Faux Stained Glass Animals

Access the full lesson with vocab, teacher instructions, and step-by-step student instructions!

I tried a handful of different techniques to get a stained glass effect without actually doing stained glass—and this is by far my favorite.

Students create a simplified animal face or body and break it up into somewhat abstract shapes. To make it look like stained glass, students reference stained glass images to see the kind of glass cuts that are made.

After the drawing is complete, glue is used to trace over the lines, and then markers or heavy watercolors are used to color each section, front and back, creating a cohesive color scheme.

If you have the ability to display them in windows, they look amazing with light going through them!

Take a look at some examples below: