How to Make an Empty Tomb

 This is one of those crazy ideas.

I was thinking about how to decorate my parish church for Easter, because, it turns out, now is the time to order Easter lilies, and it's my job to do that.

I was thinking how great it looked at Christmas to have the Nativity in front of the altar, and I wished we had an Easter set like that.  That's ridiculous, of course.  Nativity sets that are parish sized are crazy expensive, let alone a much rarer Easter set!

But then I realized, all I really wanted was the empty tomb.

I may not have the skill to make people, but I can do rocks!

 I wish I had thought to take pictures earlier, but it's pretty simple.

Get a base around the size you want.  Cardboard is fine, but we used about 2' x 4' of thin paneling.

Shape a cave out of chicken wire, and duct tape it to the base. Ours started out like a big bubble that was open towards the front.  We shaped it to look more cavelike after we taped it down.  You could also staple it to the base if you have a heavy duty stapler.

I added a strip of chicken wire to close off part of the front, leaving open space for the door.

Then I sprayed the whole thing with spray foam.  This project took about three cans, but be sure to go slow and leave space for it to expand!

I also made a circle on paper and filled it in for the stone.

About 8 hours later I spray painted the whole thing.  I originally was going to do brown based stone, because it looks more like the actual rock in the Holy Land, but the combination of the rounded lumpy exterior and the brown looked... too organic, shall we say!

I carved off (with a steak knife) the tops of the really rounded bumps to give it a rough hewn rocky look.





Then I spray painted it all again in dark gray. Conveniently, Rustoleum has a primer in a nice flat dark gray, you don't want it to be shiny. (Not getting paid by Rustoleum, or Great Stuff, which is the spray foam I used.)

 This is the base, and it's already starting to look like rock.

 Then I dry brushed everything with acrylic paints.

Dry brushing is done by taking a coarse bristled brush, dipping it lightly in paint, blotting it so there's barely any paint on the brush, then brushing it over  a textured surface.

The bits of paint collect on the high points and give it texture, depth, and realism.

I first used a dark brown, then light gray.  I think I also made a darker gray that I pushed into deeper places to make shadows.

Lastly, I cut away the rest of the base and resprayed the inside black to make it really dark.

I'm hoping to put a dark bench in there with a white strip of fabric like the shroud.

And of course, the whole thing will be surrounded by plants and flowers, hopefully scaled so it looks like the tomb is in a garden.

If I were using this outside, I'd spray it again with clear matte spray paint.