Brightly Colored Bunny Art Project with Chalk Pastels

This bunny art project is so beautiful and colorful, I love the contrast of the bright pastels on the black paper the colors almost look like they are glowing! This is such a fun and easy chalk pastel technique that kids will love.

Pastels are so fun for kids to explore! Take a look at my collection of chalk pastel art for more creative ideas kids will love.

This would be a great Easter art project or a fun spring craft for kids to create and a perfect time to talk about positive and negative space.

For this project, I created a printable to make this craft even easier for you. This template is available to my email subscribers as part of my free printable resource library. Sign up to my email list below to gain instant access.

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We love creating and exploring with different art supplies and techniques. If you are looking for more art projects to try, take a look at our ultimate collection of amazing art projects for kids!

Create your own bunny art project with chalk pastels

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Supplies

Free printable (scroll down for access to my resource library)
White cardstock
Black pastel paper or black cardstock (9 x 12 or 8.5 x 11)
Chalk pastels
Scissors
Painters tape
Workable fixative (optional)
Blending sticks or q-tips (optional, we just used our fingers)

Instructions to make your bunny pastel project

Related: 5 Essential Chalk Pastel Techniques for Beginners

1. Print out your bunny template and cut it out. Printing it on cardstock makes it a bit easier for kids to use, but regular white printer paper works as well.

2. Get your black pastel paper or cardstock ready. We used pastel paper for one bunny and regular black cardstock for the other bunny. The pastel paper has a texture to it that is nice to work with but they both worked great!

Tape the bunny down to your paper using some painters tape on the back. This helps to keep the template from sliding around and makes it easier for kids to use.

Related: Canada Day Chalk Pastel Art Project for Kids

3. Have kids pick out the pastel colors that they want to use and start to color around their bunny template. You want to color thick lines not thin, this will help make the smudging easier.

4. Once kids have finished coloring around the whole bunny, it’s time to smudge! You can use a blending tool, q-tip or your fingers for this part.

I like to use my fingers, I find it looks the best and is easy for kids. Some kids might not like getting their hands messy so a q-tip would work just fine.

Start smudging from the bunny template outwards in the same direction, continuing all the way around the bunny. Remind kids not to smudge the pastels back and forth, this will cause the colors to blend together and you won’t get the cool effect at the end.

5. Once kids have finished smudging all the colors, carefully take off the bunny template revealing their gorgeous work of art!

We had quite a bit of pastel dust under our template, so I took the drawings outside and blew off the dust. Then you can take a q-tip or eraser and carefully get rid of more of the pastel dust in the middle if you like.

Related: Create Stunning Chalk Pastel Sunsets with Kids

6. You can choose to spray your bunny artwork with a workable fixative if you like but is not necessary. This will help to keep the pastels from smudging. This should be done by an adult only in an outside area.

Working with chalk pastels can be a messy (but fun!) process, having newspaper down helps keep the mess contained. You could also have kids use trays to create their artwork, this would help to keep the chalk dust contained.

I love how our bunny pastels turned out, It’s such an easy technique for kids to do that creates a dramatic effect! Take a look at this chalk pastel heart art for another great project idea!