Folded surprise monster drawing

For Halloween, consider making a "folded surprise" paper drawing.  This craft begins as a simple drawing activity, but the folded nature of it allows for your child to plan a surprise or a hidden story.

Basically, you fold your paper a certain way with one picture drawn on it, and when it's opened up, it transforms the original drawing into a second, unexpected drawing.  Here's what I did:

 

 

 

 

Let's walk through the steps. 

First select your paper.  Consider in advance whether the colors you are drawing with will show up well on certain colored construction paper; you may want to use white paper instead.  Once you've chosen your blank paper, you will need to fold it so that there's a hidden compartment in the middle.  Here's a profile view of what that would look like. 

Make a hamburger fold in your paper by bringing the top of the paper to the bottom of the page.Be sure to press down firmly and to line up the sides so it's not obvious that there's paper underneath. Then take the top page of the fold, and fold it back towards the top of the page. You will want to make the paper go over the top to create a secret compartment. This will add to the fun of the surprise.

Next, you will draw your top drawing first to make sure everything lines up when folded.  I wanted my monster to look friendly at first, so I just gave him goofy eyes, stubby feet, big lips, and a round head/trunk.  I drew in pencil so I could make changes if I wanted to.

Then I opened the fold and connected the lines left behind from the fold.  When you do this, be careful not to draw on the areas of your picture that are visible when folded, or you will hurt the surprise.  For my surprise, I wanted my monster to have scary, jagged teeth, a screaming tongue, and drops of smelly spit, so I added those when I was happy with the teeth.

Once I was happy with how it looked, I covered over the lines with marker.  Because my paper is dark green, the differences in color ink were not as obvious as I would have liked.  I still think the picture has a fun, seasonal charm to it. My co-worker was so jealous that she wanted to try too, so she drew a glam, rocker girl monster.

It's so pretty!

What kind of imaginative monster can you draw using the folded surprise paper method of drawing?  Can you draw other Halloween stories?  A T-Rex you can open up to see how many people are in her belly?  A "normal" boy or girl who, when you open the paper up, have a ghost behind them staring at them?  Can you think of a way to make pictures for other holidays?

If you had fun creating your monster, please consider checking out some monster picture books at your local library.  And please have a safe and happy Halloween!