We were struck by all of the birds-eye view paintings all over San Juan la Laguna, on Lake Atitlan. It takes a moment to understand what you're seeing--all of the fanciful details and colors and circles and symmetry combine to create a strong abstract effect, until you notice an upturned face, or a hand, or a braid, and it all comes into focus. On a subsequent visit I went up into the mountains north of Antigua and visited another small artist town--and learned a bit more about that style of painting. An artist named Angelina Quic made the style of painting famous, and her paintings sold so well that other artists were trained by the government to replicate them. On a visit to another town along Lake Atitlan I encountered a small group of rebellious artists whose work challenged this particular perspective. I describe that movement here.This would be a wonderful project for kids of all ages--anything that challenges their perspective is helpful, as it opens the door for all kinds of experiments with composition, zooming in, zooming out, etc. You could 'jumpstart' the project by tracing a few circles on a large piece of paper and challenging kids to consider overhead views of different kinds of situations before settling on a final idea, and filling in with marker, colored pencil, paint, oil pastel, etc. Of course satellite views, googleEarth, and instagram feeds like daily overview would be great inspiration for this as well.
