Let's Rock!

Mr. Angelo's class has been busy learning all about Australian Aboriginal Rock Art and trying their hand at making some of their own rock related art.

We learned how this type of art was often used to tell stories and we saw first hand how much you can learn about a culture by looking at their artwork.

Using some of the same symbols and colors that were used in this ancient art form combined with their own drawings, students selected a part of their school day to illustrate with oil pastel and paint washes on brown paper. They then wrinkled up their drawings to add texture and give them the look of old rocks.

I love how mysterious these pieces are while giving us just enough realism to guess what the artist might have been thinking, just like the ancient rock art that they were inspired by!

Students then brought in rocks and used permanent marker and acrylic paint to illustrate a portrait of their family doing something important to them.

It is really interesting to see how the texture of the rocks and the use of the full color wheel adds interest and modernizes the finished pieces.

We ended the unit with a collaborative class project. Just like the creators of this Aboriginal Rock Art left their mark...

...we gathered as a class to create our own collective artistic hand print!

I wonder if someone will find these pieces many years from now and guess what we might have been doing!