Jefferson Middle School sixth-graders created life-sized paintings of Egyptian gods and goddesses in Lisa Corey’s art enrichment class. The students are learning about ancient civilizations in their sixth-grade social studies classes, and Corey’s enrichment classes give students an additional opportunity to delve deeper in the cultural aspect of ancient Egypt and the importance of art to its culture. The enrichment class is offered to sixth-grade students for a full year.

Students created their paintings from a grid drawing using math skills. The grid system allows the figures to be enlarged ensuring the proportionality remains intact. Students learned that in Egyptian artwork, artists had a very specific set of rules (Canon of Proportions) to follow in constructing their paintings of people. Every painting had the same body dimensions and was the same size using a squared grid of 18 units. The frontalism style showed the head in profile, eye drawn in front view, torso forward-facing, and legs in profile. Before the students created their life-sized paintings, they each painted their name with hieroglyphics in a cartouche to get an experience with the language.

“It is really interesting and fun,” said Jefferson sixth-grader, Lily Foster, who created Bastet, the Goddess of Cats. “It is great to discover more about the culture. We are learning all about this in social studies but by being creative, it helps you experience firsthand what they might have done in ancient Egypt to create a painting.”

Corey’s students will follow the development of art history throughout the school year. They began with early civilizations and created cave drawings. When the students reach Greek history, Corey will have them create Greek sculptures. They will also study the Renaissance, Impressionism and Cubism art periods and end the year studying modern artists. This format allows students to be able to see how each time period influences the next. Chronological order also allows Corey to explain some of the events and inventions of the time periods, how they impact the art styles and helps to make sense to students of art through the ages.