Cosmic Landscapes inspired by Peter Max

From the Peter Max Website:

America's Painter Laureate and Pop Art Icon, Peter Max's bold colors, uplifting images and uncommon artistic diversity have touched almost every aspect of American culture and has inspired many generations.

Max's work has been called cosmic and psychedelic. His more recent works represent his ideas about a harmonious, beautiful world. He is well known for his album cover art, particularly for the Beatles.

Fifth and sixth grade artists examined many of Max's works before designing their own cosmic landscapes in his style. Each student's piece contains elements that can be seen in many of Max's works. What are some of the repeated images and themes that you see in the Peter Max pictures above and in the student work below?

Mexican Sun Metal Tooling

Here are our Mexican Metal tooling suns by grades one and two: 

First and second graders looked at examples of Mexican Folk Art Suns.  This image stems from the Aztec culture, which revered the Sun God Tonatiuh as the leader of heaven.  Now it is a common theme throughout Mexican folk art.  First and second graders used these images to inspire their own sun faces, then transferred their drawings onto thin sheets of metal.  Metal tooling is a traditional Mexican folk art, so we used this technique to make brilliant sun faces.