THE TOOLS
MATERIALS:
- Ruler
- Pencil + Eraser
- Paintbrushes Various sizes or 1 large and 1 small + water cup (Not pictured)
- Watercolor paper (4 Sheets 9×12)’
- Assortment of black felt pens from fine tip to thick
- Watercolor Paint Palette or paint of choice (Watercolor, Acrylic, Tempura)
- India ink in various colors + Palette (Not pictured but you can see what I used in step 6)
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THEME: ABC Learning Cards
ART LINGO: Fun Flash Cards, ABC Art, Animal Art
APPROX TIME: 1 hour+
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: Any Age but assistance will be needed for under 7/8.
Flash Cards!!! UGHHHHH remember those from our youth? I had a serious love hate for them: my organizing pattern driven brain loved the structure they gave me but the fact that I had to use them for studying purpose and test taking was were the eye rolls come in…..but these….these little animal ABC cards are so fun and so beautiful that I just fall in love with the idea of a flash card all over again! This project came about as I was shopping around for some cute ABC cards for my littles to use for shape and letter rememberence and I just couldn’t find any that were pleasing to my eye and my wallet so I thought I would just create my own set using my watercolor painting techniques and some fun illustrative line work to create some bright hued wild animal ABC’s!! This could be a fun collaboration project with you and your littles or just a chance for you to play with some paint and pens and give a handmade gift to a little in your life!
You ready to get to it?? COME ON AND SCROLL DOWN WITH ME
STEPS
Step 1:
Grab your watercolor paper, a pencil and a ruler and start mapping out your grid. I wanted to have 8 letters per page so I only had to use 4 pieces of paper for my 26 letter alphabet. Since my paper is 9×12 each grid rectangle was 3×4.5”. I first turned my paper horizontal and measured halfway down the page to 4.5” and marked it using a ruler to draw a line straight across horizontally making sure each side measured 4.5” (half of 9”). Once I had that middle line drawn I flipped my paper vertically and marked my paper every 3” of my 12” long paper giving me 3 dashes/marks to use as reference. I then used my ruler and drew three straight lines at each 3” mark giving me a total of 8 rectangle sections in my grid. (See Photo 1).
Go ahead and follow the steps above for the additional 3 pieces of watercolor paper so you have a total of 32 rectangles (I know more then the 26 letters but you may want to redo a letter or two so it’s nice to have them already laid out). (See photo 2)
Step 2:
Once you have your 4 pages of grid work done go ahead and start laying out your letters, I went ahead and drew a large uppercase letter in the middle starting with A in the first grid and going through the alphabet from there with the following grids all the way to Z. (See photo 3). Once you have done that go ahead and put the lowercase of each letter in the top right corner.
Finish off your grid by writing the animal of choice for each letter under the uppercase letter. I spent some time looking up some fun alphabet animals online and that is where I drew my inspiration. Anteater for A, Bear for B, Cat for C, Duck for D, Elephant for E, Fish for F, Goat for G, Hedgehog for H and so on (you can see my full card set at the bottom of this post). Have fun and be as creative as you want!!
Step 3:
Grab your watercolors, paint cup and brushes and begin playing/painting in your sheets. I love the ‘wet on wet’ technique (I feel like that is my GO TO with watercolor) but you can find some fun techniques here in this post by Mrs. B if you want to try something different. For my watercolors I am using the Winsor and Newton pocket palette (this thing is amazing, it is the same one I have had since college so 15+ years old and I am still using it, I just refill the colors when needed).
I went ahead and painted a few layers and splashes of color here and there and just had fun making each grid slightly different then the next! No rules here, paint some patterns, florals and fauna, color blocks or wet flowing puddles…just HAVE FUN!!!! Once painted let dry completely (See photo 4&5)
Step 4:
Next up is our ink! I love using India ink and I love the colored version of the black India ink! I have a really fun neon+white set I got at an art store in my town (See photo 6) but you can also find them on amazon and online. You could also just use watercolor or markers for this part or BONUS if you have calligraphy ink and a quill (Look at you being all fancy if you do :)). I used a thin round brush and mixed some of my neon colors with some white to give it more of an opaque look and began painting in my Uppercase letters with various neon colors (See Photo 7). Let dry completely.
Step 5:
Once your ink is dry grab your black felt marker/pen and trace over the lowercase letter in the top corner and the animal name under the Uppercase Letter (See photo 8)
Now here comes the CREATIVE part. Start drawing in those animals. I used the wonderful world of google to look up each animal and then just got creative. Some of them are silly, some are serious and some of them are just plain wacky! I love each and every one of them. You do not need to be an artist to do this, they can be childlike and whimsical, they do not need to be perfectly rendered anatomical drawings of the animals. Have fun here, let loose and let your inner child play!! Bonus if you get your little(s) to help you draw the animals! (That would be a cute thing to look back on when they are older). (See photo 9)
Once your animals are in go back through and add fun details like spots/stripes/patterns into each animal to give it one more layer of details (I am always telling my classes that very thing)! It is always a good idea to add a little something here and there!!!
Finish off your cards by cutting them up (I used a paper cutter but scissors are great) and then I actually laminated mine with my snazzy laminator to make sure we didn’t wreck them in 5 minutes (My kiddos are 1.5 and 3 and my 3 year old literally took one and rolled it up within a minute of showing her so yes mine are now all LAMINATED). (See photo 10)
That’s it!!! Marvel at your better than store bought meaningful and beautiful ABC cards. You could use this same idea for sight words, numbers, shapes and more early education ideas….don’t just stop at the ABC’s!
See you next month friends! Stay Creative!
xx
Mrs. K!
