This interactive Swimming Mermaid Craft is lots of fun and introduces kids to the simple curl animation technique.
You’ve probably all heard of flip book animation or flick book animation where a series of slightly different images are stacked together and flicked through to trick the eye into seeing them as actually moving. This Swimming Mermaid Craft-Printable Curl Animation creates a similar effect but just uses 2 slightly different images.
Curl animation is so much easier for kids to master and loads of fun. We’ve created a printable curl animation for this swimming mermaid craft that kids can colour in and get moving in just minutes! The cute mermaid waves her hand and swishes her tail as if swimming in the water.
Once kids see the principle of curl animation working they’ll be set to have a go at drawing their own too. The sky’s the limit!
This swimming mermaid craft is a great introduction to curl animation and will hopefully set your kids off creating their own curl or flip book animations too. It’s a great Summer activity for kids and goes super well with our Chomping Shark Puppets, Nipping Rocking Crabs and Pirate Porthole crafts. Check them out for loads more Summer crafting fun!
Swimming Mermaid Craft – Printable Curl Animation
With this printable curl animation mermaid craft your kids will soon have their own mermaid flicking her tail and waving her hand on the table top. First steps into animation can be so exciting and magical for kids. It’s as if their drawing has come life in front of their eyes!
The photo above shows the start and finish positions of your mermaid but don’t really do the animation effect justice. To see it in action do check out the video.
Supplies To Make a Swimming Mermaid Curl Animation
- Our Printable Mermaid Craft of course! (Available at the bottom of this post.)
- Scissors
- Colouring Pens
- Stapler
How To Animate Your Swimming Mermaid Craft
1 – Start by printing out the mermaid craft printable available at the bottom of this post. Just use ordinary thin paper not card.
2 – To really get a good animation it’s best to colour your printable mermaids using the same colours on each one. I like these brush pens for non streaky colouring.
3 – When you’ve finished colouring your mermaid printable cut the writing off the top and bottom of the sheet and cut the sheet in half lengthways so you have two separate mermaids.
4 – To create a curl animation we need to line the two images up as carefully as we can and staple them together at the top. Lay one mermaid on top of the other and try to line up the top of her head and her non waving hand. Don’t try to line up the mermaid’s tail or waving hand as they’re in different positions. If you’ve used ordinary thin printing paper you should be able to see through the top one to the mermaid underneath.
5 – From the bottom roll the upper mermaid printable tightly around a pen or pencil and then let it relax at the top.
6 – To make your mermaid craft swim and wave simply swipe your pencil quickly up and down repeatedly. Speed tricks the eye into seeing it as one swimming mermaid. See the effect in action in the video above.
Create Your Own Curl Animations
Now kids have seen how a curl animation works they can have a go at drawing their own too.
Staple two narrow sheets of paper together first then draw your lower layer picture. (Keep it simple to start with.) Next trace your lower picture through onto your upper layer changing just once thing. A sad face to a smiley face is a good starter animation idea for kids.
CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE PRINTABLE SWIMMING MERMAID CRAFT
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