Initially, I was going to do only owls but after talking with the science teacher at my school, I found out that she actually does a unit on different types of birds (qualities, characteristics, etc.) and so I decided to piggy-back off that and have the students view, discuss, and then choose a type of bird they wanted to draw. I also changed the color background paper, I loved the colored and silver/gold paper used in the lesson above but I wanted to reinforce design with the students, which was something we had studied in a previous unit. So instead, I had them paint a design in either gold or silver paint as the background. Students also chose warm or cool colored leaf motifs and instead of sponge painting paper, then cutting it out, I had them cut the leaves out first, then add some details to them. I think next time I'll have them sponge paint the paper first because I like the overall textured look of the leaves a bit better. Here are some finished examples:
