Make this fun and easy shark craft using cotton buds to make a cool painted dot effect. Perfect as a shark week activity, as part of an under the sea theme (or, eeek, maybe a beach one?) or just because sharks are awesome.
You can draw the shark yourself but why not make this easy to prepare and use our free shark template. All you’ll need is paper, access to a printer and a few simple materials that most of us have already at home.
What You'll Find on This Page
Shark Craft for Kids
We love easy activities but like a lot of parents I know that I sometimes like a change from the normal ‘get the paper, paints and paintbrush out’. You’ll still get to grab the paints for this shark craft but changing up the way you are painting gives it a really different effect.
While you can of course draw the shark yourself using our shark template can help make it that bit easier to get this activity ready for your child too.
Supplies Needed To Make Your Shark Craft
- Shark template (see below)
- Kids paints -greys and blues are perfect
- Reusable plate or tray
- Cotton buds (also known as Q-Tips in America)
Free Shark Template
I made this craft using our free shark template. We love using templates for kids crafts as they’re perfect if you’re not sure on how to draw something or if you are getting an activity ready for a group. Drawing thirty sharks for a group can take quite a while!
The template is available as a free PDF and you can print off as many copies as you like. I’ve also shared more ideas in the post for different ways to create shark art.
If you like using templates for kids craft you can check out all of our free templates here, all of them come with ideas for activities too.
How To Make a Cotton Bud Painted Shark Craft
Print out your shark template (or draw a shark if you prefer.) You can use white paper for this as I have or if your child is likely to use a lot of paint then white cardstock can sometimes be better to stop the paper becoming over-saturated.
Pour some paint onto a reusable plate or tray. I normally keep an old plastic plate for this purpose but as mine had gone missing I re-used an old lid from a tub of margarine. These can also be washed and reused again for paints if you would like.
Pouring the paint out onto a tray makes it much easier for them to access with their cotton bud and also means that they can mix colours more easily. I didn’t have a grey paint available for my shark but instead mixed a bit of white and black paint to make one.
If you have paint in small pots (less likely to fall over) with an opening large enough to dip your cotton bud into then you might find this easier and it also means that you are less likely to waste any paint.
Next grab your cotton bud and dip this into the paint before using it to dab onto the shark, making dot patterns. Younger children may find it harder to make the dots and do more of a scribble with their cotton buds but of course this is absolutely fine!
You can stick to using one colour but I prefer using a few, just because I think it looks nicer. This is just personal preference and depends on what paints you have in stock. And while I’ve gone for more shark and ocean themed colours I also know that when my kids were preschoolers it’s highly likely that we would have ended up with a sparkly purple shark. I generally just embrace that but if for any reason you are after the more traditional colours (for a room display etc) then just make sure that you get the colours out that you want using when you are prepairing this activity.
Because (other than making grey paint) I didn’t want the colours to mix I’ve used different cotton buds for each colour, which you may wish to do as well.
Once you’ve finished decorating your shark it’s finished and ready to dry before displaying.
More Sea Crafts for Kids
Love shark crafts? Continue the theme with this easy paper bag shark puppet.
We love this super cute paper plate narwhal craft that’s really easy to make.
Finally for a simple paper plate sea themed craft why not make this paper plate sea collage, this was a great activity for after preschool in our house.
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