Paint like an Egyptian

Last week’s art lesson was too good not to post… As you know, we’ve been studying ancient civilizations, specifically the ancient Egyptians, and what unit would be complete without a look at the influence of art?

Because the ancient Egyptians were the first to introduce written language through hieroglyphics and because the symbolism used by the Egyptians is relatively easy to replicate, I decided to let it guide us through art last week. I found this lesson over at Ms. Picasso’s art room. Check it out here. Here’s what we did:

Find a god/goddess-inspired picture that you like and transfer the image with pencil onto a nice, thick piece of paper. You can also add a couple of hieroglyphic symbols around the picture just to jazz it up. After your drawing is complete, trace over the pencil with a black permanent marker. * Make sure you use permanent marker or else it will bleed later on when you add watercolor* Once your black marker outline is complete, sponge paint over it with brown, yellow, and/or orange acrylic paints until it looks old. Finally, once the acrylic paints have dried, apply just a splash of watercolor to a few parts of the piece… be sure not to overdo it with the color as you want it to look as authentic as possible. Here are a few of our completed pieces. I think they turned out great, what do you think?

 

 

Columbus Day Art

Yesterday was Columbus Day in America and what better way to celebrate the “discovery of the new world” than with art? Usually art falls on Fridays as a little reward for working so hard all week, but last week was our first fundraiser for Service Learning and my kids missed out on art. So, to make it up to them we did art on Monday and had a blast with this great project. I got this idea from Patty over at www.deepspacesparkle.com and it was a ton of fun and SUPER easy to teach.

I began the lesson with a brief story of Christopher Columbus and the explorers at that time just to set the scene of what it would have been like to be one of the first settlers of the new world. We had a great discussion about the challenges and fears these adventurers must have faced at that time. Then, we looked at a few drawings of Clipper Ships, or pirate ships as my kids like to call them, and studied the basic shapes that make up the outline. Once we played around with some practice drawings, we were ready for our good piece of paper… I only allow students one thick sheet of paper for a final print to reduce the waste and carelessness that can sometimes happen in art class.

Once our pencil outlines were done, we busted out the watercolors and that’s when the real fun started. I have to admit, this was a big project and one that I don’t recommend trying to finish in one sitting, but we pulled through it and they look beautiful. Here are the finished products: