I met Emilio at his studio in San Pedro la Laguna a few years after my first visit to Guatemala (when I first saw Angelina Quic's 'birds-eye view' paintings). Emilio said that artists were being pressured to create similar paintings--since the tourists seem to love them and they sold so well. His own rebellious tongue-in-cheek response to this pressure was to develop his own style of painting--from an ant's point of view. He calls them 'vista de hormiga.'
This would be a great lesson to do after the birds-eye view lesson, OR in conjunction with it...just to expand everyone's options. Children could begin these paintings by tracing their own feet, and then filling everything else in with what would be above the feet. They might have to model this unique perspective for each other...to get ideas about how to attach legs, bodies, etc. Because of the bare feet, this would also be a great lesson for teaching skin-color mixing. I usually do this by giving kids a see-through cup with a little bit of water in it, and then have them add to the water--until they've found a match for their own skin. They'll need to have white paper, or a white paper towel, for testing their colors. I give all the kids the same palette of colors--white, brown, yellow, orange, red, pink...and encourage each child to use at least three different colors to find their 'recipe,' demonstrating as I go.
