Carmen Lomas Garza was an artist who told her stories through her artwork long before she was a published author. You can find a lot of her artwork in her books, but she has also created a lot of art that is not in her books. Her artwork is displayed in several museums in the United States.
Most of Carmen Lomas Garza's artwork is either paintings or papel picado (cut-paper art). In her paintings, she will use oil, acrylic, or gouache paints that make bright and opaque colors. (Opaque means you can't see through the colors like you might could with watercolors.) Carmen Lomas Garza tries to tell stories through her paintings and often includes a lot of details of what the monitos (little figures) in her art are doing. A lot of her paintings show her memories of her childhood experiences with family and friends in her community.
Carmen Lomas Garza also creates very detailed pictures through papel picado, which is a traditional Mexican folkart of cutting paper in certain ways to leave empty spaces that create pictures. She can create very large papel picados, some of which are as big as the side of a building.
Carmen Lomas Garza also creates installations for museums. Installation art is a kind of 3-D art, where the artist creates, collects, and puts together different pieces to create scene or setting. The installations that Carmen Lomas Garza creates are designed to show more about the Mexican-American culture.