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Ancient Egyptian Cartouche
Design an Ancient Egyptian Cartouche
A cartouche is an oval frame which surrounds the hieroglyphs that make up the name of an Egyptian God or royal person. Illustration 1 - shows the three elements used to create the cartouche: the oval frame; the stand; and the rope which binds the other two together. Illustration 2 - shows the three parts combined to form a basic cartouche frame. Illustration 3 - shows the frame of the cartouche decorated with small hieroglyphs.
Adding your name to the Cartouche
Hieroglyphs are word pictures which represent the sounds of the Ancient Egyptian language. In this cartouche we have enclosed the hieroglyphs that spell out the sounds of the name 'Michael'. Note that although there are seven letters in the name 'Michael', there are only four basic sounds 'M - I - K - L'. Therefore we only need to use the hieroglyphs that represent those sounds. A more detailed explanation of this translation process is given on our hieroglyphics pages. Hieroglyphs should be arranged to create interesting designs rather than the straight lines that we use to arrange our letters and sentences. Cartouches are usually positioned vertically but they can also be positioned horizontally to make them fit more comfortably into a design. The arrangement of the hieroglyphs inside is then reorganized to accommodate the horizontal layout.
Coloring the Cartouche
Once the cartouche and hieroglyphs are drawn, you are ready to apply color. In contrast to the ageing process we used in our Egyptian Art Lesson, this technique gives a fresh look to your images - the sharp clean look that Ancient Egyptian paintings would have had when they were first painted. These images were colored using designer's gouache, an opaque watercolor paint which is ideal for applying flat areas of color. The black line work was done afterwards with a felt pen.
Some More Examples
These two cartouches of the names David and Louise were also created using our Hieroglyphic Alphabet
Displaying your Work
Good presentation will really enhance the look your finished artwork. To complete our design, the cartouches were cut out and arranged on a green background to display them more effectively.
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