Amate bark painting in 7th grade

Here is the start of our first painting project in 7th grade. Our inspiration comes from the Amate bark paintings of Mexico. These artworks combine vibrant colors with detailed black outlining on a pounded fig-bark background. Check out this youtube video showing the process of an Amate artwork.

We began this lesson by sketching three different types of traditional landscapes: a mountain-scape, a seascape and a desert-scape (see slides posted below). We focused on creating three distinct areas by showing the foreground, middle ground and background. By making sure our landscape details progressively got smaller as they went back into space, we created depth and perspective.

Once we had a good understanding of how to create a realistic landscape, we decided to switch it up a bit! Instead of creating depth, we "stacked" our images to create a layered look and added a continuous winding road to add unity and movement to our work. These paintings will also use color theory to appear three-dimensional when viewed through 3D glasses.

Check back soon to see the finished paintings!