(upbeat music) - Hello, early learners.

And welcome back to the art room, the last day of our week of color.

And I chose one of the most identifiable artists that I know when it comes to children's books.

It's Eric Carle.

Now, Eric Carle died recently, but before that he even visited Fresno at the Fresno Art Museum.

He was an artist in residence.

And you know his art, he takes paper and he paints them, and then he does texture on them.

And then he tears them, and he cuts them, and he applies them to his art.

And we're gonna do something like that.

And I thought we were just gonna do it on a piece of paper, and then I saw someone had made a click beetle.

So we're going to make a click beetle, and then you could do the art on a piece of paper if you'd like.

But let's start out by singing our good morning song.

And it's the one where it starts out where the duck, duck says, "Quack."

And you know how I like to start with a great big, oh, so here we go.

♪ Oh, the duck says quack ♪ ♪ And the cow says moo ♪ ♪ And the old red rooster says, cock a doodle do ♪ ♪ The sheep says baa, and the cat says meow ♪ ♪ And I say, good morning when I see you ♪ Alrighty, let's take a look at two click beetles.

Now this is the click beetle that Eric Carle created.

And I talked to you about how he paints on paper.

So you can see he started out with green paper, and he painted blue, but then he scraped it maybe with a fork or something.

And then on the brown paper, he started out with light brown and put dark brown on it and he painted, and then he cut little pieces and added them together.

Now this is very strange, because some people think this click beetle, that these are the click beetles eyes, but they are not.

The click beetles eyes are up on his head.

This little tiny head is on the click beetle, and then here's its thorax, and here is its abdomen.

And you can see, there are two wings that Eric Carle put on here, and you can see that he left a little space, so you could see it.

Now, the click beetle that I made, and I'm going to show you, I didn't put the legs on it, because it's kind of a little game.

You push on the click beetles tail, and then he flips over just like in the story.

I also didn't put the antenna on, but please look at the real photograph of an Eastern Eyed Click Beetle.

Now they call it the Eyed, because two eyes are on its thorax, just like the one that Eric Carle painted.

And then its head is up here and it's two antenna and it's two eyes are on the head.

♪ Head, thorax, abdomen ♪ And here, I even brought a toothbrush.

I thought I would splatter some white paint on it, but I don't know if I will, 'cause then I won't be able to play with it and show you how I'm using it.

And here's a photograph of Eric Carle, and look what he has on his shoulder.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Let me tell you a little bit about Eric Carle, 'cause in the book, it doesn't tell about him.

It tells about the beetle.

So listen to this.

He was the famous author of the "Very Hungry Caterpillar."

And he was born in Syracuse, New York, and his parents, when he was six, they took him back to Germany where he went to school as a child, and he later graduated from there.

Then he came to the United States, but he came with only $40 in his pocket.

So he didn't have a lot of money, but he got a great job working for the New York Times as a graphic designer.

And then he became an art director for an advertising agency that did commercials and print ads.

And then his lucky day was when Bill Martin Jr saw him and saw his work, and he asked him to work on the book, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear.

What Do You see?"

And that book became a bestseller.

And from that moment on, Eric Carle's career as a children author and illustrator begin.

Now I told you, his art is so easy to identify.

Like you could just see it somewhere, and you go, "Oh, that's Eric Carle.

Oh, that's Eric Carle."

That's what I do.

And he cuts out images and he layers onto paper and he's inspired by nature, but he also likes to make his children's book with the feelings of children and creativity and how children think.

So let's take a look at his book called, "The Very Clumsy Click Beetle."

And the clumsy click beetle, something happens to him over and over in the story.

And I want you to think about what Eric Carle just said, that he likes to think of people's and creature's feelings, so he'll do something about feelings in the book.

But let's take a look at the "Very Clumsy Click Beetle."

Now I wanna tell you something else.

Eric Carle has the Firefly one, where if you are reading it, and it gets dark in there, the fireflies open up on the last page and you can hear it.

But listen, it does a click beetle sound.

(beetles clicking) That click beetle sound is in the last page, but let's take a look.

Let me put this over here so I can swing my legs around, and so I can anchor this here.

This is "The Very Clumsy Click Beetle," by Eric Carle, and this is where I got the picture that I showed you earlier.

And you can see where he has green paper and he put blue and different greens and he scraped it.

I brought my scrapers.

If you are in a TK class in Fresno Unified, all of your teachers got these scrapers, and there were three or four of them in there.

That one does a little zigzag.

This one has a much deeper.

And then there's this blue one that makes it like ocean waves, kind of.

So I'm going to use mine, but I wanted to show you what else.

I got this piece of plastic in a piece of mail that wanted me to buy something from them, and they gave me this plastic.

Or you can use old credit cards if your parents are getting rid of them, and you start at the bottom.

Don't cut off the bottom part, but you can cut pieces out of it and leave a space.

Then cut some out, cut some out.

Let me show you what I mean.

I'll cut one little triangle out and out.

I'll go in and meet it in.

In and meet it in.

So when I go to do paintings, I would do it all the way across.

I could scrape it and make a design.

So if you don't have those, you can use that.

Or look, you can use a toothbrush and drag that across there, or you can use a fork, or lots of things can be used to make textures.

So don't worry if you don't have those scrapers.

But since I do, I'm going to use them.

Alrighty.

Let's hope I have all my parts and pieces, 'cause I think I didn't put my paintbrush down here.

Mrs. Readwright.

I'll just use the toothbrush.

Okay.

Here's the story.

"The Very Clumsy Click Beetle.

Look what he's doing.

He's starting here, and he flips, flips, flips, and lands on his side.

I wonder where he'll land each time, because that's part of the story.

"One fine morning a young click beetle decided to go for a walk.

At noon it climbed up and down a flower.

In the afternoon, it rummaged through a pile of pebbles.

In the evening, it crawled among the tall blades of grass.

And when it turned night, a young click beetle crept up a tree.

And after awhile it got tired and fell to the ground, landed on his back.

The young click beetle tried very hard to turn over onto its feet, but he couldn't.

'Help,' he cried.

'Help."

All along, a wise old click beetle had been watching that young click beetle.

'Tomorrow morning, I'll teach you how to click and flip through the air and land on your feet, said the wise old click beetle.

In the meantime, you may as well go to sleep.

'Good night.'

The next morning, the wise old click beetle said, 'Look at me.

This is how it's done.'

First, it turned on its back.

And then with a loud click it flipped through the air and landed on its feet.

'Now you try it,' said the wise old beetle.

'Thank you.

That looks easy,' replied the young click beetle.

Just then an earthworm stuck its head up out of the ground.

'Look at me,' said the young click beetle.

And with a loud click... it flipped through the air, but it landed on its back.

'Oh, how very clumsy of me,' said the young click beetle.

Just then a turtle ambled by.

'Better luck next time,' said the turtle.

'Keep on trying.'

'Look at me,' said the young click beetle.

And with a loud click... it flipped through the air, but it landed on it's back.

'How very clumsy of me,' said the young click beetle.

Just then a snail slithered by.

'Don't worry,' said the snail.

'You'll get there.'

'Look at me,' said the young click beetle.

And with a loud click.... it flipped through the air, but it landed on it's back.

'How very clumsy of me,' said the young click beetle.

Just then a mouse scurried by.

'You need a little more practice,' said the mouse.

'Look at me,' said the young click beetle.

And with a loud click... it flipped through the air, but it landed on it's back.

Just then, oh, what was this?

The young click beetle had never seen anything so big.

It could not move.

It was scared.

'Quick, click, and flip,' cried the wise old click beetle who was watching.

And the young click beetle clicked and flipped through the air.

But this time it did three graceful somersaults.

1, 2, 3, and landed on its feet.

'Look at you,' shouted the wise old click beetle.

'You have done it.'"

And that is the end of the story, boys and girls.

"The Very Clumsy Click Beetle."

Even though it was hard for him to land on his feet, he still kept trying, didn't he?

That's the interesting thing.

When you learn a new lesson from somebody who already knows how, you think, "How can I do that?

How, I don't know?"

Let me get my table, get it up here.

Now I made a click beetle already, just so I could test it out.

But I wanted to show you, this was the kind of clothespin I was telling you about you might need to get.

And it opens and closes, you know, just to put clothes up on the clothesline.

And here is my click beetle.

Now I told you that I did not put its legs on, nor its antenna, because it clicks and jumps, and clicks and jumps.

And I need it for my example, but I wanted to show you the back.

Here is my clothespin.

Is it in the middle?

No, it is not.

Is it near the top?

No, it is not.

It is very close to the bottom of the click beetle.

And I put it there because I tested out a few different ways, and the only one that worked was where it was here.

Oh, please don't fall on the floor.

Let's try it out.

I push.

Oh, it landed on its feet.

Oh, landed on its back.

So you're going to test it out, and you can even say, "This time, I think he'll land on his back."

Oh, he didn't even turn over at all.

Oh, he landed on his back.

So what I did, now, we remember these are not his eyes.

Those are the ones to scare creatures away that might want to eat him.

So if it comes upon, a bird comes over and it looks at this beetle and it says, "Ooh, look at those big eyes.

He must be a big beetle," he'll go and try and find someone else.

But this little click beetle, I made this with black tissue paper, with red tissue paper over the top.

Now I started out and this was the shape my paper was.

I was lucky to have a little card that was like that.

And it was just like this, and I thought, "Oh, perfect shape."

Now, if you have any fancy scissors, that's what I brought today, you could make your own and cut it out that way.

I brought, there was another card in there, but it was green and I put two Xs so I know which way is gonna be glued together.

I did that so I can sandwich the head in there.

So let me get my brown paper out, and my glue stick, and my fancy scissors if I decide.

Now, if you don't have these kind of cards that used to be stationary, look, I just got two index cards.

You just can use two of those, and that makes stiff enough.

Or that cardboard we used yesterday, you could maybe use that.

And I'm going to show you what I do.

I traced just an oval.

If you have some plastic shapes that have ovals on them, that would be great.

If you don't, you can just draw one, and just, you have to make sure when you cut it out, you make sure which side goes to which side.

And I'm gonna cut along that line.

I can use my regular scissors or my fancy scissors, but cutting two pieces of this card is kind of hard on your hands, just like when we were making the small world thing.

Now, when you do this, you want to make sure that you do the head, thorax, and abdomen.

So I'm just showing you how I'm using these scissors, but I'm gonna use my green paper, because it's already ready to go.

And I don't wanna run out of time and not show you how to do this.

So get my scraps out of the way.

So what I'm going to do is kind of see how big of a rectangle I'll cut for his head.

So I'm cutting over, and it was just a tiny little head in the book.

And I'm just making a mountain cut, just by cutting off the corners.

Now, that's my head ready to go.

I only need to put glue on one side, and I put the Xs so I know which side to put it on.

And I will get the glue to go down.

I think I'll use the glue stick for now, boys and girls, 'cause that glue is gonna give me some problems.

But I'm going to put the head in there, sandwiched in between before I put the top on.

And I'll put a little glue on the head so it doesn't look like it's gonna float around in there.

And I close this up, and if you wanna put legs, put 'em on there now.

And put that other piece on top.

Now, I have the head, and I have what looks like it's just the abdomen, but I want to do some paint on the abdomen.

So I'm going to draw the line.

I did have a brush.

I do have a line where the thorax is, so I'm going to do a smile like that.

And while I have my pen out, I'll put my two eyes on.

Now here's the thing that you want to do.

You'll want to put paint below here.

And I also have my tissue paper, because I put tissue paper right on top of the paint.

So I brought some blue.

I have all my colors, but I think this is the color I'm going to do.

So I'm getting it ready, and I'm getting my scraper ready, because you have to do the scraping while the paint is wet.

So I'm putting some dark green on this light green, and I'm gonna paint all the way down from the thorax.

I do it away from the head.

Put the paint on the abdomen side, just down there, like that.

Put the paint on, not super thick, but not super thin, because you want some of the paint to drag down to the bottom.

So here, my paint is on here.

I have to do it while it's wet, and I scrape it.

I put this on there and scrape it down.

I could have wiggled it if I wanted to, to make it wiggly, but I think that looks good.

But now I have to move quickly, and I want to put some tissue paper over the top of it, because that's like Eric Carle.

I think I'll push it down with my paintbrush.

I'll put some light blue around, and you don't really see it perfectly.

Like mine, I had purple paint and I put orange and yellow on there.

So I'll put this on there, and I can put a little watered down glue if you have glue.

You can put in a jar and then, oh, come off, and I can use a brush to put on top of that, and it makes it shiny.

If you don't want to put the tissue paper on, you don't have to.

But here's the good thing about this.

It's time to put its gigantic eyes on.

So I'm gonna use my black tissue paper and I just cut a rectangle, because remember what I told you about doing with eyes.

You fold it in half, so both eyes are the same, and look how big I have it.

Okay.

I want it not gigantic.

I want it just right size.

And I'll cut these two eyes out and see if they are just the right size or not.

Oh, they're trying to stick together.

(Mrs. Readwright blows air) There.

Oh, they're pretty big, but I think I like 'em.

So I'll put a little glue under there, the watered down glue, and I'll use my toothbrush 'cause it can be a paintbrush if I need it to, and make two circles to put the big eyes on there.

Come on.

Set it on there, set it on there.

Now I can put a color over the top, and I think what I'll put is turquoise, 'cause it's a little darker and will probably cover up part of this.

See how big.

Yep, that's a good size.

So I'm folding and in half and cutting the circles a little bigger than the black ones, 'cause it's just the outline of the eye I want on there for the click beetle.

I might need to put a little more glue.

Don't get on the chair, glue, put a little on top of the eye, and around the edge of the eye so that I can put this piece of tissue paper.

It's so thin it glues on easily.

Oh yeah, that's gonna be good.

That's gonna be good.

In fact, I love that, and now it will dry.

So boys and girls, while this is drying, and you don't want to move it around while it's wet because it'll get on lots of other things.

And also it will not look as good if you mix the colors over the stripes.

So while it's drying, you can get glue and put it all down the side of your clothespin ready for it.

Because once it dries, then you put it on the back, close to the end, and you put it on there for it to stick for a long time.

Now, I'm gonna move my paints out of the way, because I am going to continue to add some tissue paper while my paint's still a little wet.

I did my whole one while it was super wet, and it stayed on there, and I like putting some different colors on to make it more collage-like, and kind of more like Eric Carle's work, which I love his art.

And I can get my paintbrush.

Boys and girls, don't use a toothbrush if you have a good paintbrush, 'cause I just didn't put enough down here.

I used the one that I was gonna use for the glue for the green paint.

That's okay.

And I can use the back of it and just rub it.

Yeah.

I put this toothbrush in the dishwasher, so it didn't have old tooth spit on it, 'cause you don't wanna use a bunch of dirty toothbrushes.

So if you put it through the dishwasher, not with your dishes.

I just put lots of things in there.

I sometimes put my art supplies in there that have gotten kind of runny, but you never wanna wash your paintbrushes with hot water, because that way the hot water gets all the glue that attaches the bristles.

Let me show you what part, inside this metal part of the paintbrush, there's bristles that go in next to the wood, and then they put that metal around there to tell you how far to put your paintbrush in.

You don't wanna dip your paintbrush too far in.

But inside there, if you get hot water in that part, it will unglue, and soften the glue and make all the bristles fall out.

So every time you go into the paint and you lift up, bristles are in there.

And then every time you paint on a piece of paper, it'll be like a hairy paint.

I think I will put some antenna on the top of this head, but I still have a little more blue to put on here.

When it dries, I was super surprised on my click beetle.

I thought that more of the purple would shine through, but this tissue paper really stuck, and made it a whole different color.

So I think I'll do that with this one too, 'cause I don't know how it will dry.

And I'm interested in having several colors on my click beetle, even though Eric Carle, I don't think he put tissue paper on his.

So if you don't want to, that's fine with me, but I'm going to add some antenna to these guys, 'cause I think they would look fun going through the air.

Now I'm gonna do this a little longer, because on the click beetle photograph, they kind of went off to the side.

So what I'm going to do is cut and go up and curve out, and then I'll put my fingers here and curve down.

They're pretty skinny, and I can put it on there.

That seems too long.

I'm gonna cut it a little shorter.

Boys and girls, it's been a really fun week of doing color with you.

I hope you enjoyed these projects.

Please think about sending me your photograph of yourself making these things, so that I can write back to you, if you send me your address.

And I can tell you some other things that I'm doing with click beetles, because I think they are super interesting and they have that way of camouflaging or defending themselves from bigger creatures.

I wonder which one you like better.

Alrighty, boys and girls, let's sing.

Oh, it's time to say goodbye to all my friends.

♪ Oh, it's time to say goodbye to all my friends ♪ Let me get my things off my lap.

♪ Oh, it's time to say goodbye to all 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 ♪ Now, you know what I could do with these, I could have a little race against them.

Once I have the click beetle back on this guy, I could flip them and see who went the farthest.

I could see which one landed, and you could predict who's gonna land on their feet, who's gonna land on their back, and you can play with your friends and keep doing that.

Oh, add a little more mystery, right?

Boys and girls, thank you for joining me this week and I will see you soon, and hope you have a great rest of May.

See you.

(upbeat music)