Michaelangelo and J

This week's "artist-to-study" is Michaelangelo. There were two projects to choose from. One involved Plaster of Paris. I did not choose that one.

The other one, however, was great. J got a taste of what it was like to lie on his back to do his artwork. He was excited. Michaelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He painted it while lying on a board atop some scaffolding. For four years. Four long years.

For our experiment, I taped a piece of paper to a ceiling for J. A low ceiling. The underside of the coffee table. I set J up with some oil pastel crayons (I decided against tempera paint for obvious gravity reasons). We called it The Sistine Coffee Table. I spoke with an Italian accent. Yes, I did. I'm SO good at accents.

First we have the setup. Look at that technique. He's a natural.

When it was time to change to a new color, it proved to be more work than normal. First we have the reach.

And finally the roll. Way more work than J is used to.

I interviewed J to determine his reactions to this new technique:

Me: How is drawing while lying on your back different from sitting in a chair?

J: It makes my arms tired.

Me: Was there any other difficulty?

J: I had ROLL to get my crayons. I also needed a pillow for my head.

Me: Was it easy to see your picture?

J: There was not enough light to see. The colors looked different when we took the picture off of the table.

Two other questions came up that I'm going to try to research. 1) How was Michaelangelo able to see his paints while lying down, and 2) How comfortable did he try to make the plank he was lying on. If I find the answers, I'll add them to this post.

Here is J's version of something that would have been painted on the Sistine Chapel. He labeled it "Noah" in case you couldn't quite figure it out. On the right you'll see the clouds forming for the flood. They'd better hurry!