Thanksgiving Turkey Drawing for Young Children
MATERIALS FOR A TURKEY DRAWING…
This is easy, so easy. You and your children will need pencil, paper, and crayons. That’s it!
STEP ONE OF YOUR EASY TURKEY DRAWING…
This turkey drawing starts out with a simple hand tracing- just like an old fashioned hand turkey!
Trace your child’s hand or ask them to trace their own hand. Then reposition your hand about forty five degrees and trace only your last two fingers. This step is totally optional but creates a couple of extra “feathers” so you’re turkey is nice and full!
GRAB A CRAYON…
Grab a crayon now, any color that you want to use as an outline. I chose black but your outline could be any dark-ish color.
Outline the traced hand, connecting the additional fingers to the bulk of the body. Erase any interior pencil lines.
DRAWING A FEW DETAILS ON YOUR HAND TURKEY….
We’re going to add a few additional lines with this same dark outlining crayon.
- a small triangle for the beak
- a round black circle for the eye, with a white “sparkle” left
- two teardrop shapes under the beak
- Add a puffy “cloud like” shape for the wing
- a curved line at the top and the bottom of each feather
- a curved line (or two) that mimics the lines at the bottom of the feathers
- two set of two straight lines near each other coming off the bottom of the turkey for legs
- a line that starts at the bottom of one edge of the leg and connects to the to the other side of the leg with a few short zig zags to create “feet”
LET’S ADD LINES TO OUR TURKEY DRAWING…
I love this portion of the lesson because it’s a spot that you can focus on any number of concepts that you may be wanting to teach.
In this example I focused on exploring different qualities of line in each finger. Think and talk about all those different kinds of lines that could be included- wavy, straight, zigzags, thick, think, dotted, dashed, etc.
This could also be an opportunity to explore color mixing, a specific color family, patterns, shapes, textures, an more. This lesson is easily customizable!
ADDING COLOR TO YOUR TURKEY DRAWING….
In the examples shown crayon was used to add color but you could supply your young artists with colored pencil, marker, oil pastels, or whatever you can imagine!
When using crayons I encourage kids to lay down the color in light layers. For instance, in the pic above I laid down a light layer of brown for the turkey body. Then, I like to go back and add some more intense color around the edges by pressing more heavily with my crayon.
These light layers of colors also lend themselves well to blending. Lay one layer of color on top of another for more sophisticated, blended colors.
FINISHING YOUR HAND TURKEY DRAWING…
What started as a simple hand tracing is now a complete and colorful turkey drawing! That hand drawing is still hidden in there somewhere!
Continue to add color until your entire turkey drawing is vibrant and colorful!
DO YOU AND YOUR KIDS LOVE VIDEO ART LESSONS?
Follow along with the video directly below and and we can learn to draw a turkey together!
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