5 Animal Art and Craft Ideas
Inspire art class with 5 easy animal art projects, explained through step-by-step guides. Your kids will love crafting a kookaburra, drawing a kangaroo, and creating a bird of paradise.
5 ANIMAL ART GUIDES
Scroll down to start creating animal art!
Kookaburra Craft
Meet Kevin 😃
Kevin is a kookaburra.
Kevin loves his tree home in Australia.
Kevin drinks too much coffee (I can’t confirm this one, but I mean, look at his eyes!).
Kevin likes to dive for his food (literally!). He’ll shoot from his perch and snap up lizards, bugs, and frogs.
Kevin is in the kingfisher family, but doesn’t actually eat fish. Weird.
See how easily you just learned about kookaburras?
That’s the power of cute animals.
Now imagine if you had been designing your very own Kevin the Kookaburra out of paper while listening to those Kevin facts. You would be learning without even realizing you’re learning!
That’s the power of ART and animals.
Try this out with your kids or students! Follow the kookaburra craft guide below and read them the facts about Kevin. See what sticks!
🪶 ART SUPPLIES 🪶
Kookaburra templates (You can have your kids design their own on blank paper too)
markers
white piece of paper
glue
scissors
🪶 ART GUIDE 🪶
written for a child to follow
Fold and cut a white piece of construction paper in half.
Roll one half into a cylinder and glue in place.
Press down on the cylinder to flatten. Paint in between the dried black lines with watercolor. Use blues, greens, and browns for a more realistic turtle. Try other colors for a more fantastical one!
Cut and color the parts of the kookaburra. You can copy these by free-drawing them onto blank paper, or grab the templates inside my Travel Art Membership.
Cut along the lines inside the head feathers and beak. Fold the frayed beak pieces behind the beak.
Glue the frayed beak pieces to the white roll of paper about one-third of the way down.
Glue the eyes above the beak. Fold excess paper over the sides.
Glue the top of the feather tails to the back of the roll of paper.
Glue wings onto the back of the kookaburra.
Glue the bottom half of the head feathers into the top of the paper roll.
Finished! Now name your kookaburra 😃
Want the full art lesson?
Join our Travel Art Membership to access the video art lesson now!
2. Fox Draw and Write
Meet Felix the Fox!
Get your kids writing through fox art! 🍁
Writing can feel like such a chore.
Because of the fine motor skills + concentration + imagination required, kids can sometimes feel overwhelmed with writing.
Staring at a blank piece of paper and being expected to write is the worst kind of dread.
I know because I was that kid.
But art changed that for me!
When kids begin with…
🍁 a topic they find interesting
🍁 a right-brained activity (coloring)
🍁 a cute animal friend
…the writing comes naturally!
Check out the art and writing guide below to see what I mean.
🍁 ART SUPPLIES 🍁
-Fox Writing Worksheet (free!)
-colored pencils
-pencil and eraser
-fox books OR safe internet searches about foxes
🍁 ART GUIDE 🍁
written for a child to read and follow
Start by coloring your fox. Use brownish reds with some reddish orange on top. You can watch the full tutorial here.
Add a background behind your fox. Focus on greens and browns to create a forest look.
Gather fox facts. You can look through books or surf the internet safely with a grown-up. Find at least 3 facts.
Write down 3 facts about Felix the Fox. Start each sentence with the word “Foxes.”
Want the full art lesson?
Join our Travel Art Membership to access the video art lesson now!
3. Monarch Butterfly Craft
Meet the Furthest Migrating Insect!
Monarchs migrate to Mexico in the fall and early winter.
You may see them roosting in trees, sipping on the last little bit of nectar, and starting to flutter south.
Check out a monarch migration map here to see what their migration pattern is right now!
But what does all this have to do with writing?
Kids write when they’re excited. They write when they’re emotionally connected to the subject matter. And they write when they don’t realize they’re writing 😜
Here’s an example art project!
🦋 ART SUPPLIES 🦋
-4 butterflies printed on paper
-scissors
-colored pencils
-pencil and eraser
-string
-glue
-black marker
🦋 ART GUIDE 🦋
written for a child to read and follow
Write with a black marker on the butterfly wings. Write down information you find about monarchs and their life cycle. Organize it onto the wings by season. Here’s a great kid-friendly place to start.
Color each butterfly in according to the season using colored pencils. I did yellow, light orange, dark orange, and brown, but you can change yours up and make it your own!
Cut out each butterfly and fold in half along the body. The words and color should be on the inside.
Glue the backs of the butterflies together, making sure to go in order of the seasons.
Add a looped string in between the butterflies. Hang and spin!
Want this art and writing lesson?
Get the butterfly templates below!
4. Bird of Paradise Art Project
Meet Evie the Bird of Paradise!
🎨 Silhouette art
🎨 The Element of Shape
and
🎨 Birds of Paradise!
This art project combines ALL of these skills/topics into one beautiful art project your kids will feel proud that they accomplished.
🌺 ART SUPPLIES 🌺
-bird of paradise template
-construction paper (color is based on the bird you choose; see video)
-black construction paper or white paper/black paint
-white crayon
-scissors
-glue
-recycled items for texture
🌺 ART GUIDE 🌺
written for a child to read and follow
Start with your bird of paradise template. Print out a picture of a bird of paradise. Cut it out.
Trace the outline of the bird onto a black piece of paper.
Paint the colorful construction paper with watercolor. Use the recycled items as a paintbrush to create texture on the paper/ Mimic the lines and colors you see on the bird of paradise.
Cut out the outline of the bird from the black paper. Keep the paper intact as much as possible. The outside part is the portion you’ll use.
Glue the black border to the painted piece of paper. You should see a colorful bird of paradise appear!
Want the full art lesson?
Join our Travel Art Membership to access the video art lesson now!
5. Kangaroo Directed Drawing
Meet Karis the Kangaroo!
What can drawing a kangaroo do for your kid?
You may think, “Oh good! Another independent activity that’ll give me a few minutes of quiet.”
While drawing can be great for that (we’re here for anything that helps us drink our coffee hot!), drawing is so much more than a time filler.
Here’s why I love drawing for kids:
🎨 enhances fine motor skills
🎨 improves concentration and focus
🎨 promotes patience
🎨 develops observational skills
🎨 means of self-expression (my favorite!)
…and so much more…
That being said, you’ve gotta try this kangaroo drawing activity! Even if you’re not sure how to teach your kids to draw, this blog will guide them through it step-by-step.
🦘 ART SUPPLIES 🦘
-blank piece of paper or directed drawing worksheet
-pencil
-black marker
-colored pencils
🦘 ART GUIDE 🦘
Grab a pencil and start with the head. Make 3 curved lines for the cheeks and top of the head. Then, add the almond-shaped ears.
Add the top of the eyes and the bottom of the face. Both are small curved lines.
Place smaller curves underneath the eye curves to complete the outside of the eyes. Add a “V” shaped line for the top of the nose. Then add a short straight line underneath. Finish the mouth with an upside down “V”.
Make the neck with 3 lines. 1 is a wiggly line going down on the left. Then add a curved line going down from the face on the right. Finish this step with a curved line moving to the right away from the face.
Draw 2 arms hanging down. Add 3 bumps on the end to form the look of fingers.
Place a diagonal line in between the arms, then have it keep coming down to start forming the belly. Make the back with a large, swooping curved line.
Draw a big, “U” shaped line for the kangaroo’s pouch. Then, make a boomerang-shaped leg on the left.
Draw another boomerang-shaped leg on the right. Erase the belly line that is inside this second leg.
Add a long tail on the end. This is a combination of 2 long, “L” shaped lines that connect at the end.
Trace with black marker and color.
Want a full drawing class?
Join our How to Draw Animals Self-paced Course! Learn how to draw Karis the Kangaroo and 6 of her friends!
I hope you found this art guide helpful!
Let me know in the comments which animal craft you’re trying:
🪶 kookaburra
🍁 fox
🦋 monarch
🌺 birds of paradise
🦘 kangaroo
Happy ARTventuring!