Animals and people hide things for various reasons. Animals in nature hide their young to protect them from predators. Pirates hide stolen treasure to protect it from being stolen yet again. One of the most effective ways to hide something is by camouflaging it. In this activity, you will get to explore how to use camouflauge in making art.
Camouflage is the "art of concealment." It involves disguising an object, in plain sight, in order to hide it from something or someone. We generally think of camouflage as being used during war. Soldiers often wear special camouflage clothing and smear mud on their faces at night to become less visible. But, camouflage exists in many other forms in the natural world. A chameleon, for instance, changes color to blend in with its environment. A white polar bear is hard to see on an ice fole as is a striped zebra in the African bush.
Animals basically use one of two methods to conceal themselves in nature: general resemblance and special resemblance. With general resemblance, animals use color to blend in with their habitat so that they're almost invisible. Besides chameleons, other animals that use color to match their surroundings include hares, tree frogs, flounder fish, grasshoppers, and lizards.
With special resemblance, animals use a combination of color, shape, and behavior to help them appear like something in their habitat. They are simply mistaken for something else. The walking stick is a great example. This insect becomes almost invisible due to the shape of its body, its coloration, and its slow movement. It looks and acts just like a twig on a bush or tree.
Some animals have special markings that help to disguise their shapes. The zebra, for instance, has markings that run off its edges into the background. This feature allows the zebra to fade into the background so successfully its difficult to see its overall shape. Just imagine how confusing a herd of zebras must be to a predator.
Other animals that use special resemblance to conceal themselves include giraffes, leopards, praying manatees, snakes, butterflies and moths, caterpillars, and spiders.
Materials You Need: An assortment of construction paper; old science or nature magazines with pictures of animals, insects or reptiles; scissors; an assortment of textures cut from magazine illustrations; glue sticks; and colored markers.
The Activity: Making your own "camouflage art" is easy.
Here's how:
- Go through old science or nature magazines in search of cool pictures of animals, insects or reptiles. Choose one of the pictures and carefully cut away the background so that only the animal remains.
- Next, glue the picture on a similar color of construction paper. Decide whether you will use general resemblance or special resemblance to camouflage your animal.
- Then create an environment that your animal will feel safe to be in. You can use colored markers, colored construction paper and/or textures cut from magazine illustrations to create your animal's habitat.
- When your picture is finished, show it to a family member, classmate or friend to see if they can easily find the animal in your picture.
Want To Do More?
Read about the history of camouflage.
Find out how Andy Warhol used camouflage in his work.
