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Ancient Egyptian Art Lessons
Create an Ancient Egyptian Painting - 1
The artistic process used to create the time-worn effect in this painting of an Ancient Egyptian portrait is a mixed media technique called Paper Batik. Our portrait was based upon a painting of Queen Nefertari from her tomb in the Valley of the Queens.
Queen Nefertari
Click here for a sketch to help you draw this figure Queen Nefertari is usually shown wearing the vulture crown of the goddess Nekhbet, the protector of Upper Egypt. Nefertari was the favourite wife of the greatest of all the pharaohs, Rameses II, and she bore him at least six children. She probably died after his 30th year on the throne, about 12 centuries before the birth of Christ. If you wish to choose another image for your painting, you could try our Egyptian Gods or Egyptian Crowns pages where you will find a range of suitable alternatives.
Art Materials for this Lesson The art materials you will need to produce this are a charcoal pencil or stick, a heavy grade paper, a paintbrush with poster paint or watercolor, and a bottle of Indian ink.
Step 1 - Drawing an Egyptian Figure
At first look, the figures drawn by the Ancient Egyptians may seem wooden and flat, demonstrating a limited understanding of the human form. However, you need only look at their sculptures to realize that this is not the case. Their drawings are simplified and stylized images which represent the eternal spirit of the character that they depict, and as such, are quite sophisticated images. A traditional Egyptian image shows the head and lower body viewed from the side, with the eye and upper body viewed from the front. In our drawing above we have focused on the upper half of the body. The image was drawn in line without any shading using a charcoal pencil on a heavy-grade white paper.
Step 2 - Drawing the Crown and Tunic
In the second stage of this drawing we have added a headdress, a pectoral decoration and a tunic. Any solid black areas, such as the hair are shaded in with charcoal. Do not worry if the charcoal becomes smudged as this can add to the texture of the work in its later stages. The headdress worn here is a version of the Royal Vulture Crown.
Pectoral Decorations
Pectoral decorations are large ornamental necklaces which are worn over the chest. These necklaces often supported a large piece of jewellery like the one in the drawing above. This image is copied from a pectoral jewel discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun. Its design is based on the hieroglyphs from his cartouche.
Step 3 - Adding a Hieroglyphic Background
At this stage you can decorate the background with an arrangement of hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs in our drawing have all been taken from our Hieroglyphic Alphabet pages. Try to arrange your hieroglyphs to create an interesting composition. In our drawing, they have been composed around the figure into a rectangular form that echoes the shape of the paper.
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