Limbourg Brothers Book of Days Art Project

The kids and I try to include at least one art lesson a week. Some of our lessons require more than one day to complete. We plan on going to the Art Institute soon and my husband and I want the kids to be familiar with some of the paintings we might see.

So we've been using the book Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters. So far we love it, and it has so many hands-on activities to explore the styles and techniques of the world's greatest artists. They also break up the sections by style/date.

This week, we learned about Early Renaissance painters, The Limbourg Brothers. If you're not familiar with the Limbourg Brothers, they are three artist brothers who painted very detailed paintings using thin paintbrushes and magnifying glasses. They created a book with a calendar and pictures of the seasons.


The art activity we followed asked to create our own Book of Days. I created a template and had the kids pick a favorite thing about each season and each month in theat season. The drawings are meant to be very detailed... the kids didn't get to use magnifying glasses this time around to add more detail, but I think they still had a good time creating the first page for their book of days. They each have to create the remaining seasons for their books.

 

The template I designed was meant to add detail, especially where the calendar section is. I purposely designed it so that it prints light, that way your child can add their own detail and darken the outlines on their own if they wish. (If it's too light, please let me know and I can make adjustments for you. There are 4 rows of 8, which will give plenty of room for all the days in each month. This is also a great activity to learn the months, seasons, and the days in each month.

 

Download the Free Book of Days Template!

Print 4 for all the seasons!