BLANCHARD MURAL A LESSON IN HISTORY AND ART

Artist Gary Bowen showed students at Blanchard Elementary how to work on the new mural in the school's cafateria.

Blanchard School third-grader Nicholas Bird likes to draw pictures of his cartoon superhero Dragon Ball Z. But in recent days he and other Blanchard students have been coming to the cafeteria to help Vermont artist and writer Gary Bowen paint a mural that looks a bit like a cartoon from a very different time.

Bowen is the author of two children's books. One, "Stranded at Plimoth 1626," is filled with his woodcuts illustrating the life of those who landed on the Mayflower. One of those woodcuts is the basis for the mural shaping up on the west wall of the Blanchard cafeteria.

Woodcuts actually have a quality similar to cartoons, Bowen says. "They almost look like coloring book images."

In planning the mural, he decided he wanted to make this a project the whole school felt involved in.

"I tried to paint while they were on their lunch hours," he said. In class, the students have been coloring blown-up copies of some of the woodcuts in his book.

About 60 different students working in shifts have contributed to the 9 1/2-by-7 1/2-foot mural. Nicholas Bird points out the exact plant he painted in one of the raised-bed gardens one day. Friday he, second-grader Malcolm Harris, third-grader Jordan Wren and other students painted seedlings in another garden.

On Monday and Tuesday, Bowen will go into Blanchard classrooms to talk to the students about his work as an author and illustrator of children's books. He will discuss life on the 200-acre plantation the immigrants cleared.

The plantation has been recreated in the town of Plymouth, Mass. That is where Bowen drew the scenes that became his woodcuts.

He began the mural, his first, on April 26. He worked at night at first because he needed to project an image to trace and the Blanchard cafeteria gets too much natural light for that during the daytime. But the light in the cafeteria was wonderful once he and the students began filling in the outlines.

Looking closely you can see a secret heart a girl painted in the garden. Of the mural, Nicholas says, "I like everything in it."

Bowen lives in a 20-room house built in 1763. The house is owned by the foundation he directs. He is house's artist-in-residence, tour guide and sole resident.

He likes to learn by doing. He taught himself to spin cloth, make brooms and quilts. The students will get to see a sweater he spun from his dog's hair.

He has learned from his first mural as well, he says. To begin with, he brought to Missouri many, many different colors of paint but needed just three. He brought all his paint brushes and only required a few. "I learned that I shouldn't worry, to remain confident that it will look the way I intend it to look," he said.

Once Bowen paints a design on the frame and puts on a sealing finish the mural will be complete.

The mural is being donated to the school by Goals 2000, the arts grant administrated by Drs. Ann and Robert Gifford at Southeast Missouri State University. Sponsored through the grant last fall, Bowen spoke to about 3,500 students around the county.

He welcomed the students' contributions to the mural. "All art is a collaboration," he said, noting that six editors are working on his forthcoming book, a mystery titled "The Mare's Nest."