grab a few more things for the table. My youngest son went out on the deck and discovered that one of the torches had completely lit on fire. My husband, who is a firefighter, was so calm and ran over to try to put it out. The older children ran and got the garden hose and put the flames out.

So after the excitement died down, we really did have an enjoyable meal. The sky was beautiful and air was warm. It felt so nice to be outdoors together enjoying a nice dinner.

Here is the sky on this beautiful spring day.


Here are a few more photos from the week's nature time.

Figs are on the tree already!

Our sunflowers have sprouted it seems like overnight and we are going to have a bumper crop.

We also continued our tree study in the woods but we are going to also pick a tree in our backyard to use for the seasonal Green Hour Challenge, more on that in another entry.

Touch of Italy

This lovely little street was designed as a pedestrian shopping street, by R J Worley in 1906 for the Bedford Estate.

Different but Equal

Two different but equally great pictures from this Sunday's New York Times. The top one (from the travel section) is a 1942 picture of Ansel Adams by Cedric Wright. It has always been one of my favorite portraits of a photographer. Sure, it's a little hokey - the photographer as heroic figure silhouetted against the sky - but it's also three terrific pictures in one: a grand view of Yosemite, a striking portrait of Ansel at work, and a cool picture of a 1941 Cadillac Series 61 station wagon. It may look contrived, but this is really how Adams set up to take many of his best pictures including the famous "Moonrise".

Underneath (from the Book Review) is an out-take from Norman Seef's 1974 cover shoot for Carly Simon's 1975 album, Playing Possum. Seef is a photographer you don't hear a lot about today, but for much of the '70s he ruled the roost, photographing the major recording artists of that era. He did most of his work in his Sunset Boulevard studio coaxing relaxed and extroverted pictures out of his subjects. The Carly Simon pictures look like they could have been taken yesterday - both in terms of clothing (or lack of it) and attitude. Seef is currently finishing a documentary based on film he would shoot while taking his rock star stills.




And the image chosen for the actual album cover. Tough choice...

April Showers of Photos: April 27 Columbine

McKanna Giant Columbine

Finally remembered that this columbine was part of a collection of plants that I purchased last year and planted in this section of the garden. It was part of a butterfly garden mix and it never bloomed last year but it is sure blooming this year! Gorgeous.

Thanks to Jennifer for hosting an April Showers of Photos challenge on her blog S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

April Showers of Photos: April 26 Lavender Pink Flower

Not sure what this is exactly...took this photo at the nursery. It looks like a hibiscus to me but I'm not sure. We did have this growing in our garden a few years ago but we discovered that the deer think it is very tasty and they ate the whole plant. So I will enjoy it at the nursery and not worry about trying to grow it at my house.


Thanks to Jennifer for hosting an April Showers of Photos challenge on her blog S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

We've Had Her A Hundred Years! --- Part One

There’s a three-minute ribbon of film that for me sums up the whole Bette Davis thing. It’s a trailer for The Great Lie, included as an extra with the DVD. In footage shot specifically for the preview, two girls buy tickets and enter the auditorium. One’s seen it twice already. The other never misses any of Bette Davis’ pictures. As they watch highlights on the screen, both exclaim over matters of intense interest --- George Brent back as Bette’s leading man, Mary Astor’s performance a revelation, etc. Would any trailer today presume so much, especially one for an otherwise unremarkable star vehicle? That legion of young women waiting for the next Bette Davis film was a given in 1941. A lot of them had been on notice via fan club notices (Davis herself acknowledged faithful followers in an ad shown here for The Great Lie). Many kept scrapbooks and dutifully pasted therein every landmark in the star’s life and career. Bette Davis supplied guideposts for every fan’s journey toward experience and maturity. Teenagers and single women looked to her as role model. A lot of her examples were no doubt positive, even as others (all that smoking!) decidedly weren’t. I came across a stack of albums that represented five years in the life of one Davis admirer. She’d maintained them between 1938 and 1942. Back when money was harder earned, this collector was putting all her disposable change into seemingly every fan magazine on the racks. Coverage in these scrapbooks was exhaustive. You look through such labors of adoration and realize just how important movie stars once were. Articles clipped out of at least three publications represent Bette’s Hawaiian themed wrap party for child players in All This and Heaven Too. The birthday celebration for Davis that tied into a premiere for The Great Lie earns a dozen lovingly crafted pages. Off-screen relationships are monitored carefully, for Bette’s own would at the least influence this fan’s taste in men. When at last she takes a (second) husband, arrows point to images of Arthur Farnsworth as if to confer approval of Davis’ selection. Was five years the typical life cycle of devoted B.D. fandom? My girl’s chronicle ended with 1942’s Now, Voyager. Maybe she found a boyfriend (one who preferred Desperate Journey or Sherlock Holmes and The Voice Of Terror?), or perhaps married. Anyway, Bette Davis got left behind, for the last twenty pages of the final book were empty. As those fans grew out of her, so too did Davis’ career pass its peak, for ten years, if that, was as much time as she’d have at the top. Still, it was a longer vogue than Kay Francis enjoyed, and certainly a better run than those of Constance Bennett, Ruth Chatterton, or a dozen others we could name. Davis achieved immortal, mythic … whatever … status largely because, unlike the others, she just would not quit. The fact she was for many the movie’s best actress was incidental to drive almost inhuman to stay in front of cameras.

There are so many books about Bette Davis. I’m old hat for saying her life was as dramatic, if not more so, than the films she made, but at least that’s explanation for relentless biographing (two more in the last year!). As bloom faded from her status as feminist champion, writers took up Davis as she who must dominate and dispenser of ritual abuse upon hapless directors and family members. Interviewees relaxed once she died (in 1989) to reveal more of paces she’d put them through. Archeological digs among files at USC showed how Warners suffered to earn those Davis grosses (which were good and consistent at least through the war). Independent research was catching up to much of what the daughter wrote in My Mother’s Keeper. An outstanding TCM documentary (Star Dust) written by Peter Jones broke rank with previous boilerplate profiles by interviewing subsequent wives of one-time BD husbands, and what insights we get from these ordinary women and strained encounters they had with a wound tight movie queen years after she’d discarded their men. Revelation came thick and fast after Davis died. Director Vincent Sherman told of darker implications arising from the mystery death of second husband Arthur Farnsworth. This singular unfortunate seems to have taken more blows to the head than poor Spike when he met Droopy and twin Drippy. Farny fell down stairs, tripped off a train platform, and cracked his skull on a sidewalk in three separate incidents. Had Bette pushed him off that train? The way others (to whom she’d confided) told it, this was like a scene from any given BD melodrama, minus Code dictated moral and legal compensation for crimes possibly committed. Not that Davis didn’t get her own comeuppance from time to time. Studio lights fell on her, acid was mistaken for eyewash, and latex poisoned her skin. All this and Miriam Hopkins too. There were precious few breaks between jobs. If a horse keeps winning pennants, why leave it in the barn? I’m amazed at how good she was for all she went through. BD knew she had ultimate responsibility for everything that went on the screen. After all, fans weren’t going to blame Irving Rapper for pictures that let them down.

It’s no mystery why men shun Bette. She’s awfully rough on them in her pictures. I hate you! I couldn’t bear to have you touch me. You were such a weak, soft fool. Pick a number as to recipients of such vitriol --- Leslie Howard, Franchot Tone, Herbert Marshall, Dennis Morgan --- all were castrated with the same verbal forceps. It would seem male patrons for Bette Davis vehicles were either gay or dragged into theatres by women. Otherwise, why endure such sustained punishment on behalf of one’s wretched sex? Mistreatment dished by the likes of Lana Turner or Hedy Lamarr was more palatable. There were at least other compensations men could imagine. Maybe it’s well that Scarlett O’Hara went Vivien Leigh’s way instead of Bette’s, for that was a bitchy part men accepted for the sexual carrot an actress with Leigh’s looks could dangle. Would Scarlett have been worth years of Rhett’s waiting had Davis been cast in GWTW? Not likely. BD was actress enough to prosper without advantages conventional beauties had. That eighties song got nearest the secret of her success. It was those Bette Davis eyes that provided all the intensity she needed (question --- could anyone with small or beady eyes ever become a major film star?). Excess mannerisms and gestures to come seemed like overkill augmenting such natural gifts. Too bad her directors lost control just at a point where she needed it most. The early Davis parts could have been played by a dozen actresses at Warners, a reflection less upon her than assembly line casting that ground up promise and discarded players before they could fulfill it. Looking at Three On A Match, you’d figure Ann Dvorak for eventual laurels Davis received, but who in 1932 noticed greatness in a programmer in and out of their theatre within a few days’ time? You needed iron will and ambition to the exclusion of all else, in addition to extraordinary talent, to make stardom’s grade at a factory like Warners. Her rebellion and passage to England was also BD’s gateway to a public image new to contract players, the rebel with a creative cause and steadfast warrior for roles worthy of her talents. A growing fan-base knew by now of the latter via an Academy Award denied (Of Human Bondage) and one given as compensation (Dangerous). Regard she earned for the defiant gesture was enormous, even if she stood not a chance in the courts. Coverage henceforth emphasized BD’s on-set input and frequent checkmating of front office imbeciles. She’d give her fans good pictures in spite of them! Stills found her appearing to direct the directors. She’d become a distaff Hercules cleaning out the Augean stables of Hollywood banality and incompetence.

Better material awaited Davis’ return from England. Jezebel in 1938 began a run through fields of clover lasting nine years. I’ve reviewed the list and watched several again. Admittedly it’s a matter of opinion, but I don’t think there’s a dog in this lot. If one just can’t stand Bette Davis, none of them will suit (and you’d have signed off this post by now if that were the case), but in the event you like this actress half or more as much as I do, then The Great Lie, Watch On The Rhine, and Old Acquaintance, weak sisters only in comparison with BD’s best (her pics with William Wyler), are as yet stout examples of Warners machinery at its most efficient and entertaining. Had I been a forties schoolgirl on the cusp of adulthood, hanged if I wouldn’t have kept my own scrapbooks, and thick ones at that. Davis played the gamut within a hothouse formula always good for confrontations, bitchery both practiced by and inflicted upon her, and faces slapped silly to a Max Steiner crash of cymbals. An avalanche of mail would alert Davis on occasions when melodrama touched on real lives among her audience. Now, Voyager was such a triumph of women projecting themselves onto BD’s character with intensity other actresses could but dream of inspiring. Charlotte Vale’s contretemps with Paul Henried were small punkins beside combat she engaged with monster mother Gladys Cooper, a character nailed by thousands of femmes in the audience as not unlike cruel matriarchs they had at home. Such a direct wire to viewer emotions was less likely installed by luck or Warner inspiration than by Davis’ unerring sense of what women wanted and how best to deliver it. She was known to rewrite weak dialogue and shift emphasis from cliché to at least a suggestion of truth as her fans experienced it. Bette knew mirrors didn’t always flatter those viewing her in darkness, and so was willing to ugly up when scenes called for it, knowing they’d respect her more for not hiding behind false glamour. That too became hackneyed for overuse and excess application in Mr. Skeffington, where Davis fell off a thin precipice between honesty and grotesquerie. This is the Bette Davis my fans like, she told alarmed director Vincent Sherman, ignoring needed counsel to tamp down self-indulgence all that ringing applause brought on.

Photo Captions:

Early Portrait for the Fan Magazines

Ad for The Great Lie

Bette and George Brent in a color photo for The Great Lie

Newly-minted Colonel Jack L. Warner with BD and ill-fated second husband Arthur Farnsworth

Davis on the set of Deception

With Gig Young in a color shot from Old Acquaintance

With director Curtis Bernhardt during A Stolen Life

With director William Keighley during shooting of The Bride Came C.O.D.

Color Portrait from The Little Foxes

On the set of It's Love I'm After with Leslie Howard and director Archie Mayo

With Paul Henried in a color pose from Now, Voyager

With Gladys Cooper in Now, Voyager

More Reptiles: Skink and a Snake

How does this happen? I can go along for weeks and not see any reptiles and then today the boys brought two very different reptiles to my attention.

First at my parent's house, the boys found the remnants of a small gopher snake (Pituophos melanoleucus). I will spare you the gory details but there was enough to identify this creature.

Then when we got home and we were out in the yard, they found a Gilbert's skink (Eumeces gilberti). I couldn't bear to even take photos but I am going to record the nature find here on our blog. After we got a good look at the skink, a Scrub jay came and snatched the skink and flew away. This is the same scrub jay that has a nest of babies outside my daughter's window in the oleander bush. We were able to see three baby birds in the nest today. It was a circle of life sort of day around here.

Here is the nest.


Here is the best I could get of the babies in the nest. (Try to click the image to make it larger.)


All in all, a good day for nature study and just the way I like it....just taking it as it comes to us as we go about our day.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

April Showers of Photos: April 25 Arrowleaf Balsam Root

Just a fun photo from today's wanderings. I always love seeing Arrowleaf balsam root (Balsamorhiza sagittata) in the spring. It reminds me of sunflowers and that makes me smile.

Thanks to Jennifer for hosting an April Showers of Photos challenge on her blog S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Weekend Video - Flying Ducks

As I'm sure you understand, I put a lot of time into trying to find interesting videos for the "Weekend Video". I've done music, dance, film, photography - but I've stayed away from cute. Until now .... I
don't know whether it's the spring or just a change of pace, but this seemed fun (if not an apt metaphor for the human condition).

American clothing

Had lunch with a friend near New Bond St today and looked for something interesting around there to photograph. Took some of shots of a couple of cars involved in a bit of road rage. Then as we continued on down Savile Row, I spotted this model in Abercrombie and Fitch promoting 'preppy all-American college clothes'. Is this a better choice for the weekend?

Blogger Issues

I will post as soon as blogger lets me upload an image!

April Showers of Photos: April 25 Lemon Tree

Lemon blossoms have a surprising colored bud. We purchased this lemon tree last fall and we carefully cared for it all winter. It looked pretty bad at one point and I wasn't sure it was going to make it through all the frosts we had but a few days ago it pushed out so many blossom buds that I am sure it is going to be fine.

There is nothing in the Handbook of Nature Study about lemons or anything citrus that I can find but we will be watching this tree as it develops over the year.

Thanks to Jennifer for hosting an April Showers of Photos challenge on her blog S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Outdoor Hour Challenge #11 Year-Long Tree Study

If you have been following along with the challenges and you picked a focus way back in challenge number four, you should be just about ready to wrap up your first focus study. Our family has been learning about garden flowers but we are soon going to switch over to wildflowers. (This is going along with my son's study of Kingdom plantae in biology.)

This is a good time to start a seasonal tree study. You will be picking a tree in your yard or neighborhood that you could "adopt" for a year to observe and record the changes in each season. I encourage everyone to start their year long tree study with the group this week. This part of the challenge should take one week to complete and then in our next challenge we will be starting a group focus study of wildflowers or garden flowers. Please Note:If your family is enjoying your current focus, you do not need to switch but you can follow your own path and keep us posted.

Observing our tree Fall 2007

Outdoor Hour Challenge #11
Begin a Four Season Tree Study

1. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 622-623. Also read page 625, Spring Work. After reading, turn to the table of contents, to the tree section, and read the list of trees covered in this book. If possible, pick a tree from the list that you have in your yard, on your street, or in a near-by park that you can observe over the course of the next year. My boys and I have been working on a tree study with an oak tree since August 2007. The changes in the tree have given us something to study in each season. If you live in a more exotic location, like some participants who live in Australia, Brazil, or Spain, do your best to compare your tree to a similar tree in the Handbook of Nature Study. Many of the observations can be used to study a variety of trees.

Before heading out for your nature study time, read the introductory section for your focus tree with your children. Make sure to read the observation suggestions for your particular tree and keep these in mind as you go out to make your observations. You will be challenged in each season of the coming year to make an observation for your tree and record any changes. I have prepared a journal page to record your observations. See the end of the blog entry for a link to the journal page.

2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to study the tree you are going to observe over the next year. We took photos of our tree to put in our nature journal or you can sketch them right into your journal. Keep in mind the suggestions for observation that you read in the Handbook of Nature Study. If you have younger children, just spend your time observing your tree and helping them to look at it closely.

3. Add anything new to your list of items observed in your focus area that you are keeping in your nature journal. Make note of any additional research that needs to be done to follow up interest found during your Outdoor Hour.

4. Complete the Seasonal Tree Study journal page with your child. Place the page in your nature notebook to have for comparison in the next seasonal tree challenge.

5. Post an entry on your blog sharing your experiences and then come back to the Outdoor Hour Challenge post and add your blog link to Mr. Linky. All the challenges are listed in a drop-down menu on the sidebar of my blog.

Here are links to:
Outdoor Hour Challenge #11 (in the OH Challenge Seasonal PDF)
Seasonal Tree Study nature journal page



Tina at Jetihoja Academy has put together notebook pages to go along with the Green Hour Challenges that she would love to share with you all.
Outdoor Hour Assignment Notebook Pages (Lulu.com)

April Showers of Photos: April 24 Red Poppy

Beautiful morning light enhanced the delicate texture of this oriental poppy just about to burst all the way open.

The combination of textures between the flower itself and the covering of the flower just amaze me.

A few hours later the sun had burst open the flower but left part of the covering nestled inside. I could not help but take another photo.

Couldn't resist including one more photo of the poppy being guarded by my cat Cocoa.

Thanks to Jennifer for hosting an April Showers of Photos challenge on her blog S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

All Colors Together

All I can tell you about these poster designs are that they are by a Brazilian graphic designer named Daniel Molin and I think they are inventive and brilliant - regardless of who you support!

April Showers of Photos: April 21/22/23

Argyranthemum-Meteor Red-my new potted plant on my back deck


Delphinium-so pretty and blue


Oriental poppy in my daughter's garden

I got a little behind again in my posting so here are three photos to "catch up". I have been taking photos every day but just not posting them. The challenge has made me more aware of color and taking opportunities to capture them with my camera and for that I am grateful.

Thanks to Jennifer for hosting an April Showers of Photos challenge on her blog S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom