Decorate your own vase like the Ancient Greek vases you saw yesterday and Tuesday!
Supplies Needed:
Paper
Colored Pencils
Black Crayon
Scissors
Toothpick
This project can get a little messy so protect your work space with newspaper.
Begin by choosing colored pencils. I picked reds, yellows, oranges, and browns because they reminded me of the color of the clay the Greeks used for their vases. Cover your sheet of paper with color. Mix it up. Color large patches of yellow and small patches of brown, circles of orange and triangles of red. Go nuts.
When your page is completely covered, color over the whole thing with a black crayon. You’ll need to press hard and color in several directions to cover the colored pencil.
Now draw a vase on the back of your page. I folded my paper in half so the vase would be symmetrical. When you’re happy with the vase, cut it out.
And now comes the fun part. With a toothpick, scratch patterns and pictures onto your vase. The toothpick will scratch off the crayon and let the colors show through. My vase is shown below. Though not something you would see on an Ancient Greek vase, I drew two people dancing. You can draw anything you want on your vase, including made-up creatures. Be creative.
Return to main page.
Supplies Needed:
Paper
Colored Pencils
Black Crayon
Scissors
Toothpick
This project can get a little messy so protect your work space with newspaper.Begin by choosing colored pencils. I picked reds, yellows, oranges, and browns because they reminded me of the color of the clay the Greeks used for their vases. Cover your sheet of paper with color. Mix it up. Color large patches of yellow and small patches of brown, circles of orange and triangles of red. Go nuts.
When your page is completely covered, color over the whole thing with a black crayon. You’ll need to press hard and color in several directions to cover the colored pencil.Now draw a vase on the back of your page. I folded my paper in half so the vase would be symmetrical. When you’re happy with the vase, cut it out.And now comes the fun part. With a toothpick, scratch patterns and pictures onto your vase. The toothpick will scratch off the crayon and let the colors show through. My vase is shown below. Though not something you would see on an Ancient Greek vase, I drew two people dancing. You can draw anything you want on your vase, including made-up creatures. Be creative.
Return to main page.
During the Archaic Period, Greek art was influenced by art from other areas of the world. This is because the Greeks were trading goods with neighboring areas. They were also setting up colonies to their east and west. Contact with other cultures allowed Greeks to learn to cut gemstones for jewelry, work with metals, and carve ivory.
Still, though, the Greeks continued to make sculptures and decorated vases. As I said earlier, the images became more realistic. Look at the decoration on the vases above. Big difference from Geometric Period vases, huh? 
During this time, the Greeks began sculpting nude standing male figures (called kouros) and standing female figures with loose cloth draped over them (called kore). You have probably seen statues like the ones shown above.
Many of these vases were used as headstones in cemeteries.
Above is a sculpture created during the Geometric Period. Like most sculptures from the period, it is bronze. The most important parts of the horse are the largest (such as the nose) and the least important are smallest (like the torso).
