My two Wednesday art classes got to make their own masks. That was a great fun! From start to finish, it took about 1.5 hours, and then on the next class day, they were able to paint them.
The mask-making:
The masks all together:
All painted and finished:
In my (now 2) Wednesday classes, the kids made their own ojo de Dios: Eye of God. My Wednesday classes are a mix of mature 6th-graders through high school.
I let them choose from two different styles: the regular 4-sided ojo, or the complex 8-sided one. The 8-sided ojos look more like mandalas when they get done, but they’re still classified as traditional ojos. Interestingly, the 4-sided ones took only a LITTLE bit of less time to complete than the 8-sided ojos. The students had a great time making them, and I love how they all came out so different! The key is to offer a LOT of different colors of yarn to allow for them to really get creative!
Here’s my sample I showed the kids. I had it out a couple of weeks before we did the project, and the students were perfectly teased and salivating to start! They didn’t believe they were going to be able to make them!
Here are a few in-progress shots:
And the beautiful results!
We’re working on different cultures in the classes. Right now, we’re south of the border. The 3rd-5th grades made Mexican blankets, and the high schoolers made “tin” snakes. These turned out really nice, and it only took a couple of classes, so it was a great kick-off project.
They started out by cutting the shape of a basic snake out of foam core.
Then, they cut out pieces of cardboard and glued them in whatever designs they liked. The shapes just needed to be geometric.
Once the glue was dried, they covered their snakes in small pieces of aluminum foil.
They really liked this next part: coloring the snake using colored Sharpies.
This was such a great project to do after spending time on our cows (a post yet to come). I never imagined my kids would make these as colorful as they did! Usually, when they have a big, blank spot to color in, they use one color, but almost every one of them did something completely challenging to them! The project reports for these were all positive, as well.
They started with a dark blue piece of construction paper. We went over the Mexican history and tradition of the sugar skull, and I showed them how to make a basic sugar skull shape. Almost everyone made it too small, so after a few adjustments, they each had a skull that was nice and big. The glue was also a challenge. Some lines were too thin, and if they got the lines too thick, the glue would spread and fill the space. I worked on getting them to think about nice, even lines, and making large spaces.
Once the glue dried, the getting-your-hands-dirty part started. They busted out their chalk pastels and got to work coloring, smudging, and blending.
Here are some of the fabulous results!
