Recycled Animals from Book Pages and Magazines

I recently taught a class on recycled animals inspired by author/ illustrator Jan Brett.  She is coming to town soon to give a talk and I was asked to teach a class over Thanksgiving break inspired by her work.  

 Since I work with recycled materials, I decided to have the students draw a picture of an animal on recycled book pages.  I read Jan Brett's books The Mitten and The Hat to the class.  We looked at the pictures in the books as examples.  The students drew animals in pencil, used Sharpies to outline and then painted them in with watercolor.

While the painted animals were drying, the students painted a border and habitat in black tempura on the back of brown grocery bags.  

  

They used magazines to create a mosaic to fill in their animal's habitat.

Once the habitat was complete, they cut out their animal and glued it to their habitat.

Here is a work in progress.  I can't wait to see this when it gets finished!