Before the Renaissance, painters in the Middle Ages used paints made by mixing various colour pigments with egg to make egg tempera. It had major limitations for Renaissance painters: it couldn't be stored and it dried quickly. This is where oil paints became invaluable but having used oil paints ourselves, we wanted to give egg tempera a try.
The children ground and dried mud, sand and brick dust.
And mixed it with egg yolk.
Leonardo da Vinci invented plastic! I had no idea he had done this and neither did anyone else for over 400 years! In 2004 an Italian scholar discovered a recipe Leonardo had written to make 'plastic glass'.
We had a go ourselves with cream and vinegar.
The main thing we learnt with this experiment is that is smells revolting. Utterly revolting.
We did manage to make some small pieces of plastic but it was all just so revolting and yellowy-disgusting-ness that I just cannot share the photo!
Leonardo da Vinci loved practical jokes and he often pranked his friends with invisible ink. We made some out of a bicarb paste and dyed vinegar.
Corn on the cob for lunch.
The Boy continued his inventing theme and made a tree safety catcher, i.e. if you're stuck in a tree you can be rescued quite easily with one of these. Awesome :)
