It’s a great time to make a diorama. I mean, really – when the world outside your home is sort of crazy, why not create your own world? All you need is a box. Even then, I’m sure some enterprising student can figure out a way to make a diorama without one.
As with many of our art projects, I suggested a theme and my kids did their own thing. 🙂 I wanted to do a spring scene with flowers and budding trees. Typical spring weather in Colorado is a 70-degree day followed by six inches of snow the next morning. I was wearing shorts on Saturday and then my flannel-lined jeans on Sunday. Who can blame me for wanting to create a scene that stayed warm and sunny?
I wanted to try out the method for making trees that I found here. My younger son and I attempted to make one of these paper bag trees. He needed something sturdier for his ‘vision’ so we messed around with putting pipe cleaners inside the branches. Finally, he just went outside, cut a branch off a bush, and glued that into his box. I stuck with the paper bag method, sort of. I was supposed to paint the whole thing with a mixture of glue and water but that seemed like a lot of work. I left it unpainted and then glued ‘leaves and blossoms’ to the branches.
I thought we had some battery powered tea lights that we could use for the sun. I envisioned poking the tea light through a hole in the back of the box and then using tissue paper for the sun. I couldn’t find any tea lights. That wasn’t a problem for my kids – the one with the bush cutting wanted his diorama to be a night scene and my other son was doing an overhead perspective.
The tree and moon diorama demonstrates why my youngest needed sturdy branches.
Inspired by ‘Koala Playground at Night’, the engineer added this:
I think that boat took 45 minutes to make out of craft sticks. Not a bad way to spend time when you’re stuck in our coronavirus world.
I didn’t finish my diorama yesterday. I ran out of inspiration. Today, I’ve decided it will be a dynamic art installation with elements changing each day.
We haven’t done many dioramas over the years, probably because they take so much space to display when they’re finished. But they’re a lot of fun to create. Several years ago, one of my kids made a Halloween diorama with a ghost that moved through the diorama with a pulley string setup.
I hope this inspired you to pursue an art project. If not a diorama, then maybe it’s given you an idea for something else. Enjoy!
