The grade 7’s are continuing their journey through art history and recently completed a project that looked deeper into the art that was developed in the Medieval period. They learned that one of the art forms in this time period was letter illumination, which coincided with the growth of literacy that was being experienced. Some wealthy families would own their own illuminated manuscripts, with letters being enlarged and designed with ornate details and other pictures. Books became a place where art could flourish within the text itself!
Students were then tasked with creating their own example of an illuminated letter. They looked at various fonts and had to decide which letter, either the first letter of their first or last time, they wanted to draw by hand. They then added various details surrounding the letter and a border around the page. One additional requirement was that students had to include a detail somewhere in their art to represent their own personality or interests – so some included a music note, a baseball, or a particular sports logo.
Students then learned the art technique of a graphite transfer, which was used in this project. They covered the back of their paper in pencil and outlined their design in Sharpie. They then put a new sheet of paper under the layer of graphite, and “traced” both sides of the Sharpie line on their design. This resulted in lines being transferred onto their new paper, but this time, with small borders around everything because of the tracing of every line on both sides. It was then on this new paper that students filled in their design with oil pastel, being reminded of the techniques they learned in Grade 6, while leaving the borders as empty from colour as possible. Finally, students covered their entire art with a layer of black watercolour paint. The oil pastels resist the black paint, which results in the paint filling in the borders while preserving the colour from the oil pastel.
Students did a great job following all the steps of this project and the results were fantastic!
