Collage Bird Challenge

1) Choose a bird and draw an outline

There are some beautiful species out there, and here are a few for inspiration

Bird Species

You can also (as I did) invent your own bird, with its own colourings!

Then, draw a rough outline of your bird with pencil. This doesn't have to be perfect at all, as the materials you stick down will help to shape the bird later.

If you are finding the main shape of the bird tricky, you can use the template below

Bird Collage Template

2) Collect your materials

Gather snippings of magazines, newspapers, leaflets or coloured paper that you would like to use for your bird.

Think about what colours you want to include, and look out for different textures and patterns that could work well for feathers or bark (if you want to include branches).

3) Snip and stick

Start to snip or tear your materials. Tearing will produce a rougher finish, whilst shaping your pieces with scissors will create a smoother and neater finish- both look good.

You can use a mixture of big and small pieces. Here, I ripped larger pieces of green paper for the main body of the bird, and then cut out smaller feather shapes for the wings.

It's also a good idea to group your cuttings into different colours before experimenting with arranging them, and then finally sticking them down flat.

You can also build up lots of layers on top of each other!

4) Add a simple background and finishing touches

I added simple branches and blossom to mine, but you can add whatever you like. Collages can sometimes look quite 'busy', so a simple background works well.

Then, do a final check over and stick down any flappy bits!

A close-up of the bird can be seen below...