Owls from Cardboard Tubes

This is a cute and relatively easy owl craft that would be perfect for Halloween.  Have your students each make one and you'll have some lovely classroom decorations for October. This is a paint and collage project and I was inspired by the post here on the Matsutake blog.

In the upcoming weeks I'll be posting other Halloween versions of this craft

including a cat, vampire, and a bat. Update: project link for these here.

I think this project would suit Grades 3 and up.

So start off with a toilet tube, paper towel tube or any thin cardboard tube you have. I don't know about you, but as an Art teacher I get TONS of donations of toilet tubes, and rarely know what to do with them as I want a project that's going to look effective and not 'toilet tube-y'.  This one fits the bill in my opinion.

Paint your tube any colour you want your owl. Let dry.

Push and/or fold down one half of the top, then the other half.  This will create pointy ears.

For the collage feather part, I just used old magazines- use any type of paper you have (scrap, construction, scrap paper, etc) I used the same tones and the body colour, but you could use any colours or patterns you want. Medium to heavier paper works best, I found.

We're going to be cutting out a bunch of circles for the feathers, so in order to save time, I always show students how to fold the paper a bunch of times and to create many circles at once.

Freehand draw an appropriate sized circle for the feather size you want or use a lid to trace. 

I found a large glue stick lid was the perfect size. Trace and cut out.

I found I needed about 12 circles.

So work from the bottom up. Add a thin line of white glue along the bottom of the tube. Layer on four or so circles. Continue going up, making sure to layer and stagger your circles to create a stylized feather pattern. You'll need to hold the feathers in place for a bit for them to really stick to the round form. 

Older kids could use a hot glue gun to speed up the process.

So here's the owl's feathers in place.

Draw and cut out two wings. Go as fancy or realistic as you want. I went with simple teardrop shapes. Glue these on the side of the body.

I layered different sizes and colours for my eyes. I wanted really spooky Halloween-type realistic yellow owl's eyes. I just freehand drew but you could also trace circles. You could also use googly eyes for the younger kids. Glue these on. Then add a triangle for a beak.

Ta da!

They're nice because they stand on their own. 

Have your class make a bunch and you'll have a parliament of owls!