Making Venetian Masks - Sessions 1 - 3

This year my class are making Venetian inspired masks to be displayed at the Cultural Festival.

I set up a class Pinterest account and also used the Witch's Pinterest to pin a variety of Venetian Masks.  This worked brilliantly, all the inspiration was at their fingertips.

On the class Pinterest account we pinned a variety of half masks.  I decided to make half masks in the class as I thought this would be easier to manage.

Sessions One to Three:
The main focus was to get children really looking at Venetian masks.  They sketched their shape, colour, the patterns (the designs they saw), and noted down the types of embellishments used.

Exploring shape, patterns and colours.

To get the children to notice the patterns I projected a Venetian mask onto the whiteboard (using the data projector), and copied the patterns with a whiteboard pen.  I also made some cardboard templates to show the use of pattern.  This is also a great opportunity to talk about symmetrical patterns and rotation.