Fra Angelico

Not much is known about Fra Angelico’s early life; we don’t even know his birthday. He was a friar during the 1400s (born sometime in the late 1390s) in Italy. It was at the monastery that he fine-tuned his artistic skills.

Fra Angelico was trained as an illuminator, which means that he added decorations to manuscripts. Though any book can be illuminated, Fra Angelico worked on bibles because he was a monk.

In 1436 Fra Angelico moved to a monastery in Florence where he met a very important member of Florence’s government, Cosimo de Medici. Medici liked Fra Angelico’s paintings and urged him to decorate the monastery—he painted enough frescoes to decorate all the cells. In these frescoes he used very subdued colors such as light pink, and tan, and painted all the figures to look human and earthly. You can see this in the fresco shown below, the Annunciation.
He then created frescoes at the Vatican, including the one shown below, St. Peter Consecrates St. Lawrence as Deacon. Fra Angelico was commissioned to decorate the Vatican so he had to use lots of the most expensive gold and blue made from lapis lazuli. These pricey paints reflected on the patron who paid for the paintings. Brilliantly, Fra Angelico was able to make the figures realistic despite the bright colors and gilding.

For a fresco project, click here.

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And thus begins NaNoWriMo 2007.
Bring on the madness.

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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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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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