Barnstorming through the Getty

Shepherding children through a museum can be an ordeal on par with herding cats, but the Getty Center hopes to make the high-art experience more accessible to kids by offering a slew of family-friendly summer events.

This weekend’s slate includes Family Art Lab, an outdoor drop-in workshop where kids can wallow in all the construction paper, glitter and glue they can handle; a picnic on the lawn with complimentary box lunches; Art Adventures for Families, one-hour guided tours for children ages 5 and older and their parents (offered in English and Spanish); and a performance by Farmer Jason and the Barnstormers, a popular act with the 5-and-younger set.

Fronted by Nashville-based musician Jason Ringenberg, the lead singer of the cow-punk outfit Jason and the Scorchers, the band will play a set of humorous ditties about farm life to kick off this summer’s Garden Concerts for Kids series. Future performances by Justin Roberts and Tom Chapin will also focus on the animal theme as a celebration of the Getty’s exhibition “Oudry’s Painted Menagerie.”

Described as the greatest animal painter during the first half of the reign of Louis XV, Jean-Baptiste Oudry produced work that included a life-size portrait, now restored, of Miss Clara, a famous Indian rhinoceros who toured Europe in the mid-1700s. The docile rhino will also be the subject of this Saturday’s Family Storytelling hour, as Victoria Burnett spins a musical tale about Clara and her legion of followers. If sharks, dinosaurs and ponies can become icons of childhood animal obsession, why not rhinos?

-- Elina Shatkin

Garden Concerts for Kids 2007, Getty Center, 120 Getty Center Drive, L.A. 4 and 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 18-19 and Aug. 25-26. Free; $8 for parking. (310) 440-7300, www.getty.edu