Assumption of Mary Triptych - August 15th

Photograph borrowed from Catholic Icing

Materials:


Shoebox (you can also do this with a piece of cardboard or stiff posterboard)
Colored paper, like construction paper or scrapbook paper
Printouts or coloring pages of Mary (inquire about your schools resources or search on the Internet)
Gold paint
Magazines, stickers, cotton balls, ribbons, or other materials for embellishments
Scissors, glue or paste, paintbrushes

Directions:

1) Cut one short side off the shoebox. This end will be the top. Open up the other short side and fold back the middle portion of that side to create a stand.

2) Fold in the long sides of the shoe box. These are your outer panels of the triptych, and what was the bottom of the box will be the larger center panel. While all three panels are folded together, cut the top end into the shape of a cathedral arch. (Only the center one will be symmetrical. If you want the two side panels to be smaller but complete arches, you can cut them out separately.)

3) Choose three colored papers for the backgrounds of your panels (or see step 5 for another suggestion). Glue them in and trim them to fit the panels. We chose pink, blue, and yellow construction paper for one. For another we used scrapbook paper for backgrounds of flowers, clouds, and stars.

4) Prepare your three images of Mary--color them, cut them out, arrange them. Whatever you want. For one, we pieced together various elements from different fine art paintings we printed from the computer.

5) Embellish your panels. My favorite was using thinned gold paint on the backgrounds to give a little bit of a gold-leaf impression. To me it gives the idea of an altarpiece. You can even paint the entire background gold and forego the paper if you want.

Here are some other ideas:

A halo of twelve star stickers.
Cotton balls for clouds.
Magazine cutouts of angels.
Flattened artificial flower petals.
A serpent or dragon under Our Lady's feet.
A construction paper moon for her to stand on.
A triangle above her head to symbolize the Trinity.
Hearts drawn to show our love for our Blessed Mother