Minimum number of Art Journal slides: 8 or more slides.
Materials: Computer, camera, a pencil, markers, colored pencils or acrylic paints and poster board or drawing paper. No artistic skills required-you will not be graded on your drawing skills, but you will be communicating visually with the imagery you create for this assignment.
Activity:
If an Ancient Egyptian was wealthy, he or she could afford to have an individual tomb. The tomb’s walls would be painted decorated with images and hieroglyphs documenting the person’s life. This included their livelihoods, their leisure activities and their family life. Others could also include spells and images of deities to help guide their Ka into the afterlife. These images were created primarily for the KA so that it would recognize its previous life. SEE SAMPLE SLIDES BELOW.
Egyptian Tomb Wall Painting/Drawing:
Egyptian tombs had walls covered with images of the deceased person’s life in full detail. Every aspect of the person’s contributions, interests and life events were documented with these wall paintings. These murals recorded their legacy. The KA (the soul had two parts-the Ba rested in the heart and the KA, rested in the mind) could recognize his or her previous life’s achievements. Aside from a likeness of the person provided by the mummy’s death mask, the tombs also included KA statues to remind the soul that it was home.
Imagine your task as an ancient Egyptian is to start designing your tomb today.
For this hands-on project, each student will design two walls of their hypothetical tomb.
You may divide the poster board into two parts or use two separate poster boards, one for each wall. You may use illustration board or canvas instead if you wish.
The first wall will be used to illustrate your childhood life, up until age 17. (Part 1)
The second part of the wall should reflect your adult life up to now. (Part 2)
You will use Egyptian imagery and composition (research Egyptian tomb wall paintings on the internet and Egyptian Iconography, symbolic meaning and hieroglyphs). Use the same human forms, sideways stance, and standards set by the Palette of King Narmer, designs (compositions/divisions/registers) and décor as the Egyptians used in their paintings. Use hieroglyphs to help label some of the divided sections (registers) if you wish.
These two parts are the first two walls of the four walls to be designed for your hypothetical tomb based on your life until today.
After drawing the design, paint your drawing with acrylic paints, markers, or watercolors. Outline with markers if you need contrast. In Egyptian art, males are painted in a reddish-brown color and females are painted in white or light tan tints. You are welcome to use a projector to trace Egyptian figures if you want to. Don’t worry about artistic skills, but focus on the images ability to communicate your idea or expression.
You will take pictures of the process as you create each wall. You will include details of pictures to use as you explain the wall to your audience via written text. You will include a picture of each completed wall, obviously, as well. Add a brief description or title and/or subtitle for each wall. The PowerPoint design is totally up to you, however, avoid generic presentation. Practice producing professional looking presentations as this is a skill you will most likely need to practice for your career. See the Art Journal Guide.
You can buy the canvas, drawing paper or poster board from the bookstore, Hobby Lobby or Wal-Mart. Acrylic paints, markers or watercolors can be bought at Wal-Mart.
Reflection Questions:
Briefly discuss your choices and why these images represent your life on a slide or two.
Could anyone “read” your early life story from these images or would they need to research some of your images to understand your story or legacy?
What was your favorite part of the walls and why? Explain.
Should I keep this assignment? Why or why not?
im 20 years old fyi, Create your art journal activity as a PowerPoint presentation (not Word) first then convert it or save it as a PDF file before submitting it.
