National Visual Arts Standards Addressed Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and culture Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes Use knowledge of structures and functions Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others. Introduce the following information about papel picados to your students. Compare and contrast paper cutting techniques found in other cultures if time and resources permit. Usually made of tissue paper but sometimes of more durable plastic, the cut banners are hung together like a string of flags. For the Days of the Dead, the designs feature skeletons, skulls, crosses, and tombstones.
Some artists create intricate designs that take many hours to make.
Because of their fragility and the time spent creating them, cut-paper banners are themselves symbols of the transitory quality of life. The tradition of papel picado can be traced to pre-Columbian times when papermaking thrived throughout Mesoamerica. The bark of the amate tree, a type of fig tree, was used to make a rich colored brown or beige paper. Cut-paper figures used in ceremonies were created to represent any number of human and animal spirits. Today, a group of indigenous people, the Otomi from the village of San Pabilto, continue to make cut-paper figures from their handmade amate paper.