Thursday, April 3, 2014

Virtual Refrigerator: Aztec Serpent Mosaic


Welcome to another edition of the Virtual Refrigerator! This weekly blog hop is co-hosted by A Glimpse of Our LifeAngels of HeartHomeschool Coffee Break, and Every Bed of Roses. We all cordially invite you to add your link sharing the art that's on your Virtual Refrigerator and then hop over to the other blogs and admire what's on their Fridges!
  


We actually got a chance to finish this Aztec Serpent mosaic at the beginning of this week. The project itself didn't take long, once we got all our materials together. We studied the history of Central America recently, and of course that included learning about the Aztecs. I remembered doing this art project with my oldest two boys when they were quite little, so I suggested it to Kennady. However, I was surprised that it was so difficult to find a printable template or outline drawing of the two-headed serpent. I spent way too much time trolling Google searching for a suitable image, and honestly it would have been much quicker to just have Kennady draw the thing freehand. But I still would have needed a good clear picture or photo for her to work from. Anyway, I'm going to save all of you the trouble of hunting this down if you want to make this easy craft when you study the Aztecs!  The Explorers section of the British Museum website has the printable template and the instructions: British Museum Aztec Serpent Mosaic

We thought about enlarging the template (it prints on 8.5x11 paper, as you can see below), but decided to just keep it small and simple. Kennady cut out the serpent outline, leaving a small border. Then she used a black marker to color the border, the spaces between the serpent's coils, and the eyes; and used a red marker for the lips.
Then she cut out small squares of tissue paper in two shades of blue, and glued the pieces along the serpent's body. We mounted it on blue construction paper, because we didn't have any black!
Easy craft that even little kids could do!

The original piece that this is based on was carved from wood and covered with turquoise pieces. It would have been worn as a chest ornament. The Aztec word for serpent was "coatl" and the serpent image was an important one in Aztec religion. Several gods were associated with serpents.



You can grab the button above and add it to your post. Add your link here to share your child's art or your arts and crafts how-to posts. Please visit the other blogs and admire what's on their Virtual Refrigerators!



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