 Hi, my name is Maria, and I'm a visual artist teaching artist. So today, we're going to explore making some papel picado art. So papel picado is a traditional Mexican art form. It's a very creative, explosively colorful paper art experience, so we use a lot of papel picado to make flowers or decorations around different holidays or cultural significant days, like Dia de los Muertos. So papel picado, the literal translation is like shredded paper, because we crumbled and shred a lot in this art form, the tissue paper. So we're going to do two different styles of flowers. So in the creative world, we visualize a lot, either plant or animal life. And so in Bonny, we analyze what makes a plant, a plant, or a flower, a flower. So the basic thing of a flower is going to be the stem and the petals and the base. So this is what we're going to be working with today. So we're going to be creating a stem. So for the stem, you can grab one of the tissue papers and just kind of cut it rectangly, like a rectangle. Or you could also grab like a bark, piece of bark, or one of these for getting the. So this you can grab one of these. So these work. And so if you do it with the tissue paper, the way you create a stem is you're going to fold it in half. So see. And then you're going to keep folding it until, so one more time, until you have kind of like a very stringy long paper. So this is going to be the stem of your flower. So you can see here this one. So there's different ways we're going to be working with the stem. But in this, in this creative project, if you can have it all flattened out. And then you're going to grab the petals, the colors that you want your petals to look like. So here I got a variation of colors. So I got some pink, some red, some yellows, oranges. Because I want my flower to be very kind of like a sunsetty. Kind of like a sunset type of energy. So you're going to grab your papers and also cut them out in squares like this. And then you're going to grab your scissors. And you're going to fold this in half. The squares cut them in half. So you have the, in the middle, you're going to have a line that you're going to cut through with these really long papers. And so you're going to cut the edges in a curved manner. So you're going to make sure they're curved. And so you're cutting the angle so that you can have kind of like a curved petal to your flower. So you have your petals here. So you see the curve. And they don't have to be necessarily symmetrical because you'll see when we crumble it, it's not really going to be very defined. So then you're going to grab your stem. You're going to put it over. And then you're going to grab the middle part and kind of squish it. Kind of like a bow tie. And then you have this. And then you're going to fold it over and tie it. So you're tying your stem to your petals. And I like to hide this little part just kind of inside there so that you don't see it when you start. So see how I kind of did the knot. And so then you're going to squish it some more so that it's super tight. And then you're going to grab your petals, put them up. And then slowly, you're going to start slowly spreading them out. So you can do individually or like a group of them at the same time. So this is it takes a little bit to spread them out because there's so many layers. So take your time. You have it mostly spread out. You can start molding the petals with a pencil. So usually I'll grab the end of the petal and then put the roll it up. Roll up the petal with your pencil. And then slowly take it out. And then you can start seeing kind of like the different. And then so you'll do this with all the petals throughout. So that's another way of getting kind of like a petal texture. Another way is you can literally just crumble. Start crumbling it. Usually like about five to 10 minutes, it takes a little bit of time to get kind of like the structure of your flower together. And then yeah. And don't be afraid to like crumble the bottom, the top to get kind of like the shape of the flower. So take your time crumbling it around. So I pre-made one because it does take a little bit. So I crumbled it the bottom. And then what I did was I kind of tied it up at the bottom so I could have kind of like this type of shape of flower, more like a lily type. So you can explore with your petals. You can do them outward if you're like. So just experiment the shape of your flower. This is the fun part of the experimentation because the rest is just like the basics of your flower creation, the base, the petals, and then the shape of it that will be up to you how you want it to look like. And that's your creative freedom as like an artistic being. How at the end, like you're given these tools and then you decide your end product. So with any paper art, it's going to be you the final person that's going to be like this is how I want it to look like. So don't be afraid to experiment if you don't like certain colors. You can just slowly take it apart and redo it. That's the beautiful thing about the fact that you're just working with paper is that you can easily take it apart and put it back together. So this is like a method. This is one way of doing flowers. Then there's like another method that's kind of like a rose type of shape. So I'm going to make one of those. So if you have paper leftover, you can use this to make confetti. So you can cut it up in tiny little pieces and save it up and make confetti with it. So I always encourage people to recycle and to be mindful of the tools that we use because where does paper come from? It comes from trees. And so we need to be as creative people and artists mindful that these tools and resources also come from either plants or other materials. So this will make a fun confetti that you can use for a birthday party. Or you can even put the confetti inside a balloon and blow it up. And you can see the different patterns. So ask your parents if there's any balloons after left. And you can put it in there. And then when you pop it, you will see all the confetti in your space. So switching back to the flowers that we're making. So the rose-shaped flower, so you're going to grab a paper in a square, like another square. So I like working with flowers with square shape because it gives me a wide space of paper to work with. So even if you cut it smaller, your flower is going to be shaped smaller. But it's up to you also the length and width of your paper because that's going to determine the size of the shape of your petals and your flowers. So with this rose type of flower, you're going to fold it in half. But instead of cutting it, we're going to keep it like this. So you can do a variation of color. So you're going to stack them on top of each other. So that's the different from this technique and the other technique is we're not cutting it. So you're going to fold it. So I'll do maybe like three colors for this one. And so you're going to grab one of the corners and then you're going to do like a small inserted fold. And then make sure you always press tightly. And then you're going to do it one more time. And then this is the fun part. So then you're going to grab this part at the bottom. And then you're going to start crumbling it. So see how the shape is kind of like a rose petal at the top. So this process, you're going to constantly be folding your petals. So it's a little bit different because it's like you're going to make sure that when you're crumbling that you don't crumble the top. So you want to keep the top kind of open and then the bottom crumbled. And then you're going to grab another paper, similar folded and half. And then you're going to continue where you left off the last paper and then go around crumbling at the bottom. So see how I'm going around crumbling at the bottom. And then bring out your petals. And you want to keep it really tight so that it doesn't come loose easily. So super tighten it up. So see my rose shape? So this is the petal, the petals of my flower. And then if I want to add like a different, like a yellow in there, or like a different color, I just cut out one of these papers and then I can cut it out in half because I want to make it just a small little red. So just like a square, like a small square paper. And then this one, similar, you're going to crumble the edge and then or fold it in half, fold it a little bit and start crumbling it. And see how it with my fingers, I'm just super tight in it at the bottom so that it doesn't come loose easily. And then I can slowly put it in here. You can either use one of these and then just kind of put it in, insert it and then crumble it around. That's like another and glue it with hot glue or regular glue. And then you have your base and then you can cover it with green or another way is with paper stems. Like we did with this one, we're going to do something similar with this one. So this style is a little bit different. So instead of being just like a, just flatten it, you're just going to fold it and then fold it one more time. But instead of folding it super like small, you're going to leave it like, maybe like a half a like width of your finger. So that's like maybe like a niche. You're going to leave it like that. And then you're going to open it up and then put your flower inside like this. And then you're going to tie it up at the top. Super, super tight. And then you're just going to tie it around. The top keeps falling off. So I gotta, I'm just going to make a small one again and then put it back in there. And if you notice it's having a hard time sticking, you can always glue it. It's like, it's totally fine. Like if this one, like if it keeps coming out, I can always like glue it in there and make sure that it stays put. But while I'm crumbling, that's when I don't glue it because then it's going to be really difficult to get all the papers to fold into like petal, so, but once you have your structure and your petals all folded, then you can glue in place, either like the certain parts of the stem or the inside of it. So yeah, so then we have these two formats of flower making. And then if you're like, why don't they have any leaves? I want leaves because flowers have leaves because they need leaves to eat. So you can just grab either the same tissue paper, like grab a, like a, like just like a green tissue paper, or you can just grab like a just regular paper that's green and then you're gonna just cut out the shape of the petals. So I'll do this one just with like regular paper and then I'll do one with tissue paper. So, so I always think of like the shape of like a leaf, like kind of like a shape of an eye. When I'm cutting it out, I'm thinking like, oh, maybe it's like an eye. So, so that's like when I cut it out, like, so you have your leaves and then you can just glue them with a glue. So I usually use glue sticks with this. It does a really good hold with this paper. So, but if, yeah. So you don't need to like put any hot glue or anything else just regular glue works fine. And then you can just decorate your space with it. So, so this is like an art form that is very significant, significant culturally for a lot of like Mexican descent communities. And so I actually been doing these paper arts for most of my life with my family and my aunts for like celebrations of like Quinceañeras or the other Los Muertos or any sort of family gathering. You always found me as a little kid with my aunt helping her make all the decorations. So it's a very, it's a very communal, very like collective process, making these flowers. So you can always like make flowers with your siblings, with your parents, with your cousins, your aunts. Like if you don't have tissue paper, you can always grab a newspaper and make flowers with that. Just grab like acrylic paint or even like dip them in like watercolor paint. And then you will get like color texture on your, on your flowers and newspaper flowers are also like incredibly beautiful. Like if you want to experiment like with different types of papers. So you can use like tissue paper from like, like if somebody gave you a gift and they has tissue paper, you can use that tissue paper. Or if you're like, like if there's a box that comes in with tissue paper, you can always use that. And also like encourage your parents if there's like tissue paper that comes with any materials you buy to save it so that you can make crafts with it. So yeah, so I hope you had fun making flowers and learning about basic plant bondy. So learning about like the structure of a flower through a creative process. And I hope you continue making lots of art with paper or recyclable materials around your house.