Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Ancient Persia and Forms

Sunburst and I are just now finishing up the study on Ancient Persia. I've notoriously fallen behind on my own schedule. C'est la vie. Lengthy vacations and illnesses will do that to you, and I've made a conscious decision not to feel bad about any of it. Choosing to embrace this moment is as empowering as it gets. Isn't that nice?

Now, for not nice... Can I say for a minute that, pictorially, there's just not much out there for Ancient Persia? Well, I guess I just said it. Really, there's nothing. Maybe Live Ed has something, but I don't have their books. I have pretty much everything else, and I'm telling you, there just isn't much out there to draw from. Maybe the 5th Grade study of Ancient Persia isn't important? That doesn't seem right though. Or fair. I'm all about fair representation.

I presented the story of Zarathustra from Kovac's amazing book, Ancient Mythologies, and came up with an idea for a pictorial representation of Zarathustra as a baby being impervious to all the harm King Duransarun tried to do to him. It worked for us.

Mine on the left, Sunburst's on the right:



The form at the top/bottom of the page is modified from a beautiful example on Live Ed's website. It's a pretty difficult form. We have definitely not mastered it yet, either of us, but we decided it was good enough.

We're going to envision another drawing or two this week before we move on to Ancient Babylon/Mesopotamia... which I again have no pictorial resources for. Anyone blogging on that?

----

Meanwhile, Moonshine is back to form drawing-- a few months ago we tried the Clown of God form lesson I created when Sunburst was in Grade 2. But it didn't take then. Moonshine just wasn't ready, wasn't into it. So... now we're trying again. So far, so good.

3 comments:

  1. Wow! Beautiful pictures! I love to see how the children often times use more colors (darker) than we adults use. I've seen that in the work I've done with my girls so I'd love to know why that is :D Children experience color differently and more intensely. Saw it at a workshop I attended last weekend when a 7 year old had the darkest watercolor painting compared to the rest of the adults (is that from jabbing the brush forceably to the bottom where most of the pigment resides?)

    Anyway, lovely post! I will be sure to come back to your blog for inspiration as we continue through the grades!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Have you tried looking at the J Paul Ghetty museum's website for pictures of artefacts relating to Ancient Persia, Mesopotamia etc? They have some amazing things there and lots of information they should be happy to share. Email them and see what they will send you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jen-- good point! My kids certainly jab all the way to the bottom of the jar. Is it an experience thing or a pressure thing? Maybe both.

    Sarah-- looking to museums for artwork is a great idea, thanks!! And wow, how great of the Ghetty museum to offer curriculum! Lots to peruse there.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to leave a message. I appreciate your sweet words so much!

Related Posts with Thumbnails
 
Site Meter