Students are studying the artist Eric Carle. We looked at his books "Mister Seahorse," "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," and "The Very Busy Spider" and talked about how he created his own textured paper to create the collages in his books. One class focused on seahorses, another on butterflies, and yet another on tropical birds.
First, students painted their paper using warm or cool colors. After each line of color was painted, students used tools or the wooden end of their paintbrushes to scratch textures or lines into the wet paint.
Students who created seahorses painted wavy lines on another paper, then traced, cut out, and glued the seahorse shape to that background paper, while adding rocks and seaweed. Other classes created their butterflies and tropical birds in similar ways, adding glitter, sequin, and oil pastel details. Look for these at the annual Zilker School-wide Student Art Show in April! 
Fifth Grade Artists are studying a kind of Mexican Folk Art called Bark Painting and also known as Amate Painting. Mexican artists use the bark from a fig tree to create a natural paper that has great texture and a rich brown color. They then use bright paint to create vivid compositions that usually feature animals and plants. Zilker artists choose one animal, either imaginary or real, and had to draw the animal so that it shows movement. They added lots of plants and flowers around the animal, and framed it all with a repeating pattern that showed some overlapping. Here are students working hard on adding the fluorescent paint to their beautiful drawings.
