Egyptian Subtractive Relief Sculptures

A Subtractive Sculpture is created when an artist REMOVES material. An example of this type of art is a marble sculpture or a sculpture carved from wood.

An ADDITIVE sculpture is when an artist ADDS material. An example of this would be a clay sculpture or an assemblage.

A RELIEF sculpture is a type of sculpture that is only seen from the front. There are TWO types of relief sculptures.

High

and

Low

The Egyptians made many Low-Relief Sculptures. They created scuptures in order to tell stories.

Relief sculpture was important to ancient Egyptian traditions. They would use relief sculpture to decorate the walls of the tombs, temples and other important structures. They believed that decorating the tomb of a dead person with relief sculptures ensured a happy afterlife.

Artists carved relief sculptures inside temple walls. These sculptures were believed to have magical powers that helped in performing important religious ceremonies.

Here is a relief sculpture of Anubis, the jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife.

YOUR PROJECT

You will be carving a low-relief, subtractive sculpture from a piece of drywall. It will be based on Egyptian Art. The requirements are:

• You must have a border• You must create at least THREE levels of depth.• You must create DIMENSION and the ILLUSION of

FORM.• You must mix your own colors and have a color

scheme.• You must create gradations.