Amate Bark Paintings

For Hispanic Heritage Month I chose to do a project focusing on Amate Bark Paintings.  This worked out well because we had limited supplies and the brown food store bags worked great for the faux wood backgrounds.  The paper bags were painted with black ink and ironed with wax paper to give the appearance of the traditional Amate Bark Paintings.  Next the students got to work by choosing their animals and drawing their scenes in chalk on the brown paper so that it could be seen easily.  I supplied them with visuals of animals such as lizards, alligators, and parrots.

Once the students drew their animals they were able to start painting.  I talked to the students about color schemes and balancing their colors.  To help the students to remember to plan out and balance their colors, I gave each table once color of paint at a time.  This forced them to use that color, check if it was evenly balanced throughout their drawing before they moved on.  The results were stunning!!

Vincent Van Gogh Sunflowers

Vincent Van Gogh was our Mystery Artist so I read the students Camille & The Sunflowers: A Story about Vincent Van Gogh  by Laurence Anholt and then we began to make sunflowers!

If you haven't realized yet, I love doing lots of different layers to one project.  

1. Students created a Horizon Line on their paper
2. The top half (the wall) was sponge painted
3. The bottom half (the table) was done using tissue paper and modge podge (glue mixed with water) 
4. The students drew and cut out a symmetrical Vase on a separate piece of brown paper.  
5. Stems were arranged and glued on the vase.  Remind students that the stems cannot come off the vase
6. The stems and vase were glued onto the backgrounds.
7. The water was sponge painted on and white was used to show the glass.
8. The scrap brown paper from the vase is cut into circles to be the center of the sunflowers
9. Petals are painted on using tempera paint
10. Students sew on addition petals and leaves using Burlap and large needles safe for kids.