World Wetlands Day Painted Frog

Step by step instructions showing how to make a painted frog for World Wetlands Day, presented by Crafty Corner

What you will need to make a World Wetlands Day Frog:

Polystyrene frog, available from many hardware or craft stores
Paintbrushes, small, medium and large
Inner tube from a toilet roll
Acrylic paint, green, white & blue
Craft knife
Scissors
Work surface

This is fantastic craft to get going on your painting skills and create consciousness of World Wetlands Day, 02 February. Our worlds wetlands are vitally important to the well-being of the Earth, you can visit ramsar.org for more information on the state of our Worlds Wetlands and World Wetlands Day.

Step 1

Cut the toilet roll down the length using your scissors.

Step 2

Then cut two strips of toilet roll, about 2cm wide. Now, using the scissors cut triangular shapes from the lengths. You should be left with a number of small triangles of cardboard.

Step 3

2012 is the Chinese Year of the Dragon, and so for 2012 World Wetlands Day, we are going to give our little frog some Dragon spikes! Using a craft knife, cut an incision around his head, and then slide the triangular cards into the incision, creating a semi crown around his head, no glue is necessary

Step 4

Using the craft knife again, make an incision going down the length of the frog's spine, and then insert more triangular spikes along the frog's back.

Step 5

With all the spikes in place on our World Wetlands Day Dragon Frog, we are ready to start painting!

Step 6

Paint the entire top surface of the frog with one coat of green paint. Allow to dry.

Step 7

Once the first coat of paint is dry, we can start shading the painting, to create a more natural looking effect.

Step 8

Re-paint an area (like the leg section) with a light coat in green again. Take your small brush, with a small amount of blue and paint a line in the areas which should be shaded. Now take your medium sized brush, with a small amount of green on it and use either side strokes or dabbing to blend the blue into the green and vice versa.

Step 9

Repeat Step 8 over the entire frog body in areas where you need to create depth (shadow). Add some shading down the back.

Sep 10

On the face, paint a thin blue line under the bottom lip, inside the lips and around the eyes. Again, use your medium brush to dab and blend the green to blue, creating a soft shade.

Step 11

Right, now we need to add some finishing touches!
Using your small brush, paint the bulge of the eye white, from about half way (so that you have left a green eyelid).

Step 12

When this is dry, use your small brush to dot blue pupils onto the white eyes.

Step 13

Your World Wetlands Day painted frog is now complete!