Imaginary Animals
As we come to the end of our week of Animal Adventures, I really hope you have enjoyed the activities on offer so far! I know you probably won’t have got to all of them, so keep your emails safe and you can hop back to them on a rainy day or when the mood takes you!
Today we are going to make imaginary animals to finish off the week… This is a chance to go crazy, be silly, have fun and use all your creative talents!
Scribble Creatures
Scribble creatures are lots of fun for all ages, and all you need is a pencil and paper… start by scribbling or doodling a line based shape on your paper… then, look to see what shapes you can see and start adding facial features, limbs and other details…
Animal Collages
There are a bunch of ways to create imaginary animals. One of them is to mix up animals that already exist to create new ones! If you don’t want to draw or paint them, print off, or cut out of magazines and stick them together in your journal and see what you can make!
I love these paintings by Séverine Pineaux!
Blobs, Splatters and Splashes
The other super fun way to make imaginary animals and creatures is to start with a paint splatter, blob or splashes and then see what the shape is and what it inspires you to make. Maybe you will see a beak shape or some wings? Or some really long legs? Or what about a curly tail? Artusn show a good example here…
To start, decide how to make your starting shape, whether its by pooling water colours – moving the paper around and letting them dry, or blowing paint with a straw, or splattering ink or paint on a page?
Can you think of any other ways to get a starting shape? Once you have your shape, use a pen to draw the outline or the details and see what you make!
Here’s a fun example from Molly Moo Crafts:
What Can You See?
Another way to get your initial shape for your imaginary animal is to walk around and see if you can see any interesting shapes in your little world? What interesting shapes or lines can you find in the cracks of pavements, on tree bark, or up in the clouds? If you see something interesting, see if you can copy the shape onto a piece of paper and go from there…
Add eyes where you think there might be a face, look for arms and legs, is there a tail? What colour would you creature be? Draw a few of them and experiment with the colours and features…
Carla Sonheim is such an inspiration when it comes to this stuff… she has a fantastic book too!
Fingerprint Friends
This is super simple – use paint or ink (felt tip pens work if you’re quick) to make fingerprints – then use a fine-liner pen or pencil to draw any fun details like tails, teeth and talons! Try adding a couple of fingerprints together, then a few more, and see what you come up with…
Just Draw...
Of course another way to create imaginary creatures is to simply draw or paint them, straight from your imagination! Think about shape, shading, and colour. What will you call your imaginary creatures?!
I hope you have enjoyed the first week of Art Camp – if you have any feedback, feel free to let me know. Join us on Monday for a different journey where we discover the very best version of ourselves… we will be exploring self portraiture, how to boost self esteem through art, self expression and how to share and give through art.
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