Skip to content

Pictographs and Hand Made Paint

Parents
Pictographs and Hand Made Paint

Grade 5 students collaborated to create a beautiful cave painting. Mrs. Gibbon’s class drew ice age animals and painted them with natural elements from their own kitchens and yards (similar to how the first artists would have sourced their paint).

Early pictographs were made from soil and minerals mixed with liquids such as plant, fruit or vegetable juices, egg whites, blood or animal fat.

Our students’ display features pigments created with charcoal, chocolate, chalk, egg yolks, blueberries, turmeric, red cabbage, sweetened condensed milk and more. Brown craft paper was crumpled to mimic the texture of a rock surface, so that our students could experience painting on a textured surface similar to a cave wall.

This class learned about pictographs and petroglyphs before working on their masterpiece. Cave paintings are an art form that was practiced by civilizations hundreds and even thousands of years ago. They can be found at various locations from coast to coast in Canada, and they give us a glimpse into the lives and activities of the First Peoples who have made this land their home.