Terracotta Soldiers

A couple of weeks ago I introduced a lesson to fifth grade about Emperor Qin's Terracotta Army. What I like most about this project is the process: artists create their own soldier relief print! The first year that I taught this I allowed students to create either a human or an animal, since the tomb contained soldiers, government officials, acrobats, and exotic animals, just to name a few, but this year I decided that all students should create a human of some sort. I provided them with several reference photos, but they all still look completely different! Here are a few rough drafts from 5B:

Once students planned their artwork, they drew their soldiers onto foam and etched into the surface. In a relief print, all the etched areas show up "empty" when they are printed, while raised areas are printed with ink. Traditional relief prints are created by etching into a hard surface, like wood or linoleum, and use printmaking ink (I prefer BLICK), but in the FCCS art room we use tempera paint. Students spread tempera paint along their relief block, carefully flip it paint side down on to paper, gently rub and press the back of the stamp, and slowly peel the soldier off the page to reveal a relief!

When my first group of students worked on this project, I had them glue the smaller colored papers together to create a collage (inspired by Andy Warhol, to show the same image four or so different ways), but this year, I'm not sure how I want students to arrange their artwork. Perhaps the small prints are complete the way they are? One student proposed stamping their soldiers in another color, so maybe next class I'll let them choose other colors and they can collage their soldiers using a wider variety of color. Check back in a couple of weeks to see the final artwork on the Virtual Art Show or follow my Instagram for more frequent pictures!