Map of France and the location of the Lascaux caves.
Cave painters had to know how to paint, use different techniques, get light, mix paint, and many more things. To mix paint, they started out with lumps of clay and grounded those into a fine powder. After this they mixed the fine powder with animal fat or blood. The pigments they used were red, brown and yellow ochres of iron, and black from charcoal and manganese ore.
Yellow ochre, Red ochre, and charcoal powder.
An illustration of a cave artist painting a deer and using a lantern probably filled with animal fat so he can see.
Archeologists believe that the Lascaux cave paintings were painted 16,000 to 17,000 years ago. The oldest cave paintings ever are dated to about 30,000 years ago. The youngest cave paintings are dated to about 10,000 years ago. The paintings give some clues about what life was like back then. No one really knows why they painted in the caves. It might have been part of a religious ritual. It might have been that the artists were hunters who believed that their drawings were magic and if they drew and animal they wanted to catch, they could paint it and the animal would help them catch it later on. Maybe they just painted for enjoyment. Even though we don't have a lot of information on why they painted what they did, what they painted shows us that they were very skillful artists.
The Lascaux cave size in comparison with a person.
Cave painting of people shooting arrows at deer.
Painting of a horse in Lascaux cave.
Cave painters didn't have the kind of art tools that we have today. They didn't have all the different colors, the different kinds of brushes, and all the different materials but they used a lot of things that were available to them and found techniques that were very useful. Some of the techniques might have been things like using bristle or reed brush, wiping paint with a fur or moss pad, using their hands and fingers, or using their mouths to blow paint onto the rock. A painting technique that they used is gradation of value. This is basically shading which is making things look more realistic by painting parts that you want to look closer to you lighter and things that are further away darker.
Rocks they might have used to engrave things in the cave walls.
When cave artists had to sometimes travel for a while in very small dark tunnels, they might have felt sore from trying to crawl in very small spaces, tired from traveling for hours and hours and scared of being killed by things they can't see because it's too dark. I'm not quite sure how they felt after they accomplished what they painted but they probably had a sense of accomplishment, happiness, and contentment.
Classifying this project, I would probably put it at comprehension and application. I think that it more than comprehension because you have to demonstrate things by using pictures. If the project would have been a more in depth project, you would probably have to add evaluation. With this you would have to give your veiwpoint of things, judge things, and give your own opinion about the information given.
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