Egyptian Canopic Jars

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We've finally finished the canopic jars.  I want to thank the Museum of Fine Arts here in Houston for the inspiration for this lesson.  The teacher CD  they gave during the educator's night was amazing and provided such wonderful images.
Plastic cups, paper towels, tag or cardboard and tape make up the armature for each jar.  Small pebbles are placed in the bottom cup along with wadded up towels to help  balance the jar and to keep it standing. We then covered them with plaster gauze to make the surface strong and ready for paint.   The rest is up to the imagination of the student.  I did provide handouts of Egyptian symbols and patterns for the students to use as a resource.  These were done by my middle school elective class which was actually perfect because they come to art 4 days in a row.  They took us about 2 weeks to complete.  You can see the steps below.

Egyptian Canopic Jar / Sculpture

We've started making canopic jars (or a version of) in my middle school elective class.  So far, the kids have chosen an animal that they feel has characteristics that may portray a godlike or special quality.  We are just starting to build the armatures.  So far, they are really embracing the project, yesterday when I said it was time to clean up it was as if I was addressing an empty room.  About 5 minutes later, I asked why  no-one had started cleaning up one student said, "Oh, you said clean up?  We're just so engaged in our artwork we didn't even hear that!"

Middle School Plaster Gauze Masks

                                                                               

I'm super proud of my elective class not only for the way the masks turned out but I am very proud of  how well they worked together during the process.   I observed  the students  learning  from and about each other while discussing their artworks.  Another great thing was that the students could follow their own learning path;  kinesthetic, verbal, logical or spatial.



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