Want a fun, sensory and tactile art project with cotton balls? Here it is! Let’s make fluffy art.

It’s time to pull out that bag of cotton balls that are lying at the back of your bathroom cupboard. They’re the perfect ‘fluffy affect’ for little bunnies, woolly sheep, a polar bear, an owl or in this instance a fluffy Royal Swan and winter Llama artwork. My Art Club artists loved bringing in this unusual art supply and gluing ‘fluff’ onto their artworks lately. Just like the process of collage; this activity allows them experiment with different materials, learn the skill of ‘gluing’ and it nurtures their natural desire to explore the world through their sense of touch.

Keep on scrolling for the NEW Fluffy Royal Swan project that has just landed inside my Online Art Club. This lesson incorporates all the skills of drawing, painting and collage. We start of with a simple drawing outline of a swan surrounded by water lilies. Add a little watercolour painting of river reeds and water and then complete our artwork by gluing cotton balls and scrap paper for our Royal Swan. I created a FREE Fluffy Art Printable the Swan AND Llama to get your Little Artist started, download it below.

You can also find the Llama and Swan full length paint along video lesson inside my Online Art Club for Kids or Fantasy Art Bundle.

ROYAL FLUFFY SWAN ART LESSON

Art Supplies:

• Free Fluffy Art Printable

• A3 Art Paper or Watercolour Paper

• Oil Pastels

• Watercolour Paints

• Medium Round Brush

• Quick Dry Craft Glue

• Cotton Balls

• Scissors & Glue Stick

• Scrap coloured or glitter paper

Step 1. Drawing

Use the Free Fluffy Art Printable to copy the swan outline or go for it yourself. Use a black oil pastel and start with an eye and beak for the swan on the right hand side of the page. Then draw a curved line for the head and long neck from the beak, it looks like an upside down ‘J’. Complete the long swan neck by drawing a curved line for the other side. Next draw a wobbly line at the base of the neck/body to show that the swan is sitting on the river.

Now finish your swan outline by drawing an upside down ‘U’ for the body and a little tail.

In the bottom half of the page surround your swan with water lilies and lily pads. You can use a combination of black, brown and green oil pastels to fill the top half with river reeds and over lapping long grasses.

Step 2. Painting

Pull out your watercolour paints and add some bright colours to the water lilies. For the river start with blue on the horizon line; as you move towards painting the bottom of the river let your brush strokes become loose and separated. This helps create movement and reflection in the water around the swan! You can even add some other colour brush strokes here too.

Once the river is complete start painting the reeds and grasses. Don’t worry about keeping your brush strokes neat! Long wobbly strokes that overlap with a variety of greens is great to give the affect of a thick river reed bed.

Step 3. Collage & Fluff

Now to make your swan ‘fluffy!’ Pull apart pieces of cotton balls and add some glue to your swan’s body. In sections place the cotton balls onto to stick down. To turn your swan into royalty, cut out a crown from scrap paper or add some glitter (or glitter paper) water lilies to your river. Your artwork is finished!

I hope you enjoyed adding some ‘fluffy’ to your artwork today! Cotton balls work well on so many different fluffy creatures - check out the Free Fluffy Art Printable for a Llama drawing guide too. I’d love to see your finished artworks if you give this lesson a go. Send your photos through to me and I always reply with a message to your Little Artist ([email protected] OR instagram (@art_with_georgie).

You can also find the Llama and Swan full length paint along video lesson inside my Online Art Club for Kids or Fantasy Art Bundle.