Native American Horse Masks

To recognize Native American Heritage Month, my 8th grade art students worked in groups to create realistic Native American Horse masks. They first used an empty 2 liter plastic bottle for the horse head. Students then selected from various cloth fabrics, created layered textures, colors and beadwork for their project. A wooden dowel rod was inserted into the bottle to support their sculpture. Eye openings were either cut out, painted over or darker fabric was put in place. When I saw a horse mask exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, I thought my art students would enjoy making these. They did enjoy working on this each day and I'm proud of their teamwork. Our mascot is the Colts and some of our students ride horses so this made the project even more fun to display.

Horse Masks

To recognize November as Native American Heritage Month, my 6th grade students created horse masks. Horse masks were sometimes worn by the horses in various tribes of plains Indians and some other areas too. Horse masks would often be colorful and they could also display a sign of strength. Students created theirs by using construction paper, oil pastels, yarn and scissors. Many of my students have horses and our mascot is a Colt so this was a fun art project for them.