Egyptian Art Ideas


Mural painting

Make enlarged banners of Egyptian figures decorated in all their funeral finery. Make a funeral procession for your wall. Cut the shape of a funeral boat out of brown paper and feature this with a coffin in the centre as it crosses the Nile. Add one or two date palms and sand hills and you have the entire scene.


Carve Egyptian symbols (such as the ankh) into potato halves and print onto cotton squares. Fray the edges and soak in coffee to mimic the look of papyrus.

Mask making

Use plaster bandage to make full face masks or use papier-mache on a balloon and decorate in the style of a funeral mask.

Paper making

Experiment with the ancient method of making papyrus paper by weaving thin strips of papyrus reed together and drying them clamped together. Experiment with other materials for making paper, such as cloth strips mixed with paper strips.

Jewellery making

Make beads from triangular strips of paper rolled up tight then decorated with bright blue, yellow and red to look like gemstones. Spray with lacquer for a gloss finish.


Make a plaster slab and, when just set and still soft, carve a scene, hieroglyph or jewellery pattern into it. Alternatively, use a hebel block (aerated concrete blocks – these can be cut into flat blocks and then shaped using basic woodworking tools), rasps and sandpaper to shape bowls like the alabaster bowls used when making offerings to the gods.


Make canopic jars using terracotta or white hand-building clay. Use a slab to build the cylinder then shape the top to look like Horus or Anubis, etc. Carve patterns and hieroglyphs onto the sides.

Make amulets (luck charms) and shabtis (statuettes) out of modelling medium or clay and then fire them. Decorate with paints or glazes or experiment with different finishes. Try using a dry brush then rubbing back the paint to give an aged effect. 

Ms Helen Wheeler , Learning Services Operations Manager
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