Cardboard Bluey!

Cardboard Cartoons

Bluey needs no introduction… a household name now, this little dog family is loved dearly in our house. So this week I have an activity that can draw on your kids love of the happy pups, while learning some new skills… and recycling!

I came up with this while staring at some nicely proportioned flattened cardboard boxes – I LOVE when an art project uses little more than a box. Bluey is a nice rectangular shape, so you will just need a box (or three!) about the proportions of a cereal box. Little boxes can work for older kids, but younger kids need more space to colour and achieve detail.

I have photographed how I managed to create the body shape from three different boxes to give you a few ideas. The flaps of the boxes become ears and legs, and things like arms and tails can be cut from side flaps. With your kids, draw the shapes on you will need to cut out, make a plan, then chop the excess off. You should end up with one shape and not need to do any gluing. 

Now with a pencil draw your Bluey/Bingo details on. After some trial and error I have a few pointers:

The oval eyes are about a third of the total head to tail length.

The mouth/muzzle sits just above the midway line

Google images!

Now use a fine black pen and trace over your main details, eyes, mouth, arms. Don’t trace with black pen the coloured sections on the body, just leave those as pencil as you don’t want those to be too eye-catching.

I have tried two different paint techniques for this to give you some ideas. The first is Bingo with acrylics. You will need some warm tones, yellow, orange, red, and plenty of white. Practice mixing your colours to get the right tones, and carefully paint in the sections with a small brush. 

Bluey has been done with paint pens, this was easier to handle, and to get into smaller sections – better for the young ones.

Once your paint has dried get your black fine liner back out and retrace any lines that got covered up.  

These can be used as puppets, wall or window decorations. Make your favourite character or the whole family!

As soon as I had finished these guys, my daughter ripped them away from me to play with….her (almost) real life Bluey friends!

Until next time.

Tracy x