Tuesday's Art Adventure: Fresco Painting

Fresco paintings are often associated with the Renaissance, but they were developed even earlier than that. Frescos are painted by painting onto still wet plaster so that the paint absorbs into the plaster and not just stays on the surface. Usually these are large paintings on walls or ceilings.

Michelangelo was a Renaissance artist who used fresco painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He began in 1508 and finished in 1512. The panels show many stories from the book of Genesis in the Bible.

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Leonardo da Vinci is also a well known Renaissance artist. And The Last Supper is one of his most famous paintings, but it is really a fresco gone wrong.

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Leonardo liked to experiment and with The Last Supper he tried to paint into dry plaster, but it did not work and people have been working to restore it ever since.

So, let's get started.
Fresco Painting

Supplies:

• aluminum pie pans or loaf pans
• Plaster of Paris
• tempera paint
• brushes

Mix the plaster, 2 parts Plaster of Paris to 1 part water, stir until smooth. Pour into your pie pans and let set.

Keep an eye on it, you need it to be hard, but not completely dry.

 While waiting, get your paints ready. I find a sheet of foil makes a great disposable paint palette.

When the plaster is ready, have your little Michelangelos and Leonardos paint. You will be able to see how the paint absorbs into the plaster.

When your child is done painting, continue to let the plaster dry. Remove from the pie pan.

Gabe said to me, "Mom, I really like to paint abstracts." So he's mixing his art history time periods, but it's all good.:)

Chi is 3 so most things are abstract anyway. Just let your child have fun and explore the medium.

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Tuesday's Art Adventure: Sand Casting

I have a love/hate relationship with Plaster of Paris. But the excitement kids have when they cast something is too priceless to pass up.

Sand Casting

Supplies:

• plaster of paris
• water
• sand
• some sort of box or container (I used leftover plastic plant pots from the nursery)
• 3-D objects (we used and army man and legos)
• tempera paint and brushes

First pick your container and fill about half way with wet sand. Make your sand sandcastle consistency - not too wet, but holds form.

Now you have an idea how big your object can be. Pick out something that you like that will not be hurt by sand. You can even just use your hand or foot if you want too.

Press your object into the sand and press the sand together if it cracks. 

Carefully pry your object out of the sand.

Mix your plaster of paris, 2 parts plaster to 1 part water. Stir until it is a smooth consistency.

For the army man, we just carefully poured the plaster to cover. We made it more like a plaque. For the legos, we thought it would be funny to have separate little blocks, so we used a spoon to carefully fill each indention.

Cue the Jeopardy waiting music. Let it set up. Now would have been a good time to use a bent paper clip as a hook and set that in the army man plaque, but we were so focused on the funny legos, that we didn't remember to do it. But you could.

Once dry and hard, pry out of the sand.

Brush the sand off and give it a rinse. 

Some sand will stay adhered to the plaster, but you want the excess off. Let dry.

Break out the paint. We used tempera because it is easy to clean up and works fine for this.

Once dry, your child has their own little casting.

How funny are those legos?

Couple of extra tips:

If your child has a sandbox, just borrow some sand, you will be able to put it back when you are done.

It's best to do the plaster of paris part on the grass, so if you spill it's no big deal. Just hit the spill with the hose and it will fine.

Rinse out whatever you mix the plaster in and with right away, but again, just do it outside rather than worrying about sending it down the drain.

So, now that you bought all that plaster, I'll have another project next week that uses plaster of paris too. Don't miss it!

This post may be linked at the following parties (for their Blog Buttons see my Link Love page): (M) Mad Skills , C.R.A.F.T., Amaze Me Monday, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Singing Three Birds,  Masterpiece Mondays, Making the World Cuter, Sarahndipities, A Little Birdie Told Me (T) Stories of A to Z, The Blackberry Vine, How To's Day , Type A, Amaze Me August, Ten Buck Tuesday, Handmade Tuesdays, Anything Related, Tuesday's Treasures, Strictly Homemade, Show Me What Ya Got, Time to Shine, Show Off Your Crafty Side (W) Wow Me,  Workshop Wednesday, Whassup Wednesday, Blue Cricket Design, Look What I Made, What I Whipped Up, The Trendy Treehouse, Wicked Awesome Wednesday , Good Life Wednesday, Inspiring Creativity, Sweet Peas & Bumblebees (TH) Beyond the Picket Fence  Creative Juice, Somewhat Simple, Thrifty 101 , Smilemonsters , Everything But the Kitchen Sink, Shabby Chic Cottage, Thrifty Thursdays, House of Hepworth's, Thrilling Thursday, (F) Fingerprints on the Fridge, Furniture Feature Friday, SevenThirtyThree , Lovely Crafty Weekend , Simply Designing, Creative Corner, Tickled Pink 504 Main, Inspiration Friday at The Picket Fence, Friday Flair, Remodelaholic, For the Kids Fridays, Frugal Friday, Craft Goodies, I'm Lovin' It, Flaunt It Fridays (Sat) Tatertots and Jello , Anything Goes (Sun) Creative Blog & Hop, Sundae Scoop