During another instalment of our Knights, Castles and Dragons topic, we uncovered and examined the concept of ‘Illuminated Letters’.
Illuminated letters originated during Medieval times, when all books were hand written and decorated by priests and monks. Illuminated Letters were usually the first letter of a page or paragraph. These letters were normally enlarged, boldly coloured and adorned by silver and gold patterns. During these times, many people were unable to read and so, Illuminated Letters were a way of communicating a story and catching attention without using words.
We recognised these letters from some of our favourite story books and so, we just had to create our own!
First, pupils skilfully traced the initial of their first name and then transferred this onto card. Then, they darkened the outline of their tracing and once happy, began to add the bright flashes of colour by using paint. Each part of this process was extremely time consuming but the final pieces of artwork were definitely worth the wait!
Have a look at P3A working carefully through each step of this artistic process: