We made these stunning mixed media feathers in a recent camp. Sorry we didn’t get pics of the process, but it was super simple. We simply took a piece of aluminum foil and the students glued the foil in between two sheets of kraft paper, like a sandwich. Before gluing their sandwich shut they laid a wooden skewer in the middle. The foil was beneficial to give the feather body and also enabled the students to mold it and shape the feather fringe a bit at the end.
After making their foil & kraft paper sandwich, the students cut the feather shape and then painted it with tempera and used sponges and other tools to add texture and depth. For the background, we peeled the top layer of paper off cardboard, exposing the corrugated center. They painted their scuffed up corrugated cardboard with either warm or cool colors and then painted their feathers with the opposite color family so that they would stand out. Lastly, we attached a small suede hanger at the top.
Whew! It would have been easier just to take a lot more pictures of the steps! Trust me that all sounds a lot harder than it was! It really was quite simple. The foil insides of the feathers also add a nice unexpected bit of shimmer after they fringed the edges.
