Cave Painting

The idea that art, history, literature and science can be taught as interwoven and overlapping subjects appeals to me. Whenever possible, I plan to combine these disciplines to give a broader view to topics we will cover. So I was very excited when I realized I could blend all four subject areas for our first topic of Early Humans.

When last I wrote, Casia was studying the early humans. One of the characteristics that she learned that set humans apart from other hominids was their abstract reasoning abilities best exemplified by their art. We looked at pictures of the cave paintings from Lascoux, France online and read about other primitive art forms like carving.

I assigned her a historical fiction book called, The Boy of the Painted Cave, by Justin Denzel to read for Language Arts, which tied in very neatly with our history lesson. She wasn't a huge fan of the book and that might have had something to do with the fact that it was about an adolescent boy, named Tao, who spent a good deal of time in nature hunting; not something with which Casia relates. I enjoyed the book myself, but I think the adjective she choose to describe the book was 'slow'. She did, however, like the parts about Tao sneaking off to the caves to learn to paint despite it being a taboo in his culture to do so. It talks in detail about how he learned to make his own brushes and mix his paints from the natural resources in his environment. He won the support of the master cave painter and in the end was allowed to practice his art.

So the book wasn't a huge success in capturing her interest, but there was a limited selection of historical fiction from which I had to draw (no pun intended). It did, however, give rise to the idea for a corresponding art project that Casia found very satisfying.

I thought that if Tao could make his own paints and brushes for cave painting, then so can we! I quickly ditched the idea of mixing our own paint when I realized how much work it was going to be. I was trying to keep the project to a single afternoon. But Casia was able to make her very own primitive brush by cutting off a fresh branch from our lilac bush and then pounding it between two rocks until it separated and softened the edge. We took some old brown craft paper we had sitting around and Casia crinkled it to give it a textured appearance. We then taped it to the garage wall. With some crayola paints, her cool new brush and her very own cave wall, she set to work creating an animal scene like those described in the book and see online.

Making a brush from a branch

Here Casia is smashing a fresh cut lilac bush branch between two rocks.  After just a couple of minutes she had a very rudimentary brush.  She loves hands-on so this was something she really enjoyed doing.

Casia Cave Painting

Casia crinkled some brown craft paper and we taped it on the garage wall.  

Finished Art Work

Even though we ended up going with her crayola paints instead of making our own, Casia stuck to the colors that were mentioned in the book. She also choose animals from the book as her subjects. She wanted it to be more 'authentic'.

I would rate this project a success in both ease of preparation and interest level for Casia. I highly recommend it!