Supplies, supplies.

For my class this week is going to be learning about the almighty Byzantine Empire. 

Byzantine was a very shiny place, so I've had to buy lots of shiny paint for my art class tomorrow. Thankfully I don't need to buy any paint, because there is enough in the art supplies cabinet to glue the entire population's fingers together on their right hand. The other thing I had to acquire was miniature cards, the size of playing cards, with saints on them.

 I'm not going to tell you what we're going to make. But I can say we'll be learning about icons (pictured below), and that there is already plenty of clues.

I will say that the finished project of our art projects will, also, be very shiny. 

Arts and Crafts

The single most helpful tool to preserve a culture is writing. The theme of writing tied into our learning of the communication of art.

  The reason ancient Egypt culture is understood so well today is because of hieroglyphics. 

Rosetta Stone is more than just software.

To help us remember all the points of our first class (communication, emphasis, motivation), we made our own hieroglyphics as a craft. 

                            This was my own personal painting. It was really just a run-through. 

We used the age old method of drawing something with pastels then painting over it with watercolors. My students drawings are much more pleasing to the eye. 

Either pastels or crayons will work for this craft. Everyone seemed to favor pastels though. 

Even though we did have hieroglyphics to copy, some brave students made up their own.

Or got really creative and communicated with whales instead. 

I have never been this creative in my life. At least not with paint. 

And who needs hieroglyphics when you can write in Greek letters?

Or you know, Chinese characters. 

You can really communicate in any of them. Including whales. 

This student had an interesting concept as well. Chinese characters for communicating. And....

and tell the rest with a drawing. 

I guess that's really the point of my art history class. Teach what you can with words, then let everyone use the art supplies to understand the rest. 

Week One: Ancient Art

First of all, Ancient Art may be the largest art period. Everything from Stonehenge to the Great Pyramids fits into Ancient Art. We mostly focused on Roman, Greek, and Egyptian art.

We started by looking at the emphasis of each culture's art. Roman art's emphasis was their empire. Greek was mythology. Egyptians emphasis was on the afterlife. Each of the emphasis can tell us about their cultures. Our craft was centered on Egyptian art.

Egyptian art, because its emphasis was on the afterlife, had lots of art that was made to last for eternity. Egyptians believed that if they were remembered after death, they would live forever in the afterlife. To make sure no one forgot them, they left behind as much as they could. Egyptians have succeeded.
  Today we still know the names of many ancient Egyptians. Ramses, Tutankhamun, Khufu, even Cleopatra, who was actually Greek but practiced the Egyptian religion.

Egyptology is a branch of archeology in respect to only Egyptian culture. It is possible to have Egyptology as a branch of archeology because there are so many artifacts left over that an entire culture can be studied. That is the true way that ancient Egyptians have remained living while dead. 

Art History in a Sentence.

How to sum up art in a sentence? Well, that was what we tackled in our first class.

First of all, there is no healthy way to teach a class without commonplace books. It simply can't be done. Of course, you don't have to call them commonplace books. You might just call them notes.

But once everyone got their commonplace books, I had them all write one sentence inside them. The one sentence that sums up art.                           

                                      

Art Is Communication.

To me that sums up art in the simplest way possible. Art is an artist communicating to the rest of the world. This led to one or two shocked expressions. Then, like a good teacher, I kept talking now that I had attention. A book, (which is still art of course, a book is just a type of art), can help you understand exactly what the author (or artist) is like. You can hear them communicating through their art. You can understand their personality from their art, their religion, their beliefs, their politics, even their favorite color from their art. But, unlike a book, which you read, a painting is a little harder to hear. But that is what we're going to learn in my class; how to hear with your eyes. 

It just takes a little flexing of the optic nerve to hear an artist communicate thorough a painting. Then I got one of the most interesting questions I have ever heard.  "Miss Sarah," asked my student, "if art is communication and books are art, then is the bible communication?"

  While I believe that is called deductive reasoning, I must say, even I had never thought of that before. This just goes to show that I got a great group of students. 

  "Yes," I told him. "The bible is God communicating to you."

I am very glad to say that a collective dropping of jaws happened in front of me. I think this makes me a good teacher. Or maybe I just have really good students. 

It might just be an ingenious sentence I read somewhere once that struck me as so universally accurate that I had to tell other people. Which ever it may be, I think it's perfect. 

As far as this guy's concerned, it's also a fact.

An Art Class

This blog is about, if you haven't yet figured it out, an art class.

A few years ago, I discovered the discipline of art history and just how much I loved it. I've always been one to hang around libraries and museums, always been one to enjoy art, and I've always been one to enjoy history. Art history combines all these things. Art history is the history of art, obviously.

It's the development of painting. It's the history of art periods. It's how to appreciate art. It's how art complements history.

Last spring I found myself with the idea so student teach art history. Not just the idea though, also the blessed opportunity. I will be teaching my own art class with my own curriculum for 4th and 5th graders at ETC Homeschool Coop till the end of the semester in December.
 
Till then, as a student, I get to record all my hours. Lucky for me in this information age, I can do that on a blog. That way everyone can see all of my class's art, learning, and most importantly, their priceless imagination.