Museums are temples of knowledge so they are often built to resemble ancient Greek and Roman temples. This tutorial will teach you how to make a pediment to crown the front of your museum.

Many museums have a large triangular or half circle structure above their entrances called a  pediment or tympanum.  The pediment forms the front of the roof and often has sculptures or paintings inside.  These sculptures might be in the bas relief style which means that they are carved out of only one side of stone so you can’t see all the way around a statue.  What are these sculptures of?  Usually statues of mythological creatures or soldiers from famous battles but you can put whatever you want in your pediment.  It is also a good place to put a large sign with the name of your museum.

What you’ll need:

Materials

• The sculptures you want to put in your pediment (old toys or clay models you make yourself are perfect for this)
• Black paint
• Gesso
• Cardboard or foamcore
• Tape

Tools

• Hot glue gun (Hot glue guns are dangerous.  Always use with adult supervision and remember to unplug the glue gun when you are finished)
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Marker
• Paintbrush
• X-Acto craft knife (X-Acto knives are very sharp and can be dangerous.  Always use with adult supervision and make sure you put the cap on your knife whenever you are not using the blade)

How to do it:

Get a large piece of cardboard or foamcore and draw a big triangle that is as wide as the box you are building your museum in.  Start planning out what sculptures you want to have inside and make sure your triangle is big enough to fit them all.  In my pediment, I’ve chosen to commemorate the famous Battle of Yorktown where General George Washington and the American army forced the British General Cornwallis to surrender, leading to American independence.

Draw rectangles about 1-2″ wide on each side of your triangle like in the picture below.  These will be folded up on the dotted lines to form the recess in the pediment where your statues will stand.

Cut out the triangle along the solid lines like in the picture above.  Hold a ruler on the dotted lines and run your X-Acto knife lightly along the ruler.  The trick is to use only a little bit of pressure so that you don’t cut all the way through the cardboard.  This method is called scoring and helps making crisp folds on thick materials like cardboard.

Fold up the sides of the triangle and tape them together to hold them in place.

Now mix together a drop of black paint and a lot of gesso so that you get a grayish color resembling marble and paint your pediment.  If you mix your paint in an old food container, you can close the lid and save extra paint for later.

Once your pediment has dried, arrange your sculptures inside the way you would like. Try to create dynamic scenes to interest your visitors.  Once you have your scene set, take a photo so you remember the placing of all your sculptures.  Remove the sculptures and paint them with the same grey paint mixture that you already made.  After they have dried, you can use a hot glue gun to glue them back into place inside the pediment.

If you have space left over, you may want to add a large sign with the name of your museum or a clock to your pediment.  Old broken wristwatches make great clocks for miniature museums.