Art With the Ancients

Have I mentioned before that we have The Best Art Teacher In The World? Not only is she an accomplished artist, but she is a creative teacher and homeschooling mom who follows a Charlotte Mason education with her own children. AND she is using a CM approach to teaching history and art in the art class my children attend with two other families once a month. AND she loves our children! AND she's willing to teach the children 'messy art techniques' that I take great pains to avoid at home!

Sandra was using Art Through Story, which combines world history and art instruction, and A Child's History of Art (Hillyer).

The year began with reading a story about the discovery of cave paintings in Lascaux, France, the children narrating the story onto pages with a print of a cave painting from Lascaux, and then producing their own cave art: the children crumpled large sheets of Kraft paper, spread them out, and then used pastels to depict animals that would have been seen in cave paintings.

That would have been thrilling enough for my children, but, being The Best Art Teacher In The World, Sandra kept the completed works at her home, backed them with cardboard, and stuffed them with newsprint to give them cave-wall like shape. When we came for class the next month, Sandra sent the children in pairs to her basement, complete with head mounted flashlight, to explore a nook which she had lined with the cave art of all 9 children! Did I mention that all the students LOVE Sandra? Who wouldn't?

Here are the cave paintings done by Little Man and My Girl, back in October:

Lion by Little Man

Beasts by My Girl

We then moved into Ancient Egypt, which we were also studying as a family in history. The Ones I Love were so pleased to have the things we were doing in school relate to art class, and having Sandra teaching them about the art of the Ancient Egyptians gave them another angle from which to view the culture.

Several classes were spent on Ancient Egypt. First they learned some of the style of the Egyptian art: bodies positioned in paintings to emphasize their role, use of colour and size and position to show perspective, etc.

The children learned about working with clay: low relief, high relief, techniques for working with clay, etc. And, of course, they got to create. Two examples of their high relief work are shown below.

Pyramid by My Girl

Sun by Little Man

Two classes of Ancient Egypt were spent working on the next project: masks. First the children shaped clay faces, getting more instruction in working with clay, shaping facial features (making nostrils was a favourite!) and so on. Then a frame of cardboard was made to depict the crown of Tutankhamen or Nefertiti. All those pieces were left with Sandra, who used papier mache to create the working masks*. In our second session the children painted the masks, following the design of Ancient Egyptian masks found in tombs and in art work from that era. Here are the finished products:

Pharaoh Tutankhamen by Little Man

Queen Nefertiti by My Girl

We are already making plans for next year's class, when we will dive into Ancient Greece and move on from there.

I am so thankful for the people God has placed in my life who can offer my children things I couldn't give them myself. Just over a year ago I barely knew Sandra, and in this short time she (and her family) has become a treasure in our lives! And did I mention that she's The Best Art Teacher In The World?

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*I do have to let you know here that Sandra's intention was to have the children do the papier mache themselves, but in February Sandra and her husband Tim had their 4th child, whose life was - and still is - quite fragile. Art class took a hiatus for a few months, and to enable this project to reach completion, Sandra papier mached all 9 masks herself!