Monday, October 06, 2008

Our Art Lessons -- The First Month

I must say, I'm very pleased with son's art lessons this first month.  So far this has been the progression of his once weekly art lessons with his handsome art teacher (Dad -- hehe):

Week 1   Cave painting with fingerpaints
Week 2   African tribal mask
Week 3   Make up Egyptian deity in Crayon Resist
Week 4   Make Mayan stella in clay

Each week husband (who happens to be an artist) talks about the period, history and culture of the peoples.  He also shows him pictures, maps and art of the period and culture. For the Egyptian deity, son came up with an Elephant god. Each project is fun, and son looks forward to it every week. 

In the process, he's getting a good idea about chronological history while looking at maps and pictures, and learning about different cultures. This is great! I would like for him to whet his appetite for history, the world and cultures.

Here is son rolling out the clay dough on a square plastic storage cover (to keep it square):

First he cuts out figures to represent the characters on his story with cookie cutters:



And here he is putting on the designs to make his relief a story:


Son is carving out designs with plastic knife to mimic ancient Mayan writings:


Finally, here they are laying out the stella to dry out in the hot sun:

Here's the final product!  Santa riding a dinosaur and a rocketship pumpkin in the background.  The way he tells it is this: He arrives with a rocket ship on a planet with Santa riding a dinosaur.  There's a pumpkin there because it's almost Halloween. 


1 comment:

Tonia said...

Looks like fun!