Eric Carle Style Mallard Duck Collage

The wonderful book Eric Carle's Animals Animals is full of dozens of his fantastic collage art, from ant to yak. I had a hard time picking one of these animals to choose for my 2 groups of Kindergarteners. I finally decided to do a version of his mallard duck. The children will first work on the background by painting the water with wavy lines of blue and green. They will use the end of their brush to make squiggle shapes in the water. To create the colorful food at the bottom of the pond the will make dots of red, orange, yellow and purple. For the last background touch, a splattering of blue watercolor at the top. To create the duck, paint brown construction paper with brown, black and orange, again using the back of the paintbrush to create his trademark squiggles. The green head was created by painting a small piece of black construction paper. The beak, feet and sun were done by adding smearing streaks in yellow and orange to yellow construction paper. After these papers are dry they will cut out simple shapes on their own or use templates to create the body, wing, head, beak and feet. They can decide whether they would like their duck paddling through the water or diving down for some food.