We really love using our dimensional paint for art activities but we have mostly been using it for stained glass-effect type pictures so the kids and I thought it might be fun to use it for something else.  And with my two one of their favourite art topics is always African animals.  We have done lots of different types of african animal pictures and they still can’t seem to get enough.

We still had our Safari animal templates that we first used about 2 years ago, some of the templates have paint splats on from our previous pictures but the shapes were still fine so we stuck with them – the Safari templates that we used are FREE to download from Twinkl.

We started off with tracing around the animal outlines using pencils.

And then we traced over the pencil outlines with our dimensional paint (this is the one we used Tulip 3D Fabric Paint 4oz Slick (Black)). Squeezing the paint out is quite a work-out for the kids so if they are doing more than one picture they might need a little break in between.  And make sure you leave the paint to dry out properly as it does smudge when still wet – we left ours to dry overnight.

Then the painting.  We used watercolours.

Our first batch was rainbow coloured animals.

But after the first batch was finished my oldest commented that the rainbow coloured animals did not stand out nicely against the background so I suggested that she either painted her animal a solid dark colour or her background a solid dark colour to get a nice contrast.

She liked the idea of making the animals black, and the backgrounds colourful.  And I must admit I do like the end results.

And I love the giraffe in the African sun.

Note – it does help to use thicker paper, and please do give the dimensional paint time to dry.  In case you missed it up the templates are these ones – FREE to download Safari animal templates from Twinkl Resources

And the dimensional paint is this one – Tulip 3D Fabric Paint 4oz Slick (Black)

All links and references to Twinkl were correct at the time of writing this post.