Medieval Art & Illuminated Letters

What a crazy project, but so much fun! The last project for my 6th graders involved creating a medieval art inspired coat of arms. We talked about illuminated letters, heraldry symbols, and characteristics of Medieval art.

The kids really seemed to like this project. We focused on lines and patterns to create an interesting background for our coat of arms. Students were asked to add a letter to their coat of arms. Some students chose graffiti style letters, while others went the more traditional route. We started running out of time, so not all students got to color in their coat of arms. But even black and white looked cool!

I had a huge pack of gold leaf laying in my craft room and allowed some students to add the gold leaf. It was pretty tricky (next time I would use a gold paint pen instead) but the kids were amazed. They were convinced the gold leaf would make their artwork very valuable. ;)

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Steps for this project:

1. Students trace a shield stencil. Next, they create a letter (larger than their hand) using their own font or copying a font. I had examples of different fonts at each table for students to look at.
2. Next, students chose at least three heraldic symbols that represented them. Students were required to draw these symbols somewhere on or outside their shield.
3. We then talked about using different lines to break up the space on the shield. I showed the students examples of zentangles and how to add different patterns to the shield.
4. Students used India ink to go over all of their pencil lines. Some students really struggled with using the calligraphy pens and India Ink, so I had sharpies as an alternative. 
5. At this point, some students were allowed to add gold leaf to small places on their coat of arms.
6. The last step was to color the shield using colored pencils or markers!

Detail of one student's use of gold leaf. The gold leaf was adhered with simple clear craft glue.