Painting with feathers is lots of fun for kids because it's easy to create all sorts of patterns and textures. We love this creative art activity and share some feather painting tips below.
Make creative art by painting with feathers
Since we have been learning about birds recently, my kid and I grabbed some feathers and made a big painting together!
This feather painting arts and craft activity is so easy to do. But best of all, I’m happy that I found a new way of making art that my kid loves.
What type of feathers should we paint with?
We used two different feathers for this painting activity - a stiffer feather and a softer more billowy feather.
Both feathers were fun to paint with, but my preschooler had an easier time gripping and painting with the quill feather. The stiffer feather let him easily paint nice long strokes.
My preschooler had a harder time grasping the turkey plumage feather to paint with because it was shorter and more bendy. His hands kept going into the paint.
I really enjoyed using the smaller feather though. You can see the little feather flowers I made by lightly stamping it. I love how each flower is unique.
Tips for painting with feathers
You can’t go wrong just doing whatever for feather painting. But here are a few tips I can leave you with.
Make a big feather painting
It’s easy to paint a large area using feathers. You can see that we taped a big sheet of paper to cover his entire table.
I wouldn’t recommend doing small detailed paintings with a feather because it’s hard to paint a fine line with feathers. I imagine that would get pretty frustrating for a kid.
You can layer colors when painting with feathers
What makes feather painting different from using a paint brush is the long surface area you can paint with. That means you can choose one color for the tip of the feather, and dip another paint color higher up on the feather.
With one sweep, you can paint multiple colours and create duo tone pictures.
Use different painting strokes with the feathers
Here’s where you can be really creative when you paint with feathers! Some fun feather painting techniques we discovered:
- Drag a feather across the sheet of paper to create a big brush effect
- Lightly stamp feather marks
- Spin feathers on the paper to create spirals
- Use very little paint to create wispy patterns
So go on, pull out the paper roll and have fun painting with feathers!
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