Be the Curator

hi I'm Julia hood and I'm the manager of school and family learning it Renauld a house Museum of American Art today in our pop-up studio we're gonna make a miniature art gallery depending on what you have on hand at home you can make one either out of a cereal box like this or a shoe box or any other cardboard box and here's an example of one made from a shoe box displaying miniature works of art from Reynolda I'll show you what you need to complete this project and how to make it for this project you will need a cardboard box a shoe box is perfect but I'll show you how to make a gallery out of a cereal box you'll need scissors and either glue or tape if you want to decorate your gallery walls you'll need some paper or paint follow the link below this video to find a PDF to print with miniature works of art if you don't have access to a printer grab some paper and drawing supplies like colored pencils

you have lots of options for how to make your gallery if you're using a cereal box you'll begin by opening up the bottom flaps and carefully cutting out one of the narrow side panels hold this to the side as you'll need it later then cut the top tabs off of the cereal box to make for a neater edge turn the cereal box up and arrange it so that the two large panels are at a 90 degree angle to each other and begin to look like a room trim the narrow side panel that you just cut off so that when you place it across the two bottom flaps it makes a triangle and helps your cereal box stand out glue or take this in place also tape down the small tab in the corner

to make a floor take a piece of construction paper or other paper and trace the outline from the bottom of your gallery cut along the lines and fit your floor into the gallery trace and trim again as needed tape or glue your floor in place

to decorate the walls take another piece of paper or multiple pieces and trace and cut them to fit then tape or glue them in place you can also use paint to prepare your gallery walls here I'm using a material called gesso to paint inside a shoebox but if you have tempura or acrylic paint that will also work well you could also use spray paint outside with help from an adult I'm only covering the inside for this video but you could paint the outside of the box as well

if you printed out the mini works of art from Renault this collection you can draw a frame on any work of art that doesn't have one

then cut out the works you're interested in using if you cut out the label you can put that on the wall near the artwork just like you would find in an exhibition of art

if you don't have access to a printer you can find our catalog of artwork online and draw your own tiny copies of masterpieces look at the links below to find this catalog cut out your drawings and then make labels to go along with them once you've cut out your tiny works of art think about how you might arrange them in your gallery are there things that are similar that you'd put together for example artwork that has animals in it what works of art might look nice beside each other tape or glue your art to the gallery walls and then add your tiny labels if you wish when you've finished making your tiny gallery think about what materials you could use to make tiny museum visitors or benches for them to sit upon what else might you make

for inspiration and more information look for the PDF version of these instructions in the links below