Painted Newspaper Tiger

2022 is the Year of the Tiger! Here's a craft I think you'll enjoy, whether you need a project for Chinese New Year, as an activity for your 1st grade Cub Scouts, as decorations for a zoo-themed party, or to accompany a study of tigers. It starts with a pile of newspaper and is a great way to develop fine motor skills.     

 

Painted Newspaper Tiger

Materials: 

• newspaper
• acrylic paint (orange, black)
• glue

Steps: 

For each tiger, paint one sheet of newspaper orange and one sheet black.  Leave one sheet white. You won't need that much, but it's better to prepare extra. Try to pick a page with just text, like the sports scores, stock information, or classifieds. Just add one coat of paint - part of the charm of the project is seeing the text showing through. 

When the paint is dry, tear out a large circle for the tiger's face and two small circles for the tiger's ears. Tear slowly and carefully; newspaper tends to want to rip in just one direction, so you'll have to direct it the way you want it to go. If you mess up, no problem. That's why you painted extra. 

Tear two inner ears and two eyes from white, then two small pupils from black. 

Add a triangular orange muzzle, and a black nose and smile. Glue all the facial features into place. 

Tear strips of black to make the tiger's stripes. I used three thicker stripes along the top of his heat and four thinner stripes on each side of his face. Glue them in place. Add one very thin stripe to connect the nose to the mouth.  You can hang your tiger as is, or mount it onto contrasting paper like I did. 

Obviously, you can use this technique to make all sorts of animals. I may just do exactly that!