Introduction to Create Papel Picado in Google Slides

In this lesson you will learn about the traditional Mexican folk art called papel picado, often used to celebrate Dia de los Muertos.

Then, you will make your own version of papel picado in Google Slides to celebrate yourself or someone important to you.

Papel picado is Spanish for “punched paper.” It is made of brightly colored tissue paper banners that have meaningful images cut into them.

Papel picado is a type of Folk art.

"Folk art" expresses the world’s traditional cultures and reflects the cultural life of a community.

Papel picado is considered folk art because it has been a part of culture in Mexico for a very long time.

The Aztecs originally made papel picado by chiseling designs into tree bark.

It later evolved into the paper art it is today.

You can learn more about various cultures and holidays, including Día de los Muertos by searching online.

Or use the link next to the video to navigate to arts and culture dot google dot com to read more about Day of the Dead and Mexican culture.

Learning about other cultures can offer you a new perspective and helps to connect and work with others.

In Mexico, papel picado can be found hanging up at many major holidays, and are often incorporated into the altars during Día de los Muertos celebrations.

"Día de los Muertos", or "Day of the Dead", is a multi-day holiday throughout Mexico and parts of Latin America that honors loved ones who have died.

Although the holiday is called Day of the Dead, it is a colorful and festive celebration of life.

People create ofrendas, or offerings to honor their departed family members and friends.

Papel picado is made of delicate paper to symbolize the fragility of life and the wind, one of the elements of life.

The cut out holes are in patterns of skulls, candles4 and other symbols of life and death.

In this lesson you will create your own digital papel picado in Google Slides.

The papel picado used during Día de los Muertos celebrates the lives of friends and relatives lost, but you can create a papel picado design about anyone you choose including a pet, a family member, or yourself.

Whenever you explore something from a culture other than your own, take the opportunity to learn about that culture to show respect to their traditions.

This lesson uses Google Slides, but you could apply these skills and concepts in other presentation applications, drawing tools like Jamboard and Google Drawings, or even on paper.

If you’d like, you can use features within Google Slides like keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to use.

Click on the links next to this video to learn how to use this and other features.

As you work through this lesson you will… Choose a person to represent with your design, Make a copy of the starter project, Rename it, And use a template to build a design in the style of papel picado.

You will then… Personalize your design by uploading icons, And arranging icons to represent the person you are celebrating To work on this lesson, sign in to your Google account.

Open a new tab in your browser, and navigate to Google dot com.

If you are not signed in, do so now.

If you do not have a Google account, pause the video and create one.

To begin, open the starter project for this lesson.

Then, copy it and rename it.

Now, it’s your turn: Sign in to your Google account, Make a copy of the starter project, and rename it.