Egyptian Portraits

Students drew an Egyptian styled self portrait and embellished it with glitter and ancient Egyptian inspired patterns. For the background, sixth graders designed their own cartouche with hieroglyphs an Egyptian symbols. Folded paper is used to pop the portraits up from the background.

Greek Inspired Vases

7th grade students spend most of the fourth quarter studying Ancient Greece and since I think paper mache is the best way to wrap up an already messy, wacky year . . . why not Greek inspired vases!?

Students researched traditional Greek and Minoan Pottery for inspiration. We used Simply Orange plastic juice containers for the armature. Students that forgot to bring a juice container had to use a balloon, which could sometimes be tricky . . . POP!

Koi Fish

Seventh grade students spend lots of time studying ancient China and Japan in history class. In the art room, we celebrate these rich cultures through the creation of watercolor koi fish paintings. Combing traditional Asian art, and the Hawaiian flair of artist Sherri Reeves, students drew several koi fish across their rectangular sheet of paper. (This is large! Apx 22x11" inches) Once the have drawn their fish they added sketches of pond life and traced over the entire image in crayon before painting with liquid watercolors. Prior to painting, students applied a 1" masking tape border aroudn the edge of their artwork. Once the fish and pond life were painted, student used toothbrushes to splatter for a whimsical / watery effect!