Islamic Art Eraser Prints

Lesson: Islamic Art/Eraser Prints
Submitted by: Lori Eckard, of the C. H. Tuttle Middle School in Maiden, NC

Grade Level: 6th - 8th grade

Materials:

Art Artgum Erasers, X-acto Knives, Drawing Pencils, Rulers, 10"x10" (25.4 x 25.4 cm) white Drawing Paper, AquaMarkers and Band-Aids!!!

Concepts:

Repetition, pattern, radial balance, radial symmetry, rotation

Discussion:

Students are shown examples of mosaics found on mosques. We discuss background information on Islam and relate it to social studies units. This is also a great unit to integrate math skills.

Procedure:

Students are given the opportunity to sketch a design. They must measure the cubed gum eraser and lightly grid their drawing paper. The geometric design is then drawn on the eraser with a ball point pen. Students must carefully carve the negative spaces away from the design. They may then color the design with marker and print into the top left block of the grid. Now the fun begins! Have students work with a group of 4 blocks rotating the eraser print ¼ turn each time they print. These look great and the students will be surprised at their results.

Says Bunki Kramer, art teacher at Los Cerros Middle School, "We looked at several versions of Islamic tilings examining shapes, colors, design and spacing. Next we cut our individual 3" (7.6 cm) tile stamps from " Soft-Kut Printing Blocks which is thick enough to provide each of us with two sides so we could make two different designs. Using Block Printing Inks, we made our tile prints on 12" x 18" (30.5 x 46 cm) colored Construction Paper... placing the tile prints in radial symmetry. After the ink dried, we colored the designs with Cray-Pas. Clear matte spraypaint was used as our fixative." See image at right)

Alternate Lesson:

Islamic Tile Design Webquest- A Word document from Mrs. Egnatz 8th grade Social Studies class. (Because this document no longer appears online and the internet archive hasn't archived it, we have this file on our server so you can access it.)
Islamic Tile Design Tutorial Video - See a video on how to make them on eHow.

Also see Bunki Kramer's Islamic Tiles lesson.

Books: Islamic Tiles - Ceramic tiles have been produced for over 1,000 years in the Islamic world, from Iraq in the ninth century to Turkey in the 19th. The wealth of designs and colours used to decorate mosques, shrines and palaces also became a rich source of inspiration for European artists and designers.

The Art of the Islamic Tile - This volume presents a broad panorama of Islamic architectural decoration in all it diversity, drawn from a vast area including Spain, North Africa, Turkey, Iran, and the Indian subcontinent.

eArticle: TWO VIEWS OF ISLAM Ceramic Tile Design and Miniatures.: An article from: Arts & Activities - This digital document is an article from Arts & Activities, published by Publishers' Development Corporation on January 1, 2001.