World Culture Art lesson inspired by Mola art from San Blas Islands in Panama

Mola art is a panel sewn onto the front and back of the blouse or dress made and worn by the Kuna/Guna women from the San Blas Islands in Panama. It is traditionally made with layers of colourful fabric and the technique of reverse applique by cutting away parts of each layer to reveal a colour shape then turning under and sewing down the edges creating patterns and pictures of birds, fish, animals, flowers and plants.

Our art lesson captures the colour, shapes, patterns and layers using skills of collage: cutting out shapes and arranging to fill the space. Lots of concepts and skills- colour, line, shape, space, size, cutting, overlaying, arranging, pasting. I drew simple shapes of animals, fish and flowers to print out onto coloured cover paper for children to choose their shape (or students could draw their own shape)

They cut out their shape, chose a contrast colour to glue it onto, traced around it then cut out around the shape. They repeated this two more times before gluing to black paper to fill the negative space with coloured strips and shapes.