Painting with Feathers

You don't always have to use paintbrushes when working with children and art. Today we experimented using twigs, feathers, sponges and anything else we found around the house and garden that helped make marks.

The effects can be quite interesting. 

Bird with Bones

After a walk on the beach, Finn was fascinated with the many bird bones from dead sea-gulls we came across. 

When he was home later that day he wanted to draw a bird with 'bones'. 

After he drew the base, I ripped up some coloured paper into strips for him to use as bones, and gave him a pile of feathers. 

When using PVA glue, it's often a good idea to mix a tiny bit of colour into the glue (a drop of food colouring, or paint) so the children can see what area of the paper has glue applied. 

I helped him cut around the shape of the bird, and we stuck it to a clean sheet of paper.