Two of the paintings on my website, delightfullyfunandwhimsical.com, include birds. Of course, "Flitter and Flutter", with its orange birds whose airborn movements are determined by their mood, are an inspiration for this art project. And "In The Shade," resting blue bird sits and awaits, cooling herself before taking off, once again, to flight! And then, spring has most definately brought all sorts of birds back to my yard. I hear the morning tweeting of birds as I'm writing this.
The printing of these birds is fun and easy. No drawing skills required here. In fact, this project shows how three simple simple shapes used togther create the form of the bird.
So, let's begin!
You will need:
Paper for your printing, marker, 1 sheet of craft foam, small piece of stiff cardboard or matboard, glue, scissors, waxed paper or paper palette, acrylic paints (either artist's tubes or the inexpensive small bottles), palette knife or paint brush.
For the bird, begin by drawing the a small triangle, a half circle and a teardrop on the foam. The half circle is the bird's body, the triangle is the tail and the teardrop makes it's head. Help the child to keep proportions of these shapes within reason to each other and to the size of the tree. Cut shapes out and glue each onto a piece of cardboard. While glue is drying, work on printing the tree.
On the waxed paper or paper palette, squeeze-out some brown paint. Spread out a bit. Using the edge of the cardboard/matboard, dip the edge into the paint. Transfer the paint onto your paper, building a tree by repeating this process. See Picture no. 1. It's always a good idea to practice the technique on a scrap paper.
Now, let's print some birds. Squeeze out some other colors of the child's choice onto the palette. Yellow, red, blue, violet, orange, whatever. With brush, dab colors into body (half-circle). Try not to mix colors too much, as they will mix somewhat when pressed onto paper. Next do head and tail. Make bird's heads point in different directions.
Now the masterpiece is complete! Don't stop at one. Makes lots and lots! And don't worry about little bits of paint that get transfered from fingers onto paper. That's part of the charm! Happy birdwatching!
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