Fresco Project

Since I posted about Michelangelo and frescoes, I’ve noticed a lot of people have come in search of a fresco project. I did not originally post one because frescoes are complicated and involve toxic materials. When you mix plaster it gets hot and gives off fumes and this would not be a fun project or a very safe one.

That being said, I remember a project I did when I was in elementary school that was a modified fresco project, using plaster of Paris. If you are really interested in creating your own fresco, try this.

Supplies Needed:

Plaster of Paris
Watercolor Paints
Paintbrush
Clay (recipe below)
Thin cardboard (cereal boxes)

Purchase some plaster of Paris and mix according to the instructions on the package. You’ll want to let it set for a few minutes before pouring it into a mold. I recommend making a mold out of clay and thin cardboard.

Follow the directions for clay:

Supplies Needed:

2 Cups Flour
1 Cup Salt
1 Cup Water
1 1/2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Slowly stir in the water and the oil until there are no more lumps. The mixture should be smooth. That’s all there is to it; you have homemade clay.

Mold the clay into a thin, smooth sheet (about half an inch thick). Cut some strips of thin cardboard (try using a cereal box) and stick them into the clay to create a wall. You can make your fresco any shape by just arranging the cardboard into that shape. Make sure to tape the edges where the pieces of cardboard meet. If you want your fresco to be rectangular, just cut the two large sides off the box and use the remaining pieces.

Alternatively, you could use a tupperware container as a mold but you may destroy the container and will certainly not want to keep food in it again.

Pour the plaster of Paris into the mold and let it set. Plaster of Paris will heat up as it sets but it will not be dangerous; it will only reach about 80 degrees. If you want to paint on the plaster as it dries feel free to try it but wait until it hardens a bit. If you try to paint on it while it still looks like pancake batter your paintbrush will sink in and leave blobs of paint in the plaster of Paris.

To turn your fresco into a wall hanging, cut a piece of string and bury the two ends in the plaster before it has fully set. You'll be able to hang the fresco from this string once the plaster of Paris has set.

When I did this project in art class in elementary school, the art teacher created the molds ahead of time at let them dry completely. This allowed us to draw the outline of our picture onto the dried plaster with a pencil. The project also took several hours to complete and art class was one hour at the longest. We couldn’t have finished it before the plaster of Paris dried.

Maybe you should make two molds and paint on one as it hardens and the other one after it hardens. Let me know which works best.

Want to use that clay you made earlier to make a sculpture? Click here to make your own clay sculpture.


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Create Your Own Clay Sculpture

You’ve already learned how Degas created Little Dancer, Age Fourteen by molding wax onto a wire frame. You’ve also learned about Michelangelo chipping away at a block of stone until David appeared. Now you can make your own sculpture using the clay recipe below. This is a very simple recipe but make sure to ask a parent before you start.


Materials Needed:

2 Cups Flour
1 Cup Salt
1 Cup Water
1 ½ Tbsp Vegetable Oil

Optional Materials:

Paints
Paintbrushes
Craft Sealant

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Slowly stir in the water and the oil until there are no more lumps. The mixture should be smooth. That’s all there is to it; you have homemade clay. I recommend setting up sheets of wax paper to sculpt on because the clay won’t stick to it. It will also protect your work space. If you use newspaper, the black ink will show up in your clay. You could also just sprinkle the table with flour to prevent sticking.

When you’ve finished your masterpiece, place it on a cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees for about fifty minutes. Once the sculpture has cooled, you can paint it if you’d like. When the paint has dried, if you love your sculpture, paint it with a craft sealant. This will preserve the paint over time and give it a shiny appearance.

Keep any left-over dough in a plastic bag to keep it from drying out.


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Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Ceiling

After spending the last few days recovering, I'm feeling much better. As promised, an article about the Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelango from 1508-1512.

Today the massive fresco that covers the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Italy is one of the best known pieces of art in the world, but Michelangelo didn’t want to paint it. Michelangelo preferred sculpting but he couldn’t say no to the Pope. So in 1508 he began his work.

Of course he couldn’t reach the ceiling from the ground, so he attached wooden platforms to the walls to stand on. Each day he had to lay new plaster onto the ceiling to paint on. It must have been unpleasant work because plaster becomes hot as it dries and it smells. Michelangelo worked on the ceiling for 4 years.
The design of the ceiling is shown in the drawing above. (Image from Wikipedia.) The middle strip of the ceiling is divided into nine different paintings, each showing a story from the book of Genesis. Five of the nine are small pictures surrounded by shields and nudes, and the other four are larger pictures without nudes in the corners. These nine pictures can be placed in groups of three panels. The first group shows God creating the earth. This picture shown on the left, God Creating Adam, is from this group. The second group shows the creation of man and woman. The third group is all about Noah, including the great flood.

On either side of the center row of pictures, Michelangelo painted prophets and sibyls, twelve altogether. Each were in some way involved with the coming of Jesus Christ. There are seven men (prophets) and five women (sibyls).

Between the prophets are triangular shaped areas, and over the windows are arches. Onto these areas Michelangelo painted Christ’s ancestors and family.

Finally, in the four corners of the ceiling, Michelangelo painted four more stories from the bible. One shows David defeating Goliath (shown below), a subject Michelangelo had already sculpted.

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Frescoes

Frescoes are paintings on plaster. Plaster is a material used in buildings especially for walls. It starts as a powder that, when mixed with water, becomes a paste that can be spread on walls.

Usually frescoes are made when the plaster is still wet, though sometimes artists will add details to plaster when the main part of the painting has already dried. Painting done on dry plaster does not last as long as painting done on wet plaster.

Frescoes were often created directly on walls. The plaster would be mixed and spread on the wall. After about an hour it would be solid enough to paint on. Then the artist would have about ten hours in which to complete the painting before the plaster dried. For this reason, many paintings were done in sections rather than all at once. The artist would decide how much he could paint in ten hours and then mix enough plaster to cover the area. Then he could rest. When he was ready to paint again, he mixed more plaster.

When Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he created an enormous fresco. He painted one day’s section and then, when he came back to paint the next day’s piece, he scraped away a little before starting so the sections were connected. Imagine how long it took to paint the entire ceiling and the walls of the chapel!

Check back for tomorrow’s post all about the Sistine Chapel ceiling (shown above).

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From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

I just finished re-reading E. L. Konigsburg’s Newberry Award Winning, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and I love it as much now as I did when I first read it nearly fifteen years ago. It is a truly timeless book and one that can be enjoyed by eight year olds and eighty year olds alike.

Claudia Kincaid doesn’t want to be the same old girl anymore; she longs to be different. So she plans and organizes until she is ready to go out and make herself different. She convinces her younger brother Jamie to run away with her—just for a little while, just long enough to teach her parents a lesson—to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Once there, the siblings become determined to solve an art mystery that has stumped even the art experts. Only when she solves the mystery, and discovers what she needs to feel different, can Claudia return to home.

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Artist Profile: Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, called Michelangelo, was an artist during the Renaissance. He was born in Italy in 1475. He was brilliant and talented in many ways; he could paint, sculpt, design buildings, and write poetry. He is best known for his sculptures and frescos (paintings on wet plaster).

When Michelangelo was a child, his mother became ill and couldn’t care for him, so he was sent to live with a stonecutter and his wife. Michelangelo joked that this is where he learned to love cutting stone into sculpture.

Michelangelo spent years studying the human body. He even looked at dead bodies so he could learn the way the muscles and bones were attached and how arms and legs moved. He drew sketches of people in various positions, concentrating on getting the muscles just right. Many of these sketches still exist so we can see how Michelangelo prepared to create his masterpieces.

Michelangelo was very religious and many of his masterpieces show religious scenes or people from the bible. One of his most famous sculptures was David, the biblical hero who defeated Goliath. The sculpture was originally meant to stand in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. Today, a copy of Michelangelo’s work stands in this place (shown on the left). David is the statue on the left side of the door. The original (on the right side of the page) is in the Accademia, a Florence museum.

Michelangelo believed that there was a sculpture in every piece of stone. He tried to let the stone speak to him and become what it was meant to be. His job as the artist was to free the sculpture from the stone.

Among his most famous paintings is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Italy. It is made up of many panels illustrating scenes from the bible which Michelangelo painted directly onto the ceiling. A picture of the ceiling is shown below. I’ll write a post on the Sistine Chapel ceiling later this week and talk about some of the scenes and how Michelangelo painted this masterpiece.

When Michelangelo died in 1564, he had become one of the most known and admired artists of his time. He was even called “Il Divino” which means “the divine one.”

EDITED TO ADD: Check out my post on Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

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