Tissue Mache Birds

This is my latest art lesson for my granddaughter's 4th grade class.  We made tissue mache birds.  The body is crumpled newspaper, taped, a wire going down through the center has a loop on top for hanging.  Four cut pop sticks are pushed into the body and glued, for the head, tail and two wings.  The heads are foil and cut out pieces of cardboard are the wings and tails.

The underside of the armature, before the tissue mache.

After just one layer of white tissue paper--(applied using a paint brush with wheat paste), the student's were able to put on a layer of color.  I propped them up with tubes, so their wings could dry without bending.

For details we used a black marker, feathers, sequins, and a gold leaf paper.  The white cards are name tags.

This project took four lessons at about an hour each--the birds were a challenge for the student's to put together--I'd rethink the construction part before doing this lesson again, but I really like the results!