Vertebrate Floor Mat

This is a project we created for a fundraiser our school is having.  Each Casa donates a project for the live auction.  We decided to do a canvas floor mat of the five animal vertebrates.  We used primed canvas and cut a square.

We folded the canvas into a square and used a pencil attached to a string to cut our circle.  The children help cut it out and lay it down.

 Next, we paint on the background color with acrylics.

I pencil in the basic design that we devise, and the painting begins!  We use the fractions of five to draw evenly spaced lines for the five spaces by setting the fraction in the middle and extending the lines.

After the basic design is done, I pencil in the animals and the children paint them.

 We paint the outer border next.

 I add details to the animals, do the lettering, we edge with binding, and add a coat of polyurethane.  Voila!