How to Build a Bear Skeleton

The bones of the skeleton can be detailed or generalized depending upon your skill level.

Creating a bear skeleton can be educational as well as creatively stimulating for people of all ages through implementation of anatomy research, drawing, and assembly. The skeleton can be as detailed as you want, depending on your age and drawing skill level. For example, small children can create simplified bear skeletons with one large bone to represent each leg or part of the leg. The skilled drawer can go into great detail by drawing each bone in the paw or each vertebrae. The skeleton can be mounted as a 2-D sculpture.

Things You'll Need

• Source image of a bear skeleton
• Poster board
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Foam core board
• Craft glue

Instructions

1. Decide how detailed you want your skeleton to be. Draw the skeleton on the poster board using the pencil. Refer to your source image of the bear skeleton to get the shape of bones and the positioning. Shade and shadow in the bones with the pencil to give the skeleton a visual three-dimensional effect.

2. Cut out the skeleton as close to the outline of the bones as possible using the scissors. Try to cut it out in one piece, if possible.

3. Cut two right triangles out of the foam core board with scissors to use as supports for the sculpture. Glue the right angle side of one triangle to the back of the poster board behind one of the back legs with the craft glue. Repeat with the other triangle behind one of the front legs. Legs should hide the supporting triangles when viewing the sculpture from the front (which is the side view of the bear). Glue the bottom of the triangles to a rectangular piece of foam core board, which is used as the base of the sculpture.

References

• Inberg: Black Bear Anatomy
• University of Washington: Celebration-How to Make a Skeleton Puppet