This week for our Art History Class we learned about cave painting. The time period is about 32,000 – 30,000 BCE in a Chauvet Cave located in France. You see things such as horses, bisons, and rhinoceroses painted the way wall, along with miscellaneous symbols.

We also learned that the way in life in Europe hardly changed back then.There were times that it was warmer and the ice sheets shrank, but it happened so slowly that you couldn’t tell it was happening, and the cold and ice would creep back in. They think there weren’t many humans in this particular area during that time but small groups here and there. Most of them were always on the move stopping here and there. They don’t think the people lived in the caves that were painted. I am sure there are many stories that were passed at the time with the paintings on the cave wall.

It is thought that many of the paintings were done by women based on the sizes of some of the handprints that were found in the caves. Many came to look at those cave paintings. Many of the cave paintings were done in warm colors of orangey-red, yellows, and browns. They think to get some of these colors that rocks were crushed to powder, yet maybe some of the rocks were soft that you could draw with them. They could have mixed powder with spit from there mouth to get paint.

We observed the different symbols and drawings of cave paintings for this project.

Further Study

Here are some resources for further study on the Chauvet Cave in France.

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/chauvet/

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/chauvet/chauvet_cave_art.php

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/france-chauvet-cave-makes-grand-debut-180954582/

Cave Painting Project

Supplies

• paper
• oil pastel colors – red, orange, yellow, black, brown
• water colors – red, orange, yellow, brown
• paint brush
• water
• paper towel

Directions 

1. Draw 3 – 5 different shapes of animals on your paper with oil pastels. You can smudge the colors if you need. Make sure you color in your shapes of animals. Once your satisfied then draw some different symbols such as arrows, moon, sun.
2. Once your happy with your drawing select different colors of water color and paint over your picture.
3. What I did and this is optional…I mixed some black paint and water and I dipped the paint brush into the water and I splattered it across the papers…you could even do this in brown instead if you want to.
4. Let dry and hang up!

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