EASY Art Class for Kids & Beginners: How to Draw & Watercolor Paint a LITTLE TURKEY for THANKSGIVING

1. Introduction and Supplies You Will Need: Hi friends, how are you? I hope you're having a great day today. I'm excited about sharing this project with you. This is a drawing and watercolor painting project that I designed especially for kids. Students do not need to have any drawing or painting experience at all to be successful with this project. I will guide students step by step through all the steps that they need to take. Today we are going to be creating this cute little turkey. Let's talk about the supplies and the materials that you will need for this project. The first thing that you'll need is a sheet of watercolor paper. You will need a set of watercolor paints and a paint brush. You will also need a cup or a bowl with clean water. You will need a black oil pastel or crayon. Either one will work just fine. You will need a paper towel. Go ahead and gather all of those supplies and materials, and I'll see you back here in the next video. 2. Step 1: Draw a Turkey Design: In this step, we are going to draw our turkey design. Let's get started. The first thing that we're going to do is we're going to pick up our black oil pastel or black crayon. We're going to find the middle of our sheet of paper. The middle of my sheet of paper is about right here. We're going to start a little bit to the left. What we're going to do is we are going to make an upside down letter like this. Do you see how I stopped my curved line right here? It's about, even with this curve line, this is going to be the head of our turkey. Let's give our turkey some eyes. I'm just going to make eyes like this, but if you think of a different way that you'd like to make some eyes, go ahead and do it your way. Now I'm going to make a beak. That's going to be a triangle. I'm going to make a little gobble coming down from the triangle that now I'm going to go up to the top of my turkey's head. And I'm going to add a little bit of detail to the top of my turkey's head. And those are just some curved lines. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to come down here underneath the head of my turkey, and I'm going to make my Turkey's body. My Turkey's body is going to be a little bit larger than the head. It's going to be the letter C as well, but it's going to go this way. Let me show you. I'm going to start right here, this line, and I'm going to end up touching this line. I'm going to come down, come around, and then come back up and touch that line. How cute is that? There's my turkey's head and body. Now let us put some wings on our turkey here on the side. Those are just some curved lines. Let's put some legs and feet down here at the bottom. I'm just going to make lines. Then I'm going to make some toes coming out from the bottom like that. Now what we're going to do is we are going to make some back feathers. They're going to be behind the turkey's head and body. You're not going to be able to see all of those feathers. I'm going to start about right here, right above this wing. I'm going to make a straight line going up diagonally. And then I'm going to do the same thing on the other side like this. Notice that I'm not touching the edge of my piece of paper. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to make a series of curve lines going all the way across my sheet of paper, a little bit of an arch. Let me show you how to do that. We're going to go like this, curve line, curve line. See how they're all connected to each other. All the way across until I hit this other line. Those are going to be the back feathers. Now every time you see one of these dips in the lines, what we're going to do is we're going to draw a straight line from each one of those dips to the turkey's head. Come down like this. Come down like this. We're not going to go into the turkey's head, we're just going to come down and touch it. All right. Now what we're going to do is we're going to add a little bit of detail here to the tummy of our turkey. So I'm just going to make some little V, not very many, it just shows a little bit of texture. There we go. All right, now let's add a little bit of a background for our Turkey. Our turkey is going to be standing on the ground. We'll make this down at the bottom, and it's going to be a line. The line doesn't have to be really straight. It looks a little bit more realistic if you make a line that's not perfectly straight. I'm just going to go like this. He's standing somewhere on the grass or maybe on some dirt. Then what I'm going to do is I'm going to add a little bit of detail to the background. I'm going to add some leaves. I'm going to show you how to make a very simple leaf, and this is my favorite type of fall leaf, to make you make a straight line about that long. Then what you do is you add some curve lines to this line. Then as the curve lines go to the bottom of this line, they get a little bit smaller. Then you can even put one at the end if you'd like that. Let me make another one over here, curve line, her line. But a little bit of space there. I think I'll add a few more, Maybe one coming here. All right. If there's anything else that you'd like to add to your design, you can go ahead and do that now. I think I might want to put a little bit of grass down here at the bottom. So I'm just going to make some spiky grass to add a little bit more detail to the bottom part of my piece of paper. To my design. Al right, friends. At this point, if you're using black oil pastel, it might be a little bit on your hands and you can use your paper towel to wipe it off. You probably won't be able to get all of your black oil pastel off of your hands, but that's okay. That's just part of being an artist. Sometimes it gets a little bit messy. Alright, friends. In the next step, what we're going to do is we are going to come back and we are going to start painting our Turkey design. 3. Step 2: Paint the Design: In this step, we are going to paint our turkey design. Let's get started. The first thing that we're going to do is we are going to add a drop or two of water into each of our pans of paint. What this will do is it will soften up our paints a little bit that they are easier for us to use. I do encourage my students to take that extra step. They can use their paints more easily. Now that our paints are softening up, let's turn our attention to our design. In this step, we are going to be painting our turkey and our leaves. And then in the next step, we will paint the rest of the background. Okay, we're just going to focus on the turkey and the leaves for this step. Let's think about Turkeys. There may be a brownish color. If you'd like to add some color to the back feathers, you can go ahead and do that. Remember, the fall colors are red, orange, yellow, and brown, and maybe even a little bit of green. It's up to you. And then the background can be whatever color you'd like. But we're going to do the painting of the background in the next step. Okay, let's talk about our Turkey first. What I'm going to do is I'm going to make some brown paint, some light brown paint. I'm going to add some water to one of my wells. I'm going to go ahead and add a little bit of paint to that water. I'm making this for my turkey's head and my Turkey's body. Let me test that out. See, oh, that's a nice color. What I'm going to do is I'm going to use this color to paint my turkey's head and body. There we go. Now I'm finished with the head and the body of my turkey. I painted those. Now what I'm going to do is I am going to paint these feathers in the back with the fall colors. I'm going to use red, orange, and yellow for these feathers right here. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to start with yellow a friends. As you can see. I've painted the feathers here in the back with my red, orange and yellow. And I also painted this little crown red and the little gobble red as well. The next step is we are going to be painting these leaves. I think I'm just going to paint my leaves one color and that's going to be the color brown. As the temperatures get cooler, that's when the leaves start falling off of the trees. I'm going to use my brown to paint in those leaves. All right, friends, I'm finished painting my leaves brown and I'm really happy with the way that my artwork looks so far. When we come back, we will start painting our background. 4. Step 3: Paint the Background: In this step, we are going to paint the background. Let's get started. Take a look at your design. And you get to decide which colors you would like to use to paint the sky and the ground. I'm going to choose the colors blue for the sky and green for the ground. You get to choose the colors that you like. I'm going to make a little bit of my blue paint here. I'm going to add some water to one of my wells. And then I'm going to go ahead and start painting my sky blue. There we go. Start here at the top and move my way down. I am going to try to not go into the other colors, but if I do by accident, I'm not going to worry about it that much. Because watercolor paints, they love to spread around and run around. Sometimes they're a little bit hard to control. That's part of the fun of using watercolor paints. All right, friends. I'm finished painting my background. I'm finished painting my sky and the ground that my turkey is standing on, and now I am finished. I hope that you had a lot of fun with this project. I had a lot of fun teaching you and I will see you next time.