Minoan Fresco Project

Last week we read together in several books about the Minoans of Ancient Crete. The kids tried their hand at painting frescoes in the style of the Minoans.

On Friday, I did a Google image search to find examples of Minoan frescoes. I copied and pasted some images into Word documents, enlarging all of them. Incidentally, during my search, I came across a fresco done by a fellow homeschooler (scroll down a little)!

The kids picked their favorite fresco example and practiced painting a similar picture with watercolors. Sophie decided to paint from her own imagination rather than basing it on an actual Minoan painting. They painted the same scene more than once to get the hang of painting quickly so that they could later paint on wet plaster before it dried completely.

Evan helped Logan paint too!

On Saturday, we took a 3 lb. container of Plaster of Paris and ended up using the whole thing, mixing it out on the back porch to avoid the dust inside the house.

That amount of plaster filled up three shoebox lids (supplied by a grandma who keeps everything.) We oiled the lids first, then poured in the plaster.

When the surface of the plaster began to lose its shine, the kids began painting.

Matthew and Sophie used watercolors.

Evan used tempera paint.

Birds and Lilies Fresco by Evan

Blue Bird Fresco by Matthew

Pink Bird Fresco by Sophie