Cut It Out! Creating Art Inspired by OHora

As I mentioned earlier this week, we’ve been big fans of the illustrative work of Zachariah OHora ever since we read Wolfie the Bunny for the first time as a family. I love the way he uses an extremely restricted color palette in conjunction with dark textural lines to create so much personality and detail in his work. In addition to just creating some really stunning images for us to look at, OHora has also created an artistic style that feels more ‘do-able’ for kids that some other styles might. #thebigone and I read through a few books illustrated by OHora recently, and took some time to concentrate on the artwork- we noted the simple shapes of color, and the dark lines added on top, and decided it might be a fun project to create some similar masterpieces of our own.

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No Fits, Nilson! is a charming little story about Nilson who, like many of our children, is learning to control his tendency towards temper tantrums and fits. This one had #thebigone giggling a lot, and he read it several times, even asking my husband and I to read it to him. (Very unusual lately, as our slightly snobby new reader really prefers ‘non-baby’ chapter books a lot of days).

My Cousin Momo was also a hit at our house, featuring a flying squirrel who doesn’t always fit in with his peers. There’s been a bit of chatter lately about fitting in, and being like everyone else, because apparently first grade is a ‘must-fit-in’ sort of place at times, so My Cousin Momo was a great choice for our family at this time.

I created 6 different printable patterns to use for this project, and you’ll find links for them towards the end of this post. I chose to print them on colored paper, to make sure I got nice even, flat colors throughout, similar to OHora’s distinctive style. You could always just print them onto white paper and add color yourselves with crayons, markers, or paint if you preferred. We chose to use colors similar to thos Ohora typically uses, but this is another area that has some room for interpretation and experimentation- what colors would your children prefer to use?

#thebigone took some time to work on his scissor skills with this, which we’ve found to be challenging for him, no matter how often he uses scissors. He was given free reign to cut out shapes from the patterned paper to create a picture. After he was happy with his cutting (several shapes took a few tries, as well as a few helpful bits of advice from me), he glued them down to a white paper to create his larger image. (He decided he wanted to make a house, in case you can’t tell). Using a heavy black marker, he added some additional black lines and thickened up some of the pre-printed texture to finalize his masterpiece. (I let him use a Sharpie, it basically made his day. You don’t have to, but if you want to make your 6 year old feel very mature, tell them you trust them to draw with the permanent marker. It’s the little things, people.)

We had a lot of fun putting this project together, and hope that you enjoy it as much as we did. Be sure to grab your free printables below, and tag us on social media if you also decide to create a picture inspired by Zacharia OHora!

PRINTABLES!

Lots of other fun ideas inspired by popular children’s literature are here!
Need more ideas for art projects for your family? I’ve got you covered!

Standard Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission from purchases you make through the links in this post (at no additional cost to you), which allows me to continue providing free content on the blog.