Paint and sponge your way to a very easy bunny art lesson for kids. Painting the bunny only involves a simple line drawing, sponge painting and a few embellishments. My first graders did this lesson in one 40-minute session. Afterwards, I realized that we forgot to add bunny teeth. And wouldn’t a cottonball look adorable stuck on Bunny’s bottom? Maybe you all can add the forgotten details.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Colored piece of sulphite/drawing paper 12″ x 18″
- Light colored chalk pastel for drawing
- White, pink, green and black liquid tempera paint
- Small sponges and small brushes
- Buttons for eyes and white school glue (optional)
- Cotton ball for tail (optional)
How to sponge paint a bunny:
Draw a bunny outline using white chalk pastel. If you don’t have chalk, just use a pencil.
- Draw a sideways oval for the head
- Add two long bunny ears
- Add a large oval for body. Ask the child if the bunny is standing on his hind quarters or munching grass on all fours? Place the oval either vertical or horizontal depending on the bunny’s position.
- Add a front hind leg by drawing two more ovals: one large vertical oval and one flat oval for the foot.
- Add small paws
Paint the bunny by using an old kitchen stamp dipped in thick white tempera paint. I generally add water to my bottles of Crayola paint to achieve the consistency of cream, but if you don’t add water, the paint will be like greek yoghurt. This is what you want for this project. Dab sponge all over the bunny parts. Dip a small paint brush into black paint. If you don’t want the sharp contrast that black achieves, use a blue or even a grey. Add pink paint to the ears and nose. Glue a cotton ball to the paper for the tail. Add a decorative button for the eyes or paint using black paint.
First Grade Bunnies…
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Great art work!! I love working with first grades.
What a cute idea! I think I’ll use this in the next couple weeks. Thanks 🙂
I did this project with my 3rd grade yesterday and the results were amazing! It is a huge class, plus I have several students from a special ed class that join us, so it was hectic and chaotic, but so worth it!
Thank you, Patty, for your sharing your wonderful projects!
This is a great lesson, Patty! Can’t wait to try it after Spring Break here in Ohio. The 1st graders will love it!! 🙂
I did this lesson today with my second graders and the bunnies turned out adorable! I even had some of the first grade parents who came in to take a look and were impressed I was teaching the kids to sponge paint. 🙂 Thanks for the lesson idea!
Yay! I really enjoyed this lesson as well. It’s really simple, very successful, kids love it and it takes little time and supplies. A keeper!
Yes this lesson is “cute”, but at the same time, all the pictures generally look the same. Where is the oppotunity for students to add their own creative ideas to their art making? This project is more about how to follow directions than how to make art the way a true artist does. By teaching students how to draw the bunny, then allowing them to put their bunny in a background or situation of their choice would be better, because everyone’s picture would be different. As a K-8 art teacher, I try to provide choice and opportunity within my art units for students to add their own ideas to their work rather than have them simply copy what I do.
Looking forward to doing this with kinder and special education students! I’ve gotten wonderful inspiration from your site Patty!
And Kate C. As a “true artist” myself, who teaches art at the college level (and now volunteer teaches kindergartners and special ed. as well), I gotta say, I find nothing un-artistic about instructing students in drawing techniques (or I guess one could call that “following instructions”). Same goes for showing them specific techniques for working with paint or whatever media. But then, I also support teaching kids in the U.S. the 26 letter Roman alphabet–the SAME 26 letters for everyone! I’m not worried that this lack of alphabetic choice is going to hinder their ability to write poetry!
One could certainly expand the project to include a different background, if so desired, and time allowed, right?
Kate C. – You are a moron. I can just tell by the tone of your post what an amazing art teacher you must be! Get a clue. I mean, what kind of loser would go on an awesome art teaching blog like this and criticize a really great little lesson? Unbelievable!
please Kate C…go away
Let’s allow everyone to share their views. Sometimes comments that are seen as negative sometimes contain interesting perspectives. This blog is all about positive inspiration, so let’s all rise above what we perceive as negative.
I understand where you are coming from. I am a classroom teacher, and before beginning any lesson that involves art and direct instruction, I tell the students, “this is not an art lesson. This is a lesson in following directions”. I also explain that the lesson will be used to explore a technique, or concept. I provide many opportunities for students to freely explore materials, tools, and techniques on their own, as they wish. I have found that some students are more apt to create art on their own, when they feel they have been successful at completing a painting, drawing, or collage that “looks great!” This is the kind of lesson that we do as a group, but then I provide a center the following week with the same exact materials and supplies, with the instructions, “do whatever you want with this stuff over here”. About half of the students will recreate the piece we did together earlier, but the other half will surprise me.
I tried this lesson with my K students. I am always amazed by the difference between the first class and the last class. I teach at a k/1 school and I have 8 kindergartens and 8 first grade classes. There are two gt classes and one special needs class. After teaching the same lesson 8 times, it either gets really bad, or in this case much better. By the last class, I had simplified the bunny drawing, emplhasized stamping with the sponge, and had them draw the ears bigger instead of giving a few ear choices.
To Kate C. I have to say, I have been teaching at this level for 8 years now and have developed a coheseive, standards based curriculum for this age group. If I only did “how to draw” lessons with my students, it would be horrible. However, these types of process-teaching lessons are a great starting point. I will go on to teach another lesson and allow the students to choose which technique they want to use…sponge painting, printing, roller painting, scraping….etc. They have one successful sponge painting behind them. I think you have taken this lesson out of context. And ArtMan, the one rule in MY classroom is “be nice” : ) .
I did this with a grade 1/2 class that I have been with for two weeks – they loved the project. Many decided to do a forward facing bunny because they felt it was easier which was cute (some looked like cats) and many included individual touches. Two even ended up making black fur bunnies because they thought they looked prettier. The mess was well worth it and I put them up at the end of the day – another teacher is going to do the project tomorrow. Thanks so much for this project idea and I look forward to art next week as I will take on another of your ideas! Have a happy Easter!
I did this lesson with my k-2 special education class and my 3-4 special education class and my students loved it!!Thank you for the fun project! I had the students cut out a construction paper carrot and add cotton for the tails. This is a nice lesson because all of my students were successful and happy.
Thanks for this. I was delighted to find this as I am being inspected on teaching practice this week and have a feeling the supervisor will arrive for art. This is a great lesson. I will make some changes just to ensure that the children have more choice rather than following instructions as I will be inspected by Department representatives. Unlike someone above though, I was thrilled to be inspired by this lesson, so thank you for putting it up and making my evening 🙂
Thanks, Patty! This was such a great, simple and fun lesson! I taught two ways to draw bunnies (standing and laying down) and added thumbprint bluebonnets. We’re in Texas, y’all! I was teaching a K – 3 class and it was great for them all!
Love the bluebonnet addition!
I started this piece with my 1st graders today and they LOVED stamping the paint! Thanks for the great idea. We added the reading of a book “Black Rabbit” about a rabbit that sees its shadow and is afraid of it. Today, we drew with chalk, and stamped the fur (I gave them choice of white, tan, brown, gray – most chose white). Next week, we will use oil pastels to add bunny details, a setting and anything else they would like. I imagine we will see a lot of bunny shadows because of our book connections.
I appreciate your lessons as a simple base and being able to branch out with literature connections. I look forward to sharing some illustrations of rabbits from other texts to add to our ideas next week.