Eric Carle Mandala

For this years (2020) Gate Art Gallery, I decided to focus on Eric Carle and make mandalas imitating his technique. For 3 weeks, students constantly worked on painting tissue paper with different patterns and colors. Once we finished painting, we used oil pastels and pastels to add more colors and patterns to our dry tissue paper. 

I wanted students to make mandalas with their tissue paper. At first, I wanted each layer of the mandala to be a new paper of Eric Carle tissue paper. However, when  I put them together, I noticed that the layers merged together and you could not see the different shapes of the mandala nor the colors students created. I decided to add a solid colored paper between the tissue layers and this solved the problem. 

The second and third year students chose the mandalas they wanted to work on. I made stencils of each mandala, divided each layer into a new stencil they would trace on a new paper. The third year students worked on 6 layers, second and first year students worked on 5 layers. Ideally, students would free hand their own shapes for the mandalas, however, since my students are younger this is not feasible. Stencils are a great way for them to practice drawing more complex things with minimal assistance from me once they learn how to use them. 

To make sure each layer was glued correctly, students would trace one layer, cut it and glue it before they worked on the next layer.

In the end, the mandalas turned out great. The combination of tissue paper with colored paper brings depth and gives your eyes a resting place after focusing on the colorful tissue paper students made.