Handprint Owl Painting

What You Need:

• Watercolor paper
• Watercolors
• Water
• Paintbrushes
• Tempera paint
• Pencil

What You Do:

1. Ask your child to paint water all over the watercolor paper using a brush. It should be wet, but not soaked with water.
2. While the paper is wet, ask them to paint the background using watercolors to create the autumn sky. Let it dry completely.
3. Have them use the pencil to draw a moon and the branches of a tree.
4. Encourage them to paint in the moon using watered-down white tempera paint. If they want a stronger-looking moon, they can just use pure, undiluted tempera.
5. Ask them to paint two branches using the tempera paint. Let it dry.
6. Help your child paint one of their hands with brown tempera paint and press it down on the paper. Turn the painting upside down so the top portion is facing your child; this will make positioning the handprints much easier. Ideally, their fingers should be positioned so the palm of their hand is right above a branch.
7. Repeat step 6 with the opposite hand on a different branch. Allow the owl bodies to dry.
8. Have them paint in their owls' eyes, and their beaks.
9. Hang up the owl picture in celebration of autumn!