Welcome to another Wacky Workshops project – three easy Australia Day paintings.

These projects are so easy anyone can do them, and they look fantastic.

AUSTRALIA DAY WATTLE TREE

Wattle is Australia’s national flower. It’s a spectacular sight when the trees are in flower, offering an amazing display in Australia’s colours – green and gold.

MATERIALS

• Paper – you can use white paper and paint the background blue, or use blue paper as I did with my art students.
• Paint – blue (if painting the background), yellow, green, brown.
• Clothes peg
• Small pom pom
• Thin paint brushes

METHOD

• Using a thin brush dipped in the brown paint, paint lines on the paper to represent tree branches.

• Place the pom pom in the end of the clothes peg and dip in the yellow paint.
• Gently press it onto the paper, right near the branches, to form the little yellow flowers.
• When you are happy with the effect, dip a thin paintbrush in the green paint and paint little lines touching the branches to represent the leaves.

AUSTRALIA DAY BOTTLE BRUSH

The bottle brush is a favourite with the native birds, and with me.

MATERIALS

• Paper – you can use white paper and paint the background blue, or use blue paper as I did with my art students.
• Paint – blue (if painting the background), red, green, brown and yellow
• Small pieces of cardboard
• Thin brushes
• Toothpick

METHOD

• Using a thin brush dipped in the brown paint, paint lines on the paper to represent tree branches.
• Dip the cardboard into the red paint and use it to make lines, close together on the branches to form the bottlebrush flowers.
• When you are happy with the flowers, use a thin paintbrush dipped in green paint to make the leaves.
• Finish your painting with some thin dots of yellow paint (use a toothpick for this) at the end point of each flower. Too easy, and so pretty.

AUSTRALIA DAY LIZARD

We are quite renowned for our reptiles in this country, many of them are venomous!

These little lizards won’t hurt you at all though and they are so much fun to decorate. I’ve even included a template to make it extra easy.

MATERIALS

• Paper or you can print the template here
• Assorted paints and brushes
• Black marker

METHOD

• If you choose not to use the template, draw your own lizard on the paper and outlines with the black marker. If you are using the template, still outline the picture in black marker – it makes things look so much better.
• Use your imagination and the colourful paints to make pretty designs on your lizard.

I hope you enjoyed these projects. Be sure to share if you did.

Happy crafting and have a gleeful week, Tamuria.