Heads, bodies and tails A do-it-yourself guide for an art game

Heads, bodies and tails is one in our series of art games and puzzles. They are all based on interchangeable tiles. Children are able to give free rein to their imagination, explore shape and colour and create their own versions of the games and puzzles. The following slides are a step-by-step guide to making our Heads, bodies and tails game with paper, pencils, scissors and a glue stick.

Heads, bodies and tails is a game where children are able to create their own weird and wonderful creatures. It all starts with a square. Divide the square into 4 parts. Mark these points on the perimeter of the square.

You join any 2 points. This is about the journey of a line. The artist Paul Klee suggested that drawing was about taking a line for a walk others have said that it is putting a line around an idea.

Get the children to draw lots of different shapes on their grids quite quickly. Often the outline shape will suggest or can be adapted to resemble a body part for example: 1 A head 2 Legs and a short tail 3 A back with fins

For this workshop with children aged from 5 to 11 years we cut squares of the same size in two colours, black and pink. The pink squares were folded in half vertically and horizontally, children drew their shapes in pencil and then cut them out.

You can start by making shapes on the squares or by drawing the full outline of the creature and then making the squares...

The more interchangeable tiles you make the more weird and wonderful creatures you create. Our art games and puzzles are available for sale on our website.