This bright tropical flamingo scrape painting was so fun to make! Scrape painting is always a popular technique with kids. It’s kind of mesmerizing to scrape away the paint to reveal the designs underneath.

Kids of all ages love this painting technique. And using the torn paper for the water and paper straws for the legs makes this such a unique summer craft!

We love exploring different painting techniques. Take a look at my collection of painting ideas for kids for more fun and creative art projects to try!

For this project, I created a flamingo printable to make this craft even easier for you. This template is available here in my shop.

If you are looking for more summer art projects, take a look at this amazing collection of summer art ideas for kids!

Create your own flamingo scrape painting

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Supplies

• Printable template available here in my shop
• White cardstock
• 3 shades of pink acrylic paint, we used light pink, magenta, and neon pink colors
• 2 shades of blue cardstock paper or construction paper
• White glue and glue stick
• Pink paper straws
• Black marker
• Scissors
• Old credit card, hotel card, or stiff cardboard
• Lots of paper towels

Instructions to make your flamingo art project

1. First, print out your flamingo template onto white cardstock.

2. Get your 3 different shades of pink ready. We used light pink, magenta, and neon pink. Make sure to have lots of paper towels handy for this step, it can get quite messy.

Related: Colorful Q-tip Painted Dragonfly Craft

Using one color at a time, squeeze your paint onto your flamingo printable. Remind kids to drizzle the paint, and not squeeze huge clumps (this will just make a mess). You still want to see white paper showing after all of the paint has been squeezed on.

Less is more with this painting technique and you can always add in more paint and scrape again after.

3. Take your old credit card or hotel card (or piece of stiff cardboard) and scrape the paint away. Scrape once, then wipe off the excess paint from your card onto a paper towel.

Continue to scrape away the rest of your paint. It’s so neat for kids to scrape away the paint to reveal their cool designs underneath!   

Putting down some newspaper or doing this on a tray will help contain the mess.

I love how all of the pink colors look mixed together! It was hard to get the pink shades to look right in the photos, but the neon really stands out.

4. Put the flamingo aside to dry. Take a piece of light blue cardstock or construction paper (we used a turquoise color) and tear off a couple of strips to make the water.

Glue these strips of paper down onto a piece of sky blue cardstock or construction paper.

We angled the paper strips a bit to add in some more interest. I just love how the two bright colors of blue look together!   

5. When your flamingo is completely dry, cut it out, and using a black marker, draw in the beak and eye of your flamingo. We used a black marker but had to go over the paper a couple of times to get it nice and dark.

Related: Tropical Palm Tree Fork Painting for Kids to Make

6. Glue your flamingo down onto your blue paper. You want to glue it to the top of the page, to make as much room as possible for the legs.

7. Time to make the straw legs! We used patterned pink straws for this, but solid pink would also work.

Hold a straw up to the flamingo to figure out how much to cut off for the one standing leg. Trim the straw and using white glue, glue the leg down. White glue is the way to go for this step, it really glues the straws down well. 

Next, you want to cut two lengths for the other leg. Glue them down like in the picture above.

This flamingo scrape painting project turned out so well! I love the bright tropical pinks and blues and the paper straws for the legs are so fun. This is such a great summer art project that kids of all ages will enjoy making!

>> CLICK HERE TO GET THE PRINTABLE TEMPLATE AND PDF VERSION OF THIS ART PROJECT.

A vertical PDF that is perfect for printing out and projecting onto a whiteboard in the classroom for kids to follow along! PDF includes a lesson plan overview, materials needed, step-by-step instructions and photos, and a printable template.

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!

More scrape painting ideas kids will love

Winter Scrape Painting with Narwhal Printable

Scrape Painting with Bunny Silhouettes

Follow me on Pinterest for more amazing project ideas. 

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