(bright music) - Hello, early learners.

And welcome back to the last day of celebrating Clementine Hunter.

Remember she was an artist from Louisiana, and she'd grown up on a plantation where her family had worked for free for so many years.

And she worked there alongside her parents doing all kinds of jobs.

And you remember that she decided she didn't really want to go to school.

And she convinced her mother that she would be happier just picking cotton.

And we talked about how hard it was to pick cotton and how it cuts your fingers, 'cause there are great big thorns on the end of each of the blossoms.

And we talked also about the chores she did around the plantation.

And when she wasn't cleaning inside and picking cotton, she would sometimes get paid extra or get to take home pecans.

And she liked making pecan pie, and pecans are a kind of nut that is shaped much like a walnut.

Now, I have a walnut in my hand and a pecan, and inside they think that the meat of the nut looks like a heart.

Interesting.

Now, the walnut has a lot of texture on the outside and it has a nice way to crack open.

You will see pecans all over because the squirrels love these, and they will drop them in the middle of the street sometimes and a crow will come down and try and get it, and they peck, peck, peck to open it.

And long ago, when we were talking about "The Nutcracker," I brought my nutcracker and it is in the shape of a squirrel, and he opens his mouth.

You put the nut in there, and it has to be on a table, because doing it on something soft, it doesn't work.

But then he cracks the nut and opens it up, and you get the meat out.

Seems funny that the inside of a nut is called the meat because meat usually comes from an animal product, but these pecans are kind of a sweet nut, and these pecans are easier to crack than a walnut.

And look how it comes out, just the shape of the whole pecan.

It is such an interesting nut, and so tasty.

Let me put this back over here, along with the walnut.

And I'll put these aside, because not only did I use the nutcracker that is shaped like a squirrel, that is the character that's in our story today.

Our story is called "Nuts to You."

Now, that is a, oh, goodbye, Brazil nut.

When someone says "Nuts to you," that means "Get out of here.

I'm all finished talking to you."

But that's not what happens in this story.

You'll see the character, the main character is the squirrel.

And he's interested in everything that's happening in the human's house.

Now, Lois Ehlert, who is the author of this book, she makes her books kind of science-like.

She'll tell little side notes about what flowers are in the picture.

She'll tell about tools.

She'll tell about little habits of squirrels, and the whole back two pages of this book tells all about squirrels.

And I just think it's so interesting, "Nuts to You."

Although the squirrels in my backyard tend to eat my cushions on my lounge furniture.

"Nuts to You" by Lois Ehlert.

Lois Ehlert writes so many great books.

Maybe you remember the one called "Planting a Rainbow."

That one's one of my favorites where she plants a red flower, an orange flower, a yellow flower, and goes all the way down the rainbow.

Maybe your teacher will do that with you in the spring.

Now also, I wanted you to notice in this book, she cuts little pages and only shows parts of it, "Nuts to You" by Lois Ehlert.

And then this one tells you all the call numbers and all the interesting parts from the library.

And I did get this from the Tulare County Library because mine is lost in my storage, but look how they put the label right on the first page.

It's okay though.

It says, and it's a rhyming book, boys and girls.

So we can see if we do our hand motions, "tree," "me," they both say E, here it is.

"See that squirrel in our tree?

I think he'd rather live with me."

And it tells you here, this is a lakeside apartment, and it tells where it is and the manager, and here she tells about these fuchsia plants.

Here it is.

"I'll wait awhile.

He could be shy.

Or maybe he likes it way up high."

Can you see the squirrel way up high in the tree?

"Look!

Here he comes, trying to hide.

He can't wait to get inside."

"Hide," "Inside."

They both say "ide."

"He's in the flowers.

He's really bad.

He's digging up bulbs.

My mom is mad!"

"Bad," "Mad."

They both say "ad."

"There he goes, up the bricks on his claws.

He steals seeds and eats with his paws."

And paws, you know, are his feet.

And she tells you, here is an American Goldfinch.

She labels all of the things in the pictures, which is fun to then look back.

Ooh, this is foreshadowing.

There's a little rip in the screen.

That's gonna be part of the story.

I wish I would have told you to get out your Attenta-scope.

"Walking on tiptoe, tail held high, he brushes my plants as he zips by."

"High," "By," they both say "I."

And they tell you, this is a Monarch butterfly.

And I just spent Thanksgiving in Pacific Grove where they have a Monarch museum of sorts.

It's outside and you can go and they're hanging hundreds of them from the trees.

"In our window box, watching us eat, he sits on the flowers and begs for a treat."

And they tell you, these are petunias.

Petunia plants, if you've ever seen these, these are all around Fresno and Clovis.

Oh, there's that little rip in the screen.

That's part of the story.

Listen.

"I opened my window for some fresh air, but I forgot the screen had a tear."

"Air," "Tear."

They both say "air."

"When I came back, guess what I found?"

The squirrel found its way inside.

It squeezed its body through that little tear.

"That squirrel was there looking around!"

Listen, I'll read it again because I think you might've forgotten what the first rhyme was.

"When I came back, guess what I found?

That squirrel was there looking around!"

"Around," "Found."

They both say "ound."

"So I got some nuts, ran out the door, tapped one on the sidewalk, and left a few more."

The sound of the tapping of the nuts is kind of the sound that squirrels will make when they try and tap it on the sidewalk to crack it open, because they don't have a nutcracker.

"'Nuts to you!'

I shouted as loud as I could.

That squirrel peeked out.

I knew he would."

Look, he's inside the house, and he's made that tiny rip big.

And this bird is called a house finch, and it has a sunflower seed.

I love Lois Ehlert's artwork.

"He looked to the left.

He looked to the right.

He ran down the bricks and took a big bite."

"Right," "Bite."

They both say "ite."

"He ate all those nuts and then scampered away, but he'll get hungry again someday."

Do you know what this one is?

First it starts out as a yellow flower and then makes a big wispy wisher.

It's the dandelion.

"I'll keep nuts in my pockets, one or two, and when I see him, I'll say, 'Nuts to you!'"

And here's the part I was telling you about.

She tells how to identify whether it's a squirrel or a chipmunk.

She talks about their teeth.

She talks about their feet.

She talks about their tail, about their nest of their home, and what they like for food.

And that's the end of this great story, "Nuts to You."

You can check this out at your library.

I'll return this today.

I'm taking all my books back to the library.

It'll give you a chance to check it out.

I didn't look to see if it's on the SOAR app, but we can look and see and report back.

Boys and girls, it's our last print of Clementine Hunter for this week.

She has hundreds.

I know the guy that runs the camera here at the studio.

He looked it up and he was telling me how many.

I had heard there were a lot.

And you know a sad thing that happened?

Near the end of her life, because her art was so simple and it's kind of childlike, there were people that were painting them and signing her initial and then selling them and taking the money and not giving it to her.

They pretended they were her and painted those and kept the money to themselves.

It's the same as stealing.

It was bad.

Let's take a look at what we have on our blue chart today.

The things I brought.

I still want you to know what Clementine Hunter looks like.

I would like to sing the song because it tells about picking the pecans.

And here is a giant picture of the pecan.

I told you the walnut has a textured shell.

The pecans have a really smooth shell.

And I'll sing the song to you.

It goes like this.

♪ Oh, our artist Clementine Hunter ♪ ♪ Painted pictures of her life ♪ ♪ On a plantation feeding chickens, ♪ ♪ Picking cotton, becoming a wife ♪ ♪ Painted on bottles and on fence posts ♪ ♪ Quilted stories of her life ♪ ♪ On a plantation hanging laundry, ♪ ♪ Picking pecans, becoming a wife ♪ And here's the picture that we're going to use as our inspiration today.

I thought we could make the three trees.

You can color them or paint them or cut them out with your paper and scissors and glue stick.

We could make these people in profile.

Now, I wanted to tell you how to make people in profile.

You make their, first, their torso with a rectangle.

On her women, she usually put them in skirts.

So those can be triangles.

Then you'll make a circle head.

Look at every single one of them, except for the one hanging from the tree, has on a hat, because the sun was mighty.

And if they don't have on a hat, their head got hot.

Now, some of the people went up in the trees to pick them, but this man is using a rake and he's hitting the trees and they shake down.

Now, when I've worked on a farm before and they had a machine that came out and the machine put a hand-like thing around the trunk and shook it, shook it, shook it, and all the fruit or the nuts fall down to the ground.

And then someone's down at the bottom, picking them up.

Well, we're going to do a picture where we're gonna make the trees, and if you have time to add more people later, and maybe I'll have time too, but I'm using my cotton swab or Q-tip to make little dots that are supposed to be the pecans that are falling from the trees.

So we'll start out making however many trees you'll want.

I think I'll do three because it's a nice balance.

One in the middle, one on one side, one on the other, and then I'll make the pecans afterwards.

And whatever time we have left, I will add people profile.

Remember, the side of them, the side of them.

You don't even see the expressions on their faces.

You can see that she puts like the whites of their eyes you can see on their brown skin.

But these ladies all have on aprons.

The man has on jeans and he doesn't have an apron on, but I think he's the one that is doing the shaking and the ladies are doing all the picking up.

So let me get my little table on my lap, and we will start our picture.

Here we go.

I'll bring up my pink paper.

I'm making it go horizontally.

And I will start out by drawing the trunks of my three trees.

And I could put the green grass on there, and I'm going to start out.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to paint or use my oil pastels.

So I might end up doing a mixed media.

No dripping on the chair, Mrs. Readwright.

There we go.

Okay.

So, you can see in our, let me bring this down here, in our inspiration, the sky is kind of gray.

The lower part of the sky is kind of a bluish gray, and then there's gray gray, and then there's some black, and I wonder, is pecan picking, does it happen in the fall?

I get clues by looking at what kind of clothes they have on.

Are they wearing short sleeves or long sleeves?

Are there leaves on the trees?

Because that tells us in the seasons what kinds of weather it is.

So I'm gonna put this here, and you go ahead and start on your trees, boys and girls.

Decide how many trunks you want and how many trees you'll do.

I think I might just put this up, 'cause I really thought the leaves are the part that I wanted to paint.

So I'll just keep my six pack here, and I will close this one up for right now and use my oil pastels while I start.

'Cause that really does help me get started with something, 'cause I like how it makes it kind of brown and more like a trunk.

So I have that little tiny piece that broke off, and I'll do this because I can see what this is upside down.

I know how to draw a tree, even upside down.

You know I like to do it swooped up, and then I overlap some of the colors and press a little hard on one side and not on the other, so it makes kind of like the bark on the tree trunk.

And you remember how I told you I like to put my branches up in little twigs here and there.

And I'll make another tree, but I think I'll use a different color trunk.

and I'll just make this one a little broken piece too.

So I go swoop down.

Swoop up.

And make it a little darker in some areas and a little lighter in the others.

You know I'm holding it sideways and just rubbing it down and go up with the branches.

Just make a lot of different branches.

If you have a sponge and you'd like to sponge print, that's fun to do.

Let me break off a little end of this one too.

I like to have a variety, even though they don't have a variety.

Clementine did not make a variety of hers.

But I don't have to make mine look exactly like hers.

I just get some ideas and think, oh, I'd like to do that.

I might even one day bring in some real branches and glue them on here and then add leaves to it, if I would like.

I could even do that and put some, I could put, what was I thinking of telling you, boys and girls?

I guess I got lost in my, oh, I know.

Get some old leaves and glue them onto the trees too.

You could just bring in leaves and cut little pieces out and put them on here.

Here are my Q-tips.

I'm going to put some brown paint.

I put it in a little lid, but I think I'll just do this.

I just put this, now notice.

I want you to really note this.

Just like the ballerina, I don't put the whole thing into the paint.

I just put the tip of it.

So I can just do little dots of pecans falling from the trees, and you can just set it down and pick it up or you can pull it and do this to it.

And hers come down like rain.

I think it's kind of interesting how she does hers.

I can just put my pecans all over here.

I dip back in, not very much.

Doesn't need to make your whole cotton swab all covered with paint.

I can just turn it in and touch, touch, touch, and then put it back in.

Touch, touch, touch, touch.

'Cause they are kind of ovals, these nuts are.

So I can just touch, touch, touch, touch.

That looks pretty good.

Wonder what it would be like to paint the leaves with my other cotton swabs.

I could do that.

Just put some leaves on like that.

Oh, I like how that looks.

But I have to move it away a little bit more, 'cause they're not as small as the pecans.

The leaves are a little bigger.

So I could do this kind of movement.

I could also mix it so that not every single one of them is just a dark green.

I could make them a lighter green too.

Yep, I like how that looks.

And she usually just did this.

She made hers just kind of an egg shape.

Went up.

I could use a paintbrush or I can still use my cotton swab.

And you can see the branches through some of the leaves.

And that's true on your trees at home.

I can always see branches and think, wait, where is that squirrel?

Or I'll say, did the bird fly up there?

'Cause there are birds that make their nests in my trees all the time.

So I have to be careful that I don't frighten them when I'm trimming the trees.

'Cause if I don't trim some of my laurel tree, it goes across my driveway and it hits my car when I try and pull into the garage at night.

So I have to be careful.

Do you see each one of these trees is a little different?

Which probably isn't a good idea if I want them all to look like a pecan tree, but it doesn't have to be a science one.

I know sometimes when I tell children, come on, we're making this look like science, so let's not make the people purple.

And then they laugh because they think, oh, I've never seen a purple person, just in art sometimes.

But if we're trying to make something it's scientific, you have to look at what the real thing looks like and move from there.

It's kind of fun to use these as a paintbrush.

I'm gonna get my paintbrush out though and do my third tree with a paintbrush.

I like just going back through and putting my yellow on top of the green and making a lighter green.

I like this pretty much.

Have to be careful 'cause I don't want to get it too wet if I want to add my people in profile.

All right, I'll put this one over here so I don't get it on this nice table.

Put my Q-tips there, and I will get a brush that has not been sitting in water all this time.

Well, that's a goodie.

Now I will dip into my, oh, I might make kind of a blue-green leaf on this one.

See how that looks.

Oh, pretty.

Kind of forest green.

Could add a little brown to that too and make it even a darker brown.

Oh, that one's good.

That one's just like a pine tree.

I really like that color.

I see a lot of people cutting down pine trees, getting ready for a holiday that they decorate their trees.

Saw 'em in the back of a lot of people's cars.

Saw many yesterday when I was riding my bike out in Clovis, and people were driving by with their trucks and they have their pine trees in the back of their truck.

I think, "Where are you taking that tree, Mister?"

This is really a pretty one.

I think I like this one best of all 'cause I did more variety on the color of leaves.

I have some blue-green leaves, and I have some dark green leaves, and maybe I'll use some yellow-green leaves, Yellow-green leaves because who knows what season this is?

You can't really tell from what I'm doing.

Okay, just so that we have an idea of how to make a profile person.

I'm going to move my paints aside, get my scissors and my glue stick and start a little person.

Put this in the water.

I'll move these things aside so that you can see.

If you have your scraps from your art materials, you can bring them out, and I'll show you what I mean about when you're making a profile person.

All right, into the scraps.

I'm going to make some blue jeans on somebody.

Oh, this is it right here.

I'll make just like that.

Man.

It really takes two rectangles to make a pair of pants.

So, I make them the same length.

I think, how tall will he be?

About there.

I can either just cut a V out of this rectangle so that he has his two legs of his pants, and I'll put him on there.

Oh!

On one side of my blue paper was some turquoise paint.

I could have made the pants that color.

I'll put him standing here.

And now I will have a rectangle shirt for him.

I think I'll make it a different blue.

I have to see how wide his waist is and match it.

Just pinch it or do a little tear, making him sideways.

So I make his rectangle body.

And to make it look like that, it just makes him look like Frankenstein.

So I have to curve around the top by where his shoulders would be.

And I'll glue that on.

Now, since he's standing sideways, I will see his arm going up with the rake in his hand.

So I can put this glue on this sleeve.

I should make the top of it rounded like his shoulder.

And put that on there.

I'll have his rake up like that.

I think I might need a second one to really hold the rake.

I don't think he could hold the rake with one hand, but maybe, he might be a strong guy.

I'll make his shoulder rounded.

Let's shove it in on the other side.

Put the hands up so that he can get ahold of his rake.

I will use, oh, maybe I'll make his handle of his rake yellow.

So it'll stand out and not be part of.

My handle of my rake is wooden.

So I would put brown, but then it ends up looking like the tree.

And I don't know how much I like that.

But if I put this rake going up to bat the trees, oh, too long, tear it off.

Put it here.

I can put his hands around it in a minute.

And I will make his rake be maybe a black rake.

If I can find any black.

Oh, here's the bag of black.

And a rake has to have the tines.

Boys and girls, it has been a terrific week with you doing Clementine.

And I want you to be sure to try and write to me and show me something that you made this week.

I thank you for coming.

Let's say goodbye to one another.

♪ Oh, it's time to say goodbye to all my friends ♪ ♪ Oh, it's time to say goodbye to my friends ♪ ♪ Oh, it's time to say goodbye ♪ ♪ Give a smile and wink your eye ♪ ♪ Oh, it's time to say goodbye to all my friends ♪ Boys and girls, I'll see you soon.

Please keep doing your artwork, and enjoy yourselves and have a great rest of your day.

I'll see you soon.

Bye-bye.

(bright music)