Amate Bark Paintings

 

This is a beautiful painting lesson that introduces students the Mexican folk art of amate bark painting.

Amate or bark paper is handmade paper made is made by stripping the bark from a wild fig, nettle or mulberry tree—each tree provides a different tone, ranging from brown to white. The bark is cleaned and dried before it is placed in a pot of boiling water for seven to eight hours. Then it is separated into fiber strips and pounded with a flat rock into a sheet of paper. Once dry, it's used as a base for whimsical paintings depicting wildlife and plants and flowers or village scenes.

I have two samples of my own which I show students. You can often find these at thrift stores!

For our paper, we used brown butcher paper from a roll. 

Students sketched out their designs in pencil. 

Then went over all their lines using Sharpies. 

Then they crumbled their paper to give it a natural paper look and feel. 

They painted these using tempera paint as well as neon acrylic colours. 

Adding a bit of white to each colour will make it more opaque. 

Once dry, they added dots and lines for extra detail and then touched everything up 

with the Sharpies again.

Some Grade 4, 5, 6 paintings:

Weaving: Ojo de Dios or God's Eye Craft

According to Wikipedia, Ojo de Dios or God’s Eye is:

“a spiritual and votive object made by weaving a design out of yarn upon a wooden cross. Often several colors are used. They are commonly found in Mexican and Mexican American communities, among both Indigenous and Catholic peoples.”

The symbol means the power to see and understand things. I used to make these as a kid and, like many crafts, they have come back into fashion! There are tons of talented Etsy artists making very complex and large Ojo de Dios's online. 

I showed my Grade 4 - 6 students various Ojo de Dios tutorials on Youtube- this was the most efficient way to show them a few different weaving techniques they could use. We used thin wooden dowels I bought at the Dollar store. Students also embellished the ends with pony beads and/or tassels. The kids enjoyed making this- more advanced students were able to watch more tutorials and challenge themselves with more complex designs which was great. A really adaptable lesson where all kids find success :)