Oil Pastel Scratch Art Owls

This is a homemade 'scratch art' type of lesson using oil pastels layered in contrasting colours, 

then scratched with a wooden bamboo stick.

I found THIS photo pinned on Pinterest but couldn't find the original source. Please tell me in the comments section if you know the originator of this project.

Grade 3 students started off by drawing an owl onto smooth cardstock, 

then outlined it using a thick Sharpie.

On scrap paper, they practiced using the oil pastels and decided on 

some contrasting colours to use. 

Colour in one area really thickly with one colour, then add another thick layer of a contrasting colour right on top. Using a bamboo stick/skewer, students scratched out various types of patterns.

Afterwards, we cut these out.You could also paint the background.

Some Grade 3 results:

Coffee Filter Turkey Craft

This is a cute Fall and/or Thanksgiving craft I did with a Grade 2 class.

Start off with a coffee filter: basket-style.

Fold it in half, then half again. Cut a scalloped edge to respresent the feathers.

Students roughly colour in the filter with waterbased markers. Encourage the students to really colour in the filter well, in order to get a bright finished product. Then I just walked around and sprayed each one a couple of times with a water mister. The colours will bleed and blend together.

Let dry.

Draw and cut out a simple turkey body shape out of brown paper or the inside of a cereal box.

There are two ways to create the legs: spring type, which are more difficult, and a simpler accordion fold. Decide which works best for your students- I did the accordion fold with Grade 2 students.

For the spring-y legs, glue two long strips of paper together to form a "L" shape.

Then alternate folding each strip over the other until you reach the end. Glue the end together.

It's helpful to watch this video below to see how to make these 'paper spring' legs:

You can also make accordion fold legs. Glue these onto the turkey body (the spring legs are more tricky to glue on- I recommend a glue gun for them, or use a paper-clip to help attach them to the body with white glue while they dry.) Cut out two feet from orange paper and glue them to the ends of the legs. 

Glue on a paper beak, eye and red dangly thingy (aka: wattle).

Finally, glue the body onto the coffee filter. Ta da!

The students' classroom teacher made this lovely display outside her classroom of their work.

Owls from Cardboard Tubes

This is a cute and relatively easy owl craft that would be perfect for Halloween.  Have your students each make one and you'll have some lovely classroom decorations for October. This is a paint and collage project and I was inspired by the post here on the Matsutake blog.

In the upcoming weeks I'll be posting other Halloween versions of this craft

including a cat, vampire, and a bat. Update: project link for these here.

I think this project would suit Grades 3 and up.

So start off with a toilet tube, paper towel tube or any thin cardboard tube you have. I don't know about you, but as an Art teacher I get TONS of donations of toilet tubes, and rarely know what to do with them as I want a project that's going to look effective and not 'toilet tube-y'.  This one fits the bill in my opinion.

Paint your tube any colour you want your owl. Let dry.

Push and/or fold down one half of the top, then the other half.  This will create pointy ears.

For the collage feather part, I just used old magazines- use any type of paper you have (scrap, construction, scrap paper, etc) I used the same tones and the body colour, but you could use any colours or patterns you want. Medium to heavier paper works best, I found.

We're going to be cutting out a bunch of circles for the feathers, so in order to save time, I always show students how to fold the paper a bunch of times and to create many circles at once.

Freehand draw an appropriate sized circle for the feather size you want or use a lid to trace. 

I found a large glue stick lid was the perfect size. Trace and cut out.

I found I needed about 12 circles.

So work from the bottom up. Add a thin line of white glue along the bottom of the tube. Layer on four or so circles. Continue going up, making sure to layer and stagger your circles to create a stylized feather pattern. You'll need to hold the feathers in place for a bit for them to really stick to the round form. 

Older kids could use a hot glue gun to speed up the process.

So here's the owl's feathers in place.

Draw and cut out two wings. Go as fancy or realistic as you want. I went with simple teardrop shapes. Glue these on the side of the body.

I layered different sizes and colours for my eyes. I wanted really spooky Halloween-type realistic yellow owl's eyes. I just freehand drew but you could also trace circles. You could also use googly eyes for the younger kids. Glue these on. Then add a triangle for a beak.

Ta da!

They're nice because they stand on their own. 

Have your class make a bunch and you'll have a parliament of owls!