A Fun and Easy Art Project: A Contemporary Cave Drawing

Explore the joy of communicating through art with this fun cave drawing inspired art project. It is an easy project for the home or the classroom that involves a lot of imagination and a few materials.

What you will need for the Contemporary Cave Drawing

Each child will need a large sheet of cnstruction paper and crayons. It will also be handy to have a sample of the Lascaux cave paintings or other ancient cave art samples. Gold and silver crayons can be added to the mix for cave detailing.

Contemporary Cave Drawing

Societies that do not have a formal written language often use symbols to keep a written record. Using the samples of cave art, have a discussion about what each cave drawing might have been trying to convey. For example, many cave drawings show hunting scenes.

After the children discuss the symbols, begin discussing contemporary symbols that the children may see in every day life. For example, there are symbols for cell phones, traffic signs, computer symbols, and other symbols. Brainstorm and write down each of the these symbols on your board.

Using these symbols as a springboard for imagination and art, instruct the children to create their own story on their paper only using the contemporary symbols. They cannot use words, letters, or even numbers. Encourage the children to create symbols representing themselves and other characters in their story. For younger children, you may want to instruct them to use at least ten different symbols.

Story Telling

Once the children have finished their contemporary cave drawing, you can add an extra step by having them use gold and silver crayons to drawing in metallic veins throughout the cave drawing or have them crumple their paper to create a cave texture.

Let each child take a turn telling the other children about their cave story. For a fun art display, cover an entire wall in your classroom with the art drawings.

Contemporary Cave Drawing Variation

Instead of having the children create one large cave art drawing, you can have the children use smaller sheets of paper to create a contemporary cave art book. Have the children develop a short story using contemporary and simple symbols. Divide the story into smaller scenes. The children can draw each scene on a separate sheet of paper. Once the children have completed their drawings, you can organize the books (with a cover) and use a hole puncher to punch holes on the right side of the art book. Use thick yarn to tie the pages together. The stitches do not have to be complicated. They can be simple bows. Have the children decorate the cover of their contemporary cave drawing art book.