Egyptian Period Portraits

My Art I students recently studied Egyptian art and hieroglyphics, and we created a portrait in the style of traditional Egyptian art while reviewing basic elements like line, shape, and form.

Students studied Egyptian portraiture, practiced drawing facial profiles, then created a portrait. They were required to add a headdress and pectoral decoration like that worn by “New Kingdom” Egyptians. These were then bordered in hieroglyphics which had to depict the student’s first name above the portrait, last name below, and could be hieroglyphs or ideograms of their choice on the sides.

We discussed the Egyptians’ limited use of color, and how they used very pure, colorful pigments such as red, “Egyptian” blue, green, yellow, black, and white, as well as gold and silver. After using colored pencils to add color, students accented their artworks with gold metallic paint.

The results were lovely!! 🙂