Painted Paper Flamingo Art Project
I always love a painted paper project because it combines so many techniques. I have seen several renditions of this project on Pinterest and Instagram and while I’m not sure who created it, full credit to them. This is my interpretion.
Time required: This project will take two sessions. The first painting session is very quick (~20 minutes) and could be done earlier in the day or you can do it over multiple days or weeks. The second session will take a bit longer (~40 minutes)
Alternatively, you can skip the painting and just use construction paper. In this case you’ll need pink and green construction paper in addition to the session 2 materials. You can skip over session 1.
Materials:
Session 1 (painting)
White paper (card stock or printer weight)
Pink, orange, green, yellow (light green if possible) liquid tempera paint
White or light pink oil pastel
Paintbrush
Water cup
Pencil
Session 2 (cutting & assembly)
Blue construction paper (light, dark, teal…anything works)
A small square of white paper (for beak and eye. A small piece per student is fine)
Sharpie
Glue stick
Painted green and pink paper from session 1
Steps session 1 (painting)
Start by painting the green sheet.
You’ll need either green and yellow, light and dark green, green and yellow…whatever you have. You’ll want at least two colours so that you can mix it a bit.
Paint a full sheet of your green mix and set aside.
Now paint a pink-ish/orange-ish page. Before putting any paint down on the page, draw some feathers using a white or light pink pastel. You’ll want to use 2/3 of the page. Once you’re happy with the feathers, paint the entire sheet using a mix of pink and orange. Set aside.
Below is an example of painted paper from another project. These aren’t the colours you’ll use but you can see how the colours get blended and I encourage students to paint in one direction, not swirls.
Steps session 2 (cutting and assembling)
Start by cutting out your leaves. I suggest flipping over your green sheet and drawing leaf shapes on the back. Then when you cut them out you won’t have any pencil lines.
Use a black Sharpie to add some details to the leaves.
Glue them all over the background. No particular place, just all over.
Now it’s time to work on the flamingo. From the pink sheet you’ll need to cut out all the feathers that you drew with the pastels.
With the remaining part of the pink paper, make a head, neck and 2 legs.
As you can see from the examples, you can make it as big or small as you want.
Start by gluing the head/neck and legs onto the blue background. The legs can be down or up, anyway you want them. Now add the feathers starting with the bottom layer and working your way up.
Once the body is done, use a bit of white paper to create an eye and a beak. Attach these elements to your flamingo.
Check out other summer inspired art projects
