Arts and Crafts

Salvadoran Lutheran Synod

The La Palma style of art, which is named after artists living near the village of La Palma, has spread throughout El Salvador. The artists paint bright-colored scenes on wooden crosses or plaques. The art often portrays things that are important to them: homes, flowers, birds, plants, and animals, and people. You can paint your own crosses in this style.

Another option is to have one large wooden cross cut out and have the group paint one cross for the church. Each person can paint something that is important to them on the cross, to have a community cross.

Painted cross

Materials needed:

Cardboard or thin piece of wood, cut into a eight-inch high cross. The bars should be about two inches thick
Bright color paints
Thin black markers
Paintbrushes
Newspaper

Give each crafter a cross, and have them draw designs on the cross with a black marker. As they draw something important to them, ideas could be: family, home, pets, flowers, butterflies, church, the earth, and so on.

After the design is drawn, paint with bright tempera or acrylic paint. Leave the marker lines showing, so that the picture is well defined, without colors running into one another. The cross can be either completely painted, or some of the background cardboard or wood can be left showing.

As crafters work on their crosses, remind them that the most important thing is not what they are painting, but the cross itself--God's sign of love for the world.