Ancient Egyptian Art

Egypt Unit Study

Lesson 1: My daughter created Ancient Egyptian Art.

The other day during lunch my seven year old daughter announced she wanted to study Egypt. I couldn't have been more excited by her statement. For several months we have been working towards a less structured, more interest based education routine. We literally dove right in.

Planning for the 2013/14 school year I prepared a unit study on Egypt. Well we ended up studying the Middle Ages and the Renaissance instead. Therefore, when my daughter showed her interest in Egypt, I knew just where to begin. She loves art, design and fashion, and has seen pictures of elaborate Egyptian necklaces.

Ancient Egyptian Art (Art In History) was the perfect book for her introduction to Egypt. It is short, contains lots of pictures, and explains some of the techniques used by the Egyptians. We read about half of the book when she wanted to stop to try a few of the techniques for herself.

People in Egyptian art were drawn according to a very strict set of rules:
The heads always faced the side.
The eye was drawn from the front.
The chest was drawn from the front.
The arms and legs were drawn from the side.
Women were colored with lighter shades of paint than men. Usually women were yellowish and men had reddish skin.

She began by making a few sketches of people.

Next she gathered her paints. Although she didn't try grinding them from rocks, she was careful to select colors used in Egyptian paintings.

Please visit Highhill Education again next week to see more of our Ancient Egypt study.




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