Half a Hundred Acre Wood

Christian homeschooling integrating Classical and Charlotte Mason principles

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Ghiberti Art Project

This month our family is spending a little time with Renaissance art as we prepare for next semester’s community fine arts projects. We’ve used this Ghiberti art project as one of our advent calendar activities this year. (My inner multi-tasker is loving this killing-two-birds-with-one-stone thing.)

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Supplies Needed:

    • Ghiberti Picture Study Pages (pictured above) from this Great Artists Picture Study Packet
    • Black spray paint
    • Aluminum foil
    • Steel wool
    • Cereal boxes (Not pictured above.)
    • Glue
    • Paper plate for glue (Not picture above.)
    • Scissors
    • Pipe cleaners, craft foam pieces, and/or thick string (This is what we used, but a much better option would be Wikki Stix or other wax-covered yarn)
    • Optional:  Markers


And now for the procedure…

First, we studied the Ghiberti Art Study Pages from the Great Artists Picture Study Packet. (Print out the Ghiberti Art Study Pages and discuss with your student(s) to incorporate picture study and art appreciation.)

Preliminary prep work:  Spray paint one side of aluminum foil and allow to dry. Trim cereal boxes to a size of your choosing.

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Side note:  If you decide to skip the spray-painting prep work, it may be difficult to see the design in the finished product, even if you use markers to color it in. For example:

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Step 1:  Trim spray-painted aluminum foil to be about an inch larger than the cereal box pieces on all sides.

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Step 2: Smile!

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Step 3:  Cover one side of cereal box with glue. (I forgot to take a photo of the glue mess step, mainly because my fingers were covered with glue at this point.)  Create shapes with pipe cleaners or string and dip into glue (in paper plate). For younger children, you can also try the sticker craft foam pieces in the shapes of letters, animals, etc. – or use Wikki Stix! (Wikki Stix worked best!)

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Step 4: Place glue-covered pipe cleaner or string onto glue-covered cereal box. Then cover with spray-painted aluminum foil, black side up. Carefully press foil down onto the design. Press foil down firmly onto cardboard and rub to reveal the textures underneath.

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Step 5:  Turn over, fold, and glue the foil border over the edge of the cardboard.

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Step 6:  Rub the surface of the foil gently with steel wool to shine up the raised areas.

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Above is an example using pipe cleaners, and below is an example with heavy string.

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The boys decided to shine up the inside of their “sculptures” so that they could add additional details with markers.

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The finished artwork: Christmas in the style of Ghiberti.

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UPDATE:  After doing some extra experimentation with foil spray-painted metallic gold, foil spray-painted black, and black shoe polish on gold foil, I found the best results were from using foil spray-painted black. The image just pops with the design.

After making designs with air-dry clay and Wikki Stix (in addition to the twine, pipe cleaners, and foam stickers mentioned above), Wikki-Stix had the very best results. You can even make homemade Wikki-Stix (which is simply wax-covered yarn). For a DIY wax-covered yarn tutorial click here.

For additional Renaissance art ideas, visit our Great Artists Page.

For our other art project posts visit…

Giotto Art Project
Angelico Art Project
Durer Art Project
Michelangelo Art Project
El Greco Art Project
Other Great Artist Projects

Other related posts:
Great Artist Coloring Pages
Fine Arts Notebooking Pages
Great Artists Study