Make Twig Frames and Collage Animals

Create a wild animal picture complete with its own natural frame. This doubles as an outdoor adventure! Your child will scour the outdoors searching for the perfect twigs to create a beautiful frame. They will fill the frame with rubbings of textures they find outdoors that will be used as cut outs for their favorite animal. This complete earth art project will explore layers, textures, shapes and collage for a beautiful nature picture.

What You Need:

• Cardboard 10” x 10”
• Craft knife
• Ruler
• Twigs
• Watercolor paper, 8.5” x 11”
• Pencil
• 2 sheets of white photocopy paper
• Crayons or oil pastels
• Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Tempera Paint
• White glue or hot glue

What You Do:

1. Help your child measure a 2” border from the edges of the cardboard to create a frame base. Cut out the inside square and recycle it, or set it aside for another project.
2. Paint the surface of the cardboard frame any color you like. Allow to dry.
3. Arrange and glue the twigs onto the cardboard frame. You can use white glue, or with adult supervision, hot glue works very well for this part.
4. Paint the twigs with tempera paint if you would like to add color to them. Allow to dry.
5. Go outside with some various colors of oil pastels or crayons and make rubbings of all different textures on the two sheets of photocopy paper. Rub the crayon against the paper hard to get small details. For oil pastel, rub gently to capture detail without covering it up.
6. Lay the frame on top of the watercolor paper and cut off any edges of the water color paper that are exposed outside the frame.
7. Trace the inner edge of the frame onto the watercolor paper, creating a square area where you can create your animal design.
8. Remove the twig frame from the paper and set it aside.
9. Decide which animal you would like to create. Draw the shapes of that animal using a pencil on top of the rubbings.
10. Cut out all of the shapes of the animal you are making from the rubbings and assemble them inside the drawn square. Glue them in place.
11. Use a glue stick to glue on the white paper, or the paper existing outside of the pencil square, making sure to glue the corners.

Now you're ready to hang this beautiful creation on the wall, or even give it as a gift to someone you love!