01 September - Faux Mexican Bark Paintings



From teachkidsart

Materials:
Brown paper
Pencil and eraser
Black "F" Sharpie
Crayola Water-based markers
White tempera paint
Fine point paint brush, about a size "2"

Directions:
Optional: Discuss Mexican bark painting =Mexican bark painting is a folk art in which artists use bright colors to paint scenes of everyday village life, colorful birds, flowers and other animals on paper made from bark. The art form is also used to illustrate scenes from traditional fables and stories. Bark paper or papal amate, is produced by hand using bark from the mulberry or fig trees. The bark is washed, boiled and laid in lines on a wooden board. The fibers are then beaten with stone until they fuse together. When synthetic pigments/ paints were introduced into rural areas in Mexico in the 1950ʼs, artists fell in love with the bright colors, which produce amazing contrast against the bark paper.
Discuss lines: Show examples of Mexican bark paintings and ask the children to describe the lines. When they look, they will see that the artists use a series of “C”s, and “S”s.
Discuss Decorative arts: Explain that the artists wanted something pretty and decorative to hang on the wall. The function of “decorative art” is to make some- thing more attractive or pretty.
Discuss Contrast: a difference, or something that is different, compared with something else. An effect created by placing or arranging very different things, for example, colors, shades, or textures, next to each other. The difference or the use of differences between the lightest and the darkest parts of an image to create a special effect in a painting, photograph, or television image. To compare different things or arrange them in a way that highlights their differences. Explain that the artists use natural tree bark to make their own paper and that they use bright paint colors to create contrast. The bright paint makes the painting stand out from the dark bark background. Ask students what colors they will use to paint their image. Ask them if they think brown or dark blue will create contrast if painted on the bark paper. Why not? Why do bright colors when painted on the brown “bark” paper work better? Why do bright colors create a stronger contrast than blue or brown?
Discuss everyday scenes: Bark paintings often depict things from the everyday life of the Mexican people such as village scenes, images of birds or animals, or scenes from stories that they frequently hear. Ask the children what kind of scenes they see everyday. Ask them to think of their daily routine. Where do they drive everyday? Where do they go at the end of the day? Where do they usually eat breakfast, lunch and dinner? Which friends or family members do they see almost everyday? Do they have a pet that they see everyday? Ask them if there is something or someone that they see everyday that they would like to try to paint.
1. Ask the children to consider a scene or picture that theyʼd like to draw. They can draw a scene from everyday life or some fanciful birds, flowers, or animals. Add a decorative border along one edge, if you want. Have students first draw the basic outline of their image in pencil on the bag. Allow about 10-15 minutes for these drawings.
2. Now, color your design with paint. Make sure you leave some of the brown paper background showing!
3. Then, trace over your pencil lines with Sharpie. Finally, add small dots of white paint with a fine point brush around some areas of your design to make them "pop". Many of the students used the brush handle end to create the dots which worked really well.
4.Crunching the paper before the painting makes it difficult, so the kids can take their art work back to class to have them dry over night. Talk to your teacher about the kids crunching their art work in the morning and pressing them under a book for the day.

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