Sidewalk Chalk Renaissance Art
December 6, 2018
Over the past couple of weeks, eleven pieces of art have been hung in the halls by Mrs. Lofland’s classroom drawn by her Advanced Placement European History courses. Using chalk, butcher paper, and the original piece of art, these classes had 60 minutes to create their interpretations of these Renaissance masterpieces.
Mrs. Lofland said, “I came up with this assignment by collaborating with other teachers. I am part of an AP community and we share ideas with each other. Somebody had shared an idea about doing Renaissance chalk art on the sidewalk. Originally, I thought I would do that, but instead, because of the mess and tracking it through the school, I changed it, altered some of the situations and ultimately decided to do it on butcher paper. It worked out really well! It was nice because then we could display them in the hall for a long time.”
“I try to do something fun for most of the art periods,” she continues, “just because art is something that is creative and accessible. For this one, the Renaissance, it’s just a fun introduction to it. Plus, Renaissance art just starts the modern movements in western civilization. So I think having a good foundation with that helps students build on some art in the western civilization. We may do it again, we’ll see.”
Mrs. Lofland was very impressed with these pieces of art and she believes that out of these eleven chalk paintings, The Lamentation by Giotto (redrawn by Savanah Womack, Paige Fargo, Jenna Campbell, and Jared Odd) looks the closest to the original painting. She also says that “I had a lot of people comment on them. It was really fun to see. Some were detailed, but all of them you could tell what the art was. The fun thing about it was that you get to think about how these Renaissance artists put together a piece, how difficult that would be, the level of detail, but at the same time you get to have fun with it and move on after that.”
These AP European History classes did a wonderful job on recreating these Renaissance masterpieces. It shows through their work how dedicated you have to be and how long it can take to make something so beautiful. We applaud these classes and can’t wait to see what project Mrs. Lofland has them do next!
