22 September 2009

Scenes from my childhood


I don't miss school. I miss rubber cement.

When I was in school, we made rubber cement forest pictures.

We drew all these trees. (You know how everybody draws trees and they look nothing like real trees? [See sample above.] How does everybody know that this is the universally accepted way to draw a tree when it looks nothing like a tree? Admit it, if you saw something that looked like that in a park, you would freak the f#@k out. Anyway, we drew those.) Then we painted the background and then we put rubber cement over the bark area and then we painted them some more with this light washy paint and then--and this is the really exciting part--we peeled the rubber cement just a little in various places to look like the bark was peeling and viola! Art. Honest to god art with honest to god art effects. And there was that kid who said the rubber cement looked like boogers and laughed and ran around trying to smear it on you like it was a booger. But so what? You had this cool rubber cement forest picture.

I miss rubber cement.

16 comments:

Liebchen said...

We never made rubber cement trees like that! Now I feel like I was missing out.

Kate said...

Tape and styrofoam meat trays. Tape it up, color over the top, remove the tape. Instant art. I miss those days.

Tina said...

Man I miss rubber cement - of course my favorite part was the smell - perhaps that is what is wrong with me now?

Regardless I CAN'T WAIT to get out of work today - i'm going to the craft store to get me some. Um to get my son some - yeah that's it. He really needs to make some rubber cement trees.

A said...

Is this the same as missing paste? Because I miss paste...the kind that came in jars and smelled like mint.

What?

Anonymous said...

You love for glue has me worried. There wasn't huffing involved was there?

the dogs' mother said...

Crayons! I love the smell of crayons. I've been known to bring crayons to tutoring instead of color pencils and it totally horrifies the Lost Boys. :-))

Narm said...

Man the boys at your school were wusses. You gotta go with real boogers to get a reaction!

Mike said...

White glue was our thing. We would draw the tree, cut it out, and then glue it to another piece of paper.

Wv: Sponica - The name of a girl that will give a guy a BJ right after the thought comes into her head.

Bowie Mike said...

Don't you miss making shoebox diaramas? And Sponica, of course.

kelsi said...

we would paint the palms of our hands with rubber cement, let it dry and then peel it off in strips so we had zombie hands.
pure. klass.
and yeah, that smell. nothing like it.

Gilahi said...

Despite the name, the stuff is lousy for repairing rubbers.

Bilbo said...

Gilahi beat me to my comment. Nevertheless, in our school it wasn't rubber cement...it was white library paste. It smelled good, it tasted good, and it could even be used to glue papers together. The only thing that smelled better than library paste was freshly mimeographed handouts.

f.B said...

i was never good at making anything in art class with my hands. i think the best i ever did was make that origami ball... thing. lame. but i miss when having made it was awesome.

Tina said...

mimeograph smell - possibly even better than rubber cement

all of the sudden I miss grade school

lacochran said...

Liebchen: Blogger craft day! Could be HUGE!

Kate: Oooo, I haven't tried that one. Sounds fantastic!

Tina: I wondered why people have kids--now I know. ;)

A: I remember those big jars of white minty smelling paste. Ahhh...

justjp: That *would* explain a lot.

frogponder: I believe this is the basis of the popularity of the Macaroni Grill.

Narm: Close enough for me.

Mike: You mean like Elmer's? We used to put some on our hands and peel it off sllllowly.

Bowie Mike: Wow! Fabulous example you found there. And, yes, I do.

kelsi: Exactly!

Gilahi: Well played and factual! :)

Bilbo: I am of an age that I can still conjure up the smell of mimeographed handouts. *starts singing* Memories, may be beautiful and yet...

f.B: You got to make an origami ball... thing? We didn't get to do that. Sounds grand!

Tina: Yeah. Work would be a lot better with mimeographs and rubber cement and shoebox dioramas and minty paste and...

Dmbosstone said...

Wait you got to use rubber cement in school?