To help bring the Renaissance to life, the fifth graders at Dranesville Elementary created their own works of art last Friday by making brass rubbings.
"They are making the rubbings from replicas of plates from the Middle Ages and bees wax sticks with metal fillings," said Peggy Lidster from the Brass Rubbing Workshops, who was on hand to teach the students the rubbing technique.
The plates depicted people, mythical creatures and some places. Originally, said Lidster, the plates would have been made as memorials to people who had died. The plates would have hung in churches throughout England, she said.